寂寞夏日 (Lonely China Day)

On Saturday, Sarah and I were in Shanghai, and we went to see the band 寂寞夏日, which is known as Lonely China Day in English. (I find this fact pretty fascinating; like my students, the band has an English name that differs from its Chinese name, which translates to "Lonely Summer Day.")

For the first time in two months, I went out somewhere in China, and I could confidently and truthfully say: “I get this. I get what is going on here. I am going to give the guy at the door some money, and he's going to let me in to this tiny, smoky bar, and I'm going to drink a beer, and I'm going to see a totally unknown band play an awesome show." This is something I've done, I dunno, hundreds of times in my life, and to be doing it a bazillion miles away from home was comforting, somehow.

The show was at Live Bar, in the middle of nowhere Yangpu district. And man, it just felt right. LCD probably China's only moderately well-known "post-rock" band, and although they didn't have a full band playing this show -- just 2 guitarists, a drummer, and a laptop -- they were great to watch. Deng Pei plays a lefthanded guitar and stands facing his other guitarist, so you get a kind of Miles Davis-like impression that he's not really "performing."

Most of the band's songs are pretty minimalist -- a little Sigur Ros-ish, but not quite so epic -- but on one or two songs, they reminded me of Sunny Day Real Estate or the Pixies, playing a kind of "serious" indie rock that isn't afraid to completely rock out. I bought their record, which is really good (although the drummer was phenomenal, the room was tiny and the drums were way too loud at the show to really hear what was going on vocally). I hope this band continues to get exposure (they've played SXSW), but I also hope that it's not based on the way their record label is pitching them, which is, "isn't this crazy? They're an indie rock band from China!" The discourse surrounding this band is fascinating, and it's one reason that this blog and my other blog (yes I know) are on a crash course.

Elsewhere:
Lonely China Day on Myspace
From the New York Times:
Growing Underground Is Making Noise in China
(experimental music in Beijing)
and
The Sound, Not of Music, but Control
(Wow. This article makes Chinese pop music sound exactly like Christian Music. Which is not at all untrue.)