Go ahead. Point to the indoor ice-skating rinks. Lavish praise upon the successful Olympic bid. Dry hump the glittering puddles of architectural vomit that Riken Yamamoto has sprinkled throughout our fair town.

For most of the post-adolescent, fist-pumping contingent of Beijing‘s expat community (in whose meticulously coifed ranks I stand coolly detached. In expensive pants.), the proof of China’s development lay not in these things, but in the fact that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs recently saw fit to grace the stage of the Modern Sky Music Festival in Haidian Park.

You open a factory and call your self a patriot. I stand in the drizzle and mud and pissing cold wet for Karen O’s gravelly, nonsensical lyrics and call myself a patriotard. This, I think, as a crowd of drunk Frenchmen start tribal-dancing between sets, is economic progress.  The Frenchmen pull out a harmonica, and I die a little. On the inside.

Let’s get one thing straight, you and I. I am not a music writer. In point of fact, I’m so sick of listening to the “inside scoop” of the Beijing underground rock scene that I spend my weekends wishing I was born a gay man with a penchant for Abba and a crush on Justin Timberlake.

 “To the pillory with your ‘indie rock music’!” I would lisp at the top of my lungs. “I’ve got DJ Mickey Zhang, and I can see his man-nipples through his spandex Tee!”

But no. The good lord cursed me with a heart that is thrilled by nothing less than grinding guitar chords and drummers with hair in their face. When you go out for Tsing Taos and peanuts, you get to listen to your friends bitch about fake Communism, mandatory employee Karaoke nights and ‘this one time, at English camp’. Not my friends. No. Oh no.

Dr. Chocolate: Hey, big news, I hear Hang on the Box is playing this weekend. …HAHAHA, just kidding.

Joe Gway: Actually, they’ve got a new album coming out on Pedantic Post-Neo-China Records next month – you gonna to review it?

Me: Hey, check out that chick’s butt. Look. Guys, look. It’s all low in the middle and bulgy on the sides. It’s like, the Olympic Stadium of butts.

Dr. Chocoloate: Like this city needs another Hang on the Box review. I was going to review the Hedgehog gig, but I couldn’t make up enough words to describe their music. Hey, Empty Floor, if I say, “soft thrashing pre-grunge fuzz pop”, do you think “Hedgehog”?

DJ Empty Floor: Hold on, I’m figuring out how to insert Joy Division, Band of Horses or Rebuilding the Right of Statues into this conversation. Otherwise, I’m boycotting.

Me: I need another drink. Guys. I will flash my tits for anyone who will buy me a drink. Anyone. Guys. Guys? 

Joe Gway: Boycotting what?

DJ Empty Floor: This conversation. This conversation, which is about Joy Division and Band of Horses.

Dr. Chocolate: No it’s not.

DJ Empty Floor: It is now.

Me: ARG!

Dr. Chocolate: I thought “ARG!” was coming out on Mike Pettis’ new label next year? You know the bassist is actually Iggy Pop’s grandfather’s ayi’s sister’s grand-nephew?

Me: I hate you.

And you thought China had no scene.

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About Kendra

Kendra once hid in her Beijing apartment for three weeks eating peanut butter, coconut shavings and bullion cubes. She named her first computer "Zot", and stubbornly called it that until she was 15. Kendra plays RPGs, and also has a vagina. She hopes that's OK with you.

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Discussion

9
  1. Second that. Someday we’ll have a live music scene that includes more than one experimental rock band. And no, in case anyone in Dalian is reading, the house band at Noah’s, random Irish guys at the Tin Whistle and anything in the basement of the Shangrila doesn’t count.

  2. I was totally checking out that girl’s butt. I was just using HOTB as a distraction. Anyway, it was more like the Eiffel Tower of butts. Like, you go take a picture standing in front of it and then buy a little minature cast iron copy of the butt to prove to everybody you were there.

  3. …in whose meticulously coifed ranks I stand coolly detached. In expensive pants.

    @Kendra: I did right by spending that five minutes and hooking you up with an account :-).

    You guys definitely are spoiled in the “big city”… us hicks can do nothing but pray the Filipino cover band will know more than the top 40 of a decade ago.

    @Joe: Does it take 2 hours to climb?

  4. Spoiled, perhaps. Or rather, without question. But I did my obligatory time in a tiny village. Headbanging to erhu music just isn’t the same. Also, everyone thinks you have lice.

  5. “Dr. Chocolate: I thought “ARG!” was coming out on Mike Pettis’ new label next year? You know the bassist is actually Iggy Pop’s grandfather’s ayi’s sister’s grand-nephew?”

    Actually, it’s called ‘ARGOE’ but the final dipthong in silent.

  6. Pingback: Angelina Jolie Nudes

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