It’s clear how influential punk has been in forming the contemporary Beijing scene… the other night at Hot Cat I started to better understand how bands that ostensibly bend back toward the mainstream keep their underground musical and ideological influences intact in ways that might not show up on a stage or a larger label release.

In Beijing, we can see where bands are coming from but, more importantly, we can often see where they’re going. Maybe a small scene can be a little claustrophobic, but it also allows an intimacy and familiarity between musicians and audience members that makes it that much more exciting to see what might happen next and keeps us coming back for more.

Handsome Furs has come and gone and will come again. They’ve been to China several times, toured all over, and it seems they’ve caught something of the same bug as the rest of us.

Made a quick stop at Max Star Music Festival last Saturday to catch Ourself Beside Me before upping the punx at Mao.

9月5号 Release show for Building 2, a new cd by Hot & Cold. Door price is 10元 and ALL of the door money goes to the bands, so come out early-ish on a Sunday for a CHEAP show to support some great live music.

The mission was deceptively simple: Find a replacement needle for Sophia’s vintage record player in the vinyl-cultureless haystack that is Beijing. Jordan spent a few hours in Xinjiekou looking for musical equipment last week and asked around. He led us to 得利 A/V Parts.

Carpet of Let opened as a duo, Mr.Rotten educated the crowd on “post-punk gothic”, Pairs imported some much needed house party energy from Shanghai and Streets Kill Strange Animals closed the show with a killer set.