Dominik Salter Dvorak and Bruno Rinvolucri explore the London-Beijing connection in a 1 hour+ radio show with Xiao He, filling the gap between active participation and passive music-mag punditry

Three of Beijing’s top-tier punk bands opened for SS20 from Germany, who must be picking up on some positive energy floating around D22 as this was their second Beijing show in four months… I’ve been to a fair number of Beijing punk shows now but this is the first time I’ve felt a real sense of community and camaraderie, a real scene.

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.