According to graffiti in a Beijing club toilet, someone loves their mom, country and Carsick Cars, the Beijing rock band headlining next month’s Beijing Explosion. The trio are just one of the insanely popular and wildly energetic bands to break out of the Beijing scene in the last few years. And promoter Kap Liu is capitalizing on the love for the motherland with the burgeoning Explosion series, launched this summer with disco-punk-revivalists New Pants and noise-pop band Hedgehog. “The first Beijing Explosion was great, far better than I’d expected,” Liu says. “Beijing bands are starting to gain a following in Hong Kong. It isn’t widespread yet, but I can see it getting even better in the near future.” The Beijing scene has picked up an incredible speed in the two years, with five excellent performance venues opening, says Liu. Live music club Mao, for example, has gigs every day of the week. “Having the venues for bands to play is one of the most important things in the music scene,” Liu says. No wonder then that many Beijing bands are not just “good for China” but simply actually great. Post-punk Beijing-ers Re-Tros recently toured the US while punk band Joy Side are a European hit and, weirdly, signed to a German indie label. “Right now is a terrific time for live music in China,” Liu says. Beijing has always been the center of Chinese rock, but, according to Liu, the last few years have also seen a surge in sounds from funk to post-punk, all of which command a solid following. “So many bands have come out in the last couple years, and here’s the thing, they’re all really good,” Liu says. Catch three of them at next month’s gig: Carsick Cars Who they are Shouwang on vocals and lead guitar, Zhong Qiu on percussion and Levis on bass guitar. They formed just two and some years ago, but already opened for Sonic Youth (Apr 07) and have people writing stuff on toilet walls about them. Nice stuff. What they play Crazy, perfect rock with all the pent-up force of a band who often ends up plastered on the floor post-riotous riff. It’s melodic, it’s catchy and then it all explodes in a wail of guitar. Why you care Ever wanted to see an amp blow? Apparently it’s a not-unheard of phenomenon with these Cars, who are known for a powerful show. They released their first album in October in China; December in Hong Kong. Available from White Noise Records ( www.whitenoiserecords.org , 2591-0499) www.myspace.com/carsickcars Dreamlike Who they are Guitarist/singer Teng Liyuan, bassist Wang Zhe and drummer Chou Yun. What they play Everything except metal. This trio wreak their creativity through blues, punk, electronica, psychedelic rock and even the horribly named “world music.” Luckily, to them it means fun, unexpected stuff that you might hear at other places in the world, like the US or France. Why you care Color-coded bands, eyeliner on men, and Sanchez-style ‘staches can only bode good. Namedrop these guys before they get too mainstream cool. Snapline Who they are Chen Xi on vocals, Li Qing on guitar/keyboards and Li Weisi on bass What they play Industrial post-punk with lashings of noise-pop and rock so synthed up it shouldn’t be coming from the classic triad getup. Sinister, sophisticated guitar riffs play off galloping drumbeats and unexpectedly cerebral lyrics like “It’s a mistake that everything comes from the great explosion/Everything comes from the same line”; Chen being a mechanical engineer and knowing stuff like physics. Why you care They’re one of Beijing’s latest runaway successes and one of the faces of a new Chinese rock that’s increasingly electronic, techy and downright revolutionary. www.myspace.com/snapline
