Posts from March 2008
March 23, 2008
The Honeys in Shanghai
I'm still scoping out the live music scene here in Shanghai. After 9 years of owning a music club I guess it's in my blood. Tonight Jimi SMSed me about a show in The New Factories (Tonglefang) which is on Yuyao Lu, way north of where anyone really likes to go. The group was called The Honeys.
I was ready to go because this gave me reason to have a blue plate special at The Moon River Diner, and check out a new live space, and it was free. Who could say no?
Finding the space was a bit like feeling around in the dark since there wasn't any real directional signage. You just followed the rumbling window panes up stairs until you figured it out.
The room was cool in the sense that it was just a square simple gray brick lined space with a stage at one end and a bar at the other. Perfect for a rock show. The sound was lacking for all the equipment they had. Bit like sticking your ear into a bowl of reverberated oatmeal. They tried to phase the vocals in a weird way and forgot that there was no real need for long reverb in a room which was essentially a big echo chamber already. And as always at a Chinese rock show, the main instrument was the kick drum. The sound got progressively better the further away from the stage you got.
I think I was the oldest geezer in the room, but I had the hottest date (one of my wife's staff) which meant this time I was getting the "Why is that young chick with that old fart?" looks from the other guys. If I had a black Trans Am I would've parked it out front.
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March 18, 2008
Wizlong
Walking back from the office today I saw this interesting site advertisement.
I tried to figure it out from the sound hui long which didn't sound the same as "wizlong", then it occurred that hui long means "intelligent dragon" and someone very intelligent must've surmised, "Hey, if you're intelligent, then you're a wiz!" thus leaving us with the mutated chinglish "wizlong" which they registered. Now they have a name and a product which if read by an English speaker of any intelligence actually means "a long pee."
Therefore, to be even smarter, they should call their company changniao which is actually "long urination" in Chinese, then no one would ever figure out that this was actually once derived from an intelligent dragon. They could then even chinglish it in reverse and register the site "changpee" which is even funnier because then it means a long fart.
March 14, 2008
Presencing: Mapping our World in 2030
Today was my first time to Three on the Bund. I wanted to get a chance to hear the famous economist Jeffrey Sachs, the controversial President of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, and two other distinguished panelists from Columbia University's International Advisory Committee discuss the topic "Presencing: Mapping Our World in 2030."
You don't normally get to see people at this level speak at all, and today it was for free - in Shanghai. I sat right in the front row next to an important Turkish businessman and Dean of some department (I'm sorry, I didn't ask). There were about 80 smart looking people in a stylish white curtained room, with lots of attractive young women in black walking around who I think were staff. Either way, it was a kind of culture shock from the construction and spitting and normal Shanghai street life just one floor below.
Jeffery Sachs sure can express ideas clearly. They kept plugging his latest book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, which I went to the reception counter (again - attractive young women in black) to try to buy. No one knew what I was talking about.
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Peter Jungen, the Chairman of the European Enterprise Institute said some very interesting things, and you could kind of feel the Chinese in the room fluster when he said that the rise of capitalism was making the world a better place for it's inhabitants. If that were on CNN they'd have blacked it out for sure.
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Later in the evening, I took Brock out to hear some music at the bar at Jean Georges, where I had my first cocktail with cumin in it called The Fez, and we ran into Peter, so we bought him a drink and had a nice chat about capitalism, Marx, Chinese entrepreneurs, his investments, and attractive young women in black.
March 13, 2008
Shay shay, baby!
I introduced Tim, who does the ushering logistics for Emma, to some colleagues who could work the VIP section for him, and in return he scored me some free tickets to Harry Connick Jr. So I took Ker, the sax playing CEO, and Dave, the swinging Aussie, as my dates.
The show overall was lacksidaisical in that it didn't really move into anything. The big band sat for most of the time while Harry played some solos or trio stuff. The tenor player had a great sound and presence and was the most interesting part of the evening as he stalked around the stage in a gnome like way which as a horn player I found real amusing. I mean he was so far crouched over that his horn got down to within a foot of the floor.
Harry has a great voice and personable stage presence ("Shay shay, baby!" was his memorable foray into Mandarin) but it came off pretty much as an end of a nice day in Shanghai now let's get back to the hotel and eat sort of gig. I've had plenty of those kind of gigs, so understand how he might feel, but when tickets run from $60 - $220 you sort of expect more than what was delivered. I would've been disappointed if I had actually paid for the tickets. As the show was only 50% sold I think the promoters took a bath. No local people would want to spend a week's salary to see the show, so that explains why it was 98% foreigners.
The funniest part of the show was when Harry asked around in the all foreign audience - or Chinese as he was experiencing it - if they knew about 'Nawlins and the unusual food they ate there. Some weird and very excited guy from Canada hopped onto the stage to represent Shanghai and "the Chinese," but he didn't even know what Jinmao was (this is the landmark in Shanghai, the huge space-like tower in Pudong), and obviously knew less about Chinese food. Here's a minute or so of that dialogue...
March 07, 2008
700 million
Given the current state of affairs in the US and China's 1.4 trillion dollar savings account, I found this old poster from 1970 quite amusing.
It says roughly "If each person saves one reminbi, the whole country can have 700 million reminbi."
China Red
The Bird's Nest was lit up for the first time yesterday. An interesting political and social statement of how far this country has gone. This is one cool structure.
China Red now...
China Red then...
March 02, 2008
First all boys then all girls in Shanghai
Very interesting past couple of days. My colleague, James, dropped a note saying he met an interesting couple in Hong Kong on their way to Shanghai, and if I could meet up with them if I had time. The next day I arranged to meet Mike and Jenn Kush at the Kommune in Tianzifang so they could enjoy the artsy atmosphere and have a nice brunch. Mike and Jenn told me all about their big trip which they chronicle on their site www.chasingharvest.com. They're winemakers, and have been traveling all around different wine producing regions of the world working from harvest to harvest. They've been doing this for over a year and will end up back in Argentina right after Shanghai.
Jenn asked about hearing some music, so I took them to Jz Club to check out the Jz Big Band. I kept telling her "This is a really big band," knowing she wouldn't get the full meaning of what I meant until she saw the 20 horns plus rhythm section on stage right in front of her face. When they played, she turned to me and said, "Oh my god. This is a really big band."
Some obnoxious Germans came late and for some reason stood right in front of our seats in the front row. We asked them politely to move, but they told us to "Deal with it." I didn't feel like getting into a fight, so we called the management, and they ignored them too. So finally I told the two wives with them, "Listen why don't you two sit down in our seats which we got here very early to get, and we'll stand right in front of you so you can't see anything but our asses." Amazingly, they actually accepted my deal.
So we ending up standing the whole set right in front of these jerks, so close to the band that I could read most of the charts. Nothing like 20 horns to clear your head. I loved it because I always played in big bands as a kid. It was nice hearing the exceptional talent and chops of the Chinese players. It's like the Taiwanese players are all so proud of their two year stints at Berklee or M.I., and come back to become "laoshi" while these Chinese cats blow circles around them just learning off 2nd hand CDs and actually playing.
Saturday it was an all boys brass band...
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Then tonight I went to see Bjork with Bryce and some of his advertising gang. I didn't know what to expect as most concerts I've seen or played in China have usually been chaos. We got there and it was messy outside but completely under control inside. It was interesting to note that they black light scanned our tickets twice in front, and finally used a PDA barcode scanner at the door, before tearing off a stub. This was of course to try to prevent the usual fake tickets. Emma, who was recently bought by Ticket Master promoted the show, and I was blown away by how organized and relaxed everything seemed.
While waiting for people to get seated I took a stroll over to check out the sound/lighting deck as I always do, and asked one of the producers, "Hey, where's the mixing board?" since it wasn't there in the audience. There was just a little lighting booth.
"You're looking at it," he said.
"You mean that little thing?" I said pointing at what I though was the light mixer.
"It's pretty amazing. That little thing mixes the whole show. All the effects are on disk." He pointed at a board about the size of a Yamaha 02R and a half.
"So where's the lighting mixer?" I asked.
"It's right there behind it. That little blue thing." It was a little bigger than a laptop.
I suddenly felt very old since I somehow missed the generational gap switch from big 64 channel mixing boards sitting up on an island in the audience, to little table tops in an area about the size of a DJ booth. I realized I'd just experienced another flattening of the world and was being left far behind. The road manager caught my surprise.
"Yeah, the promoters here were surprised too when they realized they could sell sell all those seats customarily blocked behind the mixing board."
I then chatted up the guy who was running logistics. "What happened to the usual chaos?" I asked. "Where's the guys running across the stage with the cigarette in their mouth, and all the guards in over-sized green uniforms?"
"We've got this covered. There're 39 people on the ground. We handpicked all staff, and test screened them in advance for stuff like left or right handedness, fear of heights, etc. They even had an hour and a half of training."
"Left or right handedness?" I asked.
"Yeah, so we know whcih ones can take tickets faster. Some people need to stand on the left. Can't slow down the line. And check out those big dudes standing there." I looked over to the front row bouncers. Tall guys looking cool in tailored black suits with black ties.
"Notice that their suits are all cut, and their shoes are well shined. We made sure to pay attention to all the details."
Now I was really surprised. This was a level of organization I hadn't witnessed before outside of Japan.
Bjork had a very cool show. Her band consisted of 2 DJs/keyboardists behind 3 Apple notebooks, a drummer, a concert style clavichordist, a 10 piece all-girl's brass band from Iceland called "Wonderbrass" (which if you spelled it wrong dropping one 's' would be a funnier name) dressed up in yellow clownish outfits with red flags sticking out of their heads and renaissance face painting. In all it had a modern Harry-Potter-at-a-rave feel going on. The songs were all fantastically musical and intricate and electronic. The harmonic and acoustic pairing of the 10 horns with the concert pianist sort of fellow contrasted well with the two-thirds electronic rhythm section and their modern feel. There was one song that was in an odd time signature and made me wonder how the horns could keep it together without a click or a conductor, and this bugged me for a while until I finally noticed a foot wide LED meter to one side of the stage that swung an arc triggered by the BPMs from the Apples. That was a simple slick solution to those hard syncopated parts.
For the last song it was interesting how the refrain was Bjork and the band shouting "Raise your flag higher!" over and over as all the clowns with the red flags walked off the stage. I wonder if that was supposed to mean something.
And on Sunday it was an all girls brass band...
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March 01, 2008
The Troubadour of Tong Li
Our friends A-jie and Ning were in town, so Irene and I took a little day trip with them out to Suzhou on the fast train. We wanted to go to Xitan, where they filmed Mission Impossible 3 - those scenes in the end where Tom Cruise is running along the canals shouting "get out of the way" in Chinese - and I thought for some dumb reason it was in Suzhou. Boy was I wrong.
Xitan was closer to Shanghai, nowhere near Suzhou, so we hopped in a car and rambled into Tong Li instead, discovering a great little water village that wasn't nearly as commercial as a more popular nearby water village called Zhouzhuang. There weren't many people left since it was freezing cold, and we really enjoyed the couple hours of daylight left.
We found a nice little restaurant closing up, and convinced the owner to set up a table along the canal, and he cooked up some terrific homemade food, while we sat around in 2c weather and were treated to songs from his son.
It turned out to be a better day than you could've planned.
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Here's a quick tourist view of the day...
I've never figured out whether it's pronounced "Moe's (like owned by one of three stooges) or Moss (like that guy out of Bonanza), but the one down the hill from me is open until 2am most days, which means that if I get out of the club early enough, I can catch the best burger in town, the muo si la bao or the Spicy Mos Burger. They have lots of jalapenos and 
