Review: Old Crow Medicine Show, slightly delayed
I’m regularly amazed how fast time goes. For something that is steadfastly regular on an atomic level, it’s strange how sometimes entire weeks will fly by, like [...]
Blog
Review: Americana for the win
I’ve been pretty stingy with my pennies ever since coming Austin, partly because I’m cheap frugal, and partly because I’m ever-so-gainfully unemployed. [...]
Brass for people who don’t like brass
Have you recently heard a brass band? You know, a band with…nothing but brass. Trumpets, trombones, sousaphones, French horns, mellophones, tubas, and — if [...]
Hello, Austin
It’s hard to decide where to go after Shanghai. It’s hard to decide to go anywhere, ever, actually, but eventually you can no longer live out of a suitcase or on [...]
Goodbye, Shanghai. It’s been real.
Today I’m leaving Shanghai. FOREVER! I’ve been saying it’s my last year in Shanghai every year since I got here — 5 years ago — but when it came [...]
The Mongolian Invasion (less blood, more music)
Folk music has not just had a boom in the West in the past decade. It’s happened in China as well. Case in point: widely popular Mongolian/Chinese folk band Hanggai, [...]
Inoffensive indie rock
It’s always a mystery why some bands do so well and some bands never amount to anything, at least commercially speaking. Obviously things like talent, showmanship, [...]
The best tribute act ever
I am not one to diss cover bands and tribute acts. In fact, I love them. For real. It’s mostly because I like live music, and I like hearing music I like played live. [...]
How to Promote Your Indie Band — Part 5
Part 5 — Don’t Hassle the Writer So you’ve sent me five e-mails and I haven’t responded? It’s not because I’m busy. It’s because your music isn’t right [...]
How to Promote Your Indie Band — Part 4
Part 4 — Put Together a Basic Press Kit It has to be easy for me to find your stuff. It’s not that I’m lazy (that’s merely a coincidence). But I can only spend a [...]
New music from Spill Your Guts
If hardcore rock’s your thing (it’s always somebody’s thing), here’s a new offering from Shanghai band Spill Your Guts. I always like straight edged [...]
Let’s talk about the banjo
Last September, British band Mumford & Sons announced they were going on hiatus, which sometimes means bands are breaking up and sometimes means they aren’t [...]
How to Promote Your Indie Band — Part 3
Part 3 — Tell Me About Your Band This one is HUGE. You’d think, “How could someone forget to tell you who they are?” but it happens ALL THE TIME. I get e-mails [...]
How to Promote Your Indie Band — Part 2
Part 2 — Develop a Relationship With the Blogger Blogs are awesome, because they’re usually authored by just one person. So it’s not hard to go to their “About” [...]
How to Promote Your Indie Band — Part 1
Okay, so you have a band. Awesome! That’s the easy part. Now you want to get people to come see your band and buy your music. That’s a bit more difficult. Obviously you [...]
New Led Zeppelin
Apparently Jimmy Page has been busy (not including the time spent hassling Robert Plant to tour again). Page has been remastering several of Led Zeppelin‘s early albums [...]
Perfect bands don’t exist!
Death to Shanghai (Updated)
If you’re someone who lives abroad for a significant amount of time (interns and study abroads don’t count, dude), every year you have to say goodbye to people. [...]
Review: The Lumineers in Shanghai
God bless the pre-sale, because if I had not already bought tickets for The Lumineers at Mao this week, I would have missed them. Tuesday was absolutely miserable and cold [...]
Splits Don’t Work
Shanghai has a fairly small musical community, and I complain about/praise it equally. Here’s a plus: easy collaborations between bands you know and love, because [...]
Happy New Year! Also, absolutely nothing is happening now.
It’s Spring Festival time in China which also happens to be my favorite time. People who live in Shanghai think that’s insane for the following reasons: 1. The [...]
Download NOW — We Are Shanghai Vol. III
Are you a Lazy Person, like me? Don’t worry, our very valid medical condition (just like Restless Legs Syndrome!) will one day be accepted and we will no longer have to [...]
Live in Tokyo: Neutral Milk Hotel (again)
To be honest, the nightlife in Shanghai is pretty good. The music scene ebbs and flows, but in general, I’m pretty content and get to see a lot of good stuff here. But [...]
Review: Neutral Milk Hotel played live and then I died (updated)
I saw Neutral Milk Hotel almost a month ago, twice, in fact, but it took me a while to get to this point to actually write a show review for two reasons: 1) Real job got in [...]
Review: Poor Sebadoh
There is nothing wrong with Sebadoh. Absolutely nothing. Their only downfall is the fact that they were unlucky enough to open for Neutral Milk Hotel on some of their Asian [...]
Cough vough, my lungs are full
I have tons of shows to review. Tons. Temples. Delorean. Sebadoh. Okkervil River. And of course: Neutral Milk Hotel. But in the meantime, I’m back in Shanghai and am [...]
My ears are the youngest thing on my decrepit old body
There was a news story a few years ago about higher-end retailers in the US playing high frequency tones in order to keep kids from loitering and whether that was fully legal [...]
The Lumineers are on their way to Shanghai
Technically, I’m in Shanghai right now, but not in in Shanghai. I’m on holiday! In Shanghai. Temporarily. Just paying my rent and doing some laundry and hopefully [...]
Cool shows I’m not gonna see
Sometimes I just have to get the hell out of Shanghai for a while. Because…Shanghai. Come on, man. Shanghai! And then even though it’s awesome when I’m not [...]
Really Good Albums: Janelle Monae’s “The Electric Lady”
Janelle Monáe is one of those artists who as soon as they get on your radar, they stay there. Her first studio album, The ArchAndroid, came out in 2010 to pretty much [...]
Smack Madness 