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, [...]
mao livehouse
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. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Review: Frank Turner makes us all sit on the floor and we still like him
Grimes was probably the big booking of the JUE Festival, but there was no one I was more excited to see than Frank Turner. Frank Turner is an English folk and punk musician, [...]
Review: Grimes, fairly decent
The musician Grimes played Mao on Wednesday night. It was absolutely packed as she was the big booking of this year’s JUE Festival. Grimes is the stage name of Claire [...]
Interview – Friendly Fires
Sometimes you don’t need music that changes your life, you just need something that makes you feel good. Friendly Fires is that. Not that Friendly Fires can’t be [...]
Interview – Glasvegas
Glasvegas is a band from Glasgow who creates this lovely, big, wall-of-sound rock thing. Lots of big guitar noise with a floor tom and some do-woppyish rhythms and other cool [...]
Smack Madness 