mao livehouse

The Mongolian Invasion (less blood, more music)

April 20, 2014 // 2 Comments

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, who played in Shanghai on [...]

Inoffensive indie rock

April 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

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, music quality, hard work and [...]

The best tribute act ever

April 6, 2014 // 0 Comments

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. Am I ever going to see [...]

New music from Spill Your Guts

March 29, 2014 // 0 Comments

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 hardcore bands like Spill [...]

Review: The Lumineers in Shanghai

February 12, 2014 // 0 Comments

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 and snowy (!!) but I was [...]

The Lumineers are on their way to Shanghai

November 20, 2013 // 0 Comments

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 will be out of Shanghai [...]

Cool shows I’m not gonna see

October 22, 2013 // 1 Comment

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 in Shanghai sometimes I [...]

Review: Frank Turner makes us all sit on the floor and we still like him

March 27, 2013 // 1 Comment

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, with serious Celtic rock [...]

Review: Grimes, fairly decent

March 23, 2013 // 0 Comments

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 Boucher, a young [...]

Interview – Friendly Fires

June 1, 2012 // 0 Comments

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 deep; I’m sure [...]

Interview – Glasvegas

May 18, 2012 // 0 Comments

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 stuff like that. They [...]