Beijing - Capital of brutal underground metal arised!

Scene Report
Capital of one of the mightiest countries in the world, Beijing is broodnest for most of Chinese Heavy Metal. Bands such as Ritual Day, Yaksa, Twisted Machine, Suffocated, Regicide and many more are originated in the 16-million people city.

Being one of the two most western Chinese cities, Beijing has the chance and opportunity to offer the widest range of metal concerts, bands and CD-Shops in whole CHina.

Nearly every weekend several concerts happen to be in one of the three main rock bars: The Old and the New Get Lucky Bar and the Nameless Highland. All three bars host shows with more than 5 or 6 bands of all variations of metal, rock and punk.

Furthermore is it possible to buy most of Chinese New Metal and Punk CDs in Beijing. Enter Xin Jie Kou Bei Da Jie and roam south to strife through numberous music-shops providing you with fake, original Chinese and original imported CDs. It will strike you when in the middle of nowhere a shop arises offering you the latest ASP, Guano Apes, Gothic and Techno CDs. It is true, find out in Xin Jie Kou.

In addition to this is Chinese first heavy music magazine located in Beijing - Painkiller - and provides half Beijing with T-Shirts, concert information, news and CD-shop information. If you've time and want to see Chinese state of the art heavy music magazine, then go to one of the many small shops and buy a copy.

What would a capital be without festival and a festival is in Beijing, called the Midi festival. Named after the host: The Midi Guitar school in the West of the city. Every year in May (or in october - SARS 2003 & bad luck 2004) more than 10000 metalheads, punks and rockfans gather to enjoy a three-day show under a blue sky.

Beijing, city of government, city of rock, city of expensive shops provides you with most news about Chinese Metal Underground.

Importance and history of Beijing
But there's more about Beijing than just offering and hosting a good scene. The fact that there is actually a scene is one of the first hints to dig deeper to reveal what is behind all this.

As being the capital and as being one of two big opening ports for foreign influence, being the seat of government and being the offspring for Chinese rock Beijing is connected to nearly all major rock breakthroughs.

The fact, that Cui Jian, Tang Dynasty or Black Panther started in Beijing can be definetely also found in the availability of foreign rock music in the Western colleges, bars and communities that were spotted in Beijing. More than in Shanghai, was Beijing the number 1 ity to go for studying Chinese, the first entry points and first contact possibilities for foreigners with Chinese culture and the other round.

So it was natural that Western music found its way into Chinese dormitories and ears. Where else than in Beijing would it have been possible to get latest copies of 'The Eagles', 'The Scorpions' or in more recent times 'Nirvana' and 'Metallica'. Beijing was the boiling pot of water, the rumbling territory that allowed rock to develop.

And it was seat of the government: One big influencal fact for bands such as Tang Dynasty was the close neighbourhood to China's leading and only party. With the opening ceremony of the 1990 Asian Games the Chinese government allowed modern music to played (Tang Dynasty) to show their 'open-mindness'. That wouldn't have been possible in Chongqing or Xi'an.

Location Details - Where to go in Beijing?

Old Get Lucky Bar
Located in the North-East of Beijing, just one train station south to the WangJing station (Line 13), the Old Get Lucky Bar breaths it's last air these days. As the new one is already opened since March, the old one is going to be demolished within the next months (from May 2004 on).

Granting space for at least 250 people this bar is actually a KTV place. In the front bar area bands are allowed to play and in the back is the KTV section.

The interior is decorated half as country club and half as German 'Hofbraeuhaus' complete including the slogan: "Gebraut nach deutschem Reinheitsgebot" and with the Bavarian flag.

Most of the sound equipment is already brought to the new club, so at every concert problems with the technic occur, that are annoying but not solvable.

Telephone number: +86 010 64299109

Unforutnately has the Old Get Lucky Bar been demolished in 2004.

New Get Lucky Bar
The New Get Lucky Bar is next to the Nv Ren Jie, the Lady's Market, North of the Kempinski Hotel. If you follow the street of Kempi and 21st century hotel it's on the left side in the new bar district.

Similar to the old bar the new bar is actually a KTV, but this time the KT V rooms are moved to the second floor, whereas the first floor is a mixture of Bar, Restaurant and Concert Hall, providing the audience with expensive beverages (TsingTao 20 RMB), good food and rock'n'roll.

Telephone number: +86 010 84483335

Nameless Highland
Home of punk! This bar can be found at the back of a residential area compound.

Decorated in 20st century warfare look it offers reliques (fake or real?) of World War I and II (gas masks, belts, ...) with big flags of China and the U.S. hanging from the ceiling.

A big stage and an average area for the audience as well as 2nd floor balconies are the trademarks of the Nameless Highland. Although it gets very easily crowded and in case of fire there are no real emergecy exits, the Nameless Highland promises every time again to be worth a visit.

Hosting concerts nearly every day (the rock band 'Sand' is playing every Wednesday - June 2004), the big events are more appreaciable as around 150-200 people might show up and two big tables present the latest CDs of Chinese Punk and (Hard) Rock. Attention collectors, check them out! (I found a copy of "Ma Music" there - rare rare rare).

Telephone number: +86 010 64891613

Detailed information (including a map) can be found on the Painkiller Magazine's concerts page (http://en.painkillermag.com)

The Red Bar
The Red Bar is a small locality inside the San Li Tun south street opposite of the Nashville.

Offering space for up to fifty people (unseated) or thirty (seated), the Red Bar often hosts rock and hard rock live shows, as they offered Hollow wednesdays their bar for playing. They also often have Handsome Black on weekend days as well as some Chinese bands.

The Lush
Located in Wu Da Kou above a book store (2nd floor) opposite of a library has the Lush found its place.

Being a small student bar having a cute little dance floor and about ten tables surplus an outdoor terasse it offers various beverages to reasonable and fair prices.

Hosting no concerts or other big events - despite several friday night specials - is the Lush a good location to hang out and relax. Most propably your going to meet one or two members of certain bands, such as Yaksa or Twisted Machine.

If your looking for a relaxed evening, a little dance and maybe the chance to meet a band privately... then welcome to the Lush!

The Midi school
The Midi school, founded 1993, is the host for all kinds of modern music.

After foundation they faced the tremendous problem of not having any resources for modern music available in Chinese, so they had to translate foreign material for guitar, bass and drums into Chinese during the first one-and-a-half years.

At present, the Midi school is the no. 1 address for studying modern music and supporting mainland China's music scene, e.g. with the Midi Modern Music Festival.

The Midi school offers the Advanced Diploma of Music Industry - Technical Production and the Advance Diploma of MusicPerformance - Jazz and Contemporary.

For more information please visit their official homapage or give them a call at Tel.: 0086-010-62590007, 62590101.

The Midi festival
Once a year the Midi school is hosting one of the biggest metal and rock festivals, the socalled Midi festival.

Located on the school compound the festivals lasts an average of three days and is normally scheduled for May 1st to 3rd. Unfortunately SARS 2003 delayed the festival to October and in 2004 other reasons caused the hosts to postpone the festival.

Every day betweeen 5000 and 10000 fans watch the shows of bands like AK 47, Ritual Day, Suffocated, Muma, CMCB, Regicide, Spring Autumn, Joyside and many many more.

2004's Midi Festival was hold in the Beijing Sculpture Park in the West of the city. As usual, no festival fee was charged, but a 10 RMB fee for the park.

As the park was surrounded by residential buildings the whole schedule was revised and the festival started the third and fourth day two hours earlier. Nevertheless it was a good mixture of rock, punk and metal, including Tomahawk, Ritual Day and others.

The biggest mosh pits in China can definitely be found here, at the very core of Midi.

Several shopping locations
But where to go if you wanna buy some nice T-Shirts, good metal CDs (foreing or domestic) or other things of interest?

The answer is not so easy, as there are several good locations to have a try. I just list up, where you can find what:

77th Street Plaza, in Xi Dan (Red Subway Line), has at least one shop offering metal T-Shirts with onprints of Slipknot, Nirvana, Guns'n'Roses and others.

Xi Dan :: seems to be an actually quite good place to find original or cut CDs as there are several CD stores around.

Wu Da Kou Cloth Market in Wu Da Kou, has several shops selling original metal and rock CDs in good shape and quality. There's also a so called 'punk-shop' provding New Punk fashion.

Magazines can be easily found at one of the small magazines shop in the city. Usually they have the So Rock! Magazine and every third also offers the Painkiller Magazine.

Fake metal CDs are also widely available, but some good shops are definitely in Xin Jie Kou and around the Lido Hotel.

Report by Azchael officially published at http://china.painkillermag.com

All rights @ Azchael ([url]mlvonschaper@yahoo.de[/url]), please do not copy the report without mentioning the original source & my name, thanks for the fairness.
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