Here are some random observations about Beijing:

1. Lack of flush toilets.  Yes, we know but don’t really know: there aren’t a ton of flush toilets in Beijing.  You gotta do the squat!  There are also a ton of homes that do not have running water or plumbing at all!  These exist in some upscale areas too, so when we were out shopping for awesome shit in NLGX (a hip back alley artsy zone that is steadily gentrifying), we watched as people emerged from their homes to use the public toilets that are found all over the place. When we were at D-22 I went to hit the public toilet next door and peed next to a kid who was squatting with a handheld radio, listening to Chinese pop music. Crazy!

2. You can drink booze anywhere in Beijing.  We spent a lot of time drinking on stoops, on the side of the road, in front of clubs where the drinks were too expensive, on the way to and from wherever it is that we were…You can drink anywhere here.  Just like Berlin.

3. Beijing is crazy cheap.  A beer costs about 30 cents.  A 20 minute cab ride costs about $1.50.  If you know where to eat – and we were lucky enough to be shown around by locals – you can eat hella well for hella cheap.  When we went out with You Say Party! We Say Die! and some friends to eat, there were eight of us and we chowed hard.  The bill came to about $20.

4. You don’t really notice the government…or at least we didn’t.  Aside from Tianamen Square, where the propaganda is on serious display, the government seemed like a non-factor.  People we talked to here said that they didn’t really think about the government a whole ton.  But this being a city of about 30 million people, the arm of the government can only go so far.

5. The weirdest thing about Beijing is how normal it seems.  How much like any other amazing city.  The place is huge and you get the sense that you could spend a lifetime exploring its secrets.  But aside from not knowing the language, it didn’t feel like some foreign land.

6. We almost didn’t play our second show at D-22 because when I plugged in my power bar to the system, I almost started a fire and short-circuited their power supply.  After a couple hours of stress, everything got worked out.

7. Bands thinking of coming to China: do it.

So we made friends with this awesome girl named Lua who writes for the Chinese equivalent of Rolling Stone out here.  Not only did she take us for bubble tea and to restaurants in people’s houses, she also managed to hook us up with an extra show!  Thank you Lua.

A Saturday night gig in Beijing!  Hellz yeah!  We played at an amazing place called D-22, which is right near Peking University and an expat school the name of which I forget that teaches foreign people how to speak Chinese.  The scene at the club was pretty mixed, with about half Chinese and half white people.  Though smoking was banned in public places a month ago, from what I gather it’s only made people here more defiant – throughout our set I was inhaling great gobs of cigarette smoke and ended up totally trashing my throat.  But it was worth it – kids were dancing, the response was great, and we turned some heads.

D-22 is at the heart of Beijing’s indie music scene, and there were a ton of really wicked acts playing with us.  Most notable was Zhang Shouwang, who is the lead guitarist and singer from Carsick Cars (who we had seen play at D-22 the night before) and who was doing a solo experimental set – the dude is a killer musician.  FYI Canadian bookers: get Carsick Cars over to Canada.  They are fucking amazing and everyone we talked to out here says the same thing: they’re the great hope for Chinese indie rock.  If any band is going to break out, it’s going to be them.  When we saw them play the night before, the crowd was absolutely riveted.  One of their songs references a brand of cigarette, the name of which also happens to be the name for the Communist party headquarters in Beijing.  While there’s no overt criticism of the government in the song, you can tell that the dudes are definitely walking a thin line.  When they played the song, the entire crowd started throwing (unlit) cigarettes at the stage – it was a totally bizarre and exhilarating thing to see.  Craziness.

After our show our friend Lua took me and Paul to a massage parlour and we all got massages at 4 in the morning.  Don’t worry mom, we didn’t go for the ‘erotic massage’ option.

I landed in Beijing at 5 am, two calendar days after I left Toronto (thanks to the mysterious, and imh(scientific)o weirdly arbitrary International Date Line). Outside the airport, I told a man who didn’t speak English my hotel name, so he could explain to a cab driver who didn’t speak English where to take me. My info sheet had a hotel name and an address on it in both English and Chinese, but it somehow wasn’t helping the two of them. I said “Sino-Swiss Hotel” over and over, hating myself for being unable to rid my voice of its horrid and insulting “I’m a tourist speaking to a local-language-speaker” inflection. Somehow they pieced it together and within 10 minutes I was at the Sino-Swiss Hotel, insanely excited to finally see Dan and start this China thing.

It was 6 am when I reached the hotel. I knocked loudly on Room 806’s door to wake Dan up. Nobody answered so I knocked again. Finally a very (understandably) upset man answered. He wasn’t Dan. He wasn’t anything like Dan. He was angry and pointing at his Do Not Disturb sign and I was clearly, at that moment, the worst thing in his life. The actual hotel I wanted was the Swissotel (my info sheet was bad intel) and everything has steadily improved since I angered the man at the Sino-Swiss. A half-hour later I was at my real hotel, with my real bandmate and two hours after that I was at a market trying to get used to the soul-crushing haggling that accompanies every transaction.

Today Dan and I went with Krista from You Say Party, We Say Die to the Great Wall of China. I’ll say this without reservation: It’s the best wall I’ve ever seen. Pictures tell it better.

Somehow, despite the fact that we took a chairlift up, and a toboggan ride back down, and there were people selling chips and beer on top of it, the Wall still feels historically charged and being on it was moving.

Dan ate a local specialty:

And I met some ladies:

Beijing is sprawling, consumed in construction and occasionally garish. But it can be beautiful, and at its best this city is intimate and romantic. I’m happy that we’ve made good friends here already and I’m excited to think about coming back.

(Also, people in Beijing don’t actually eat scorpions. At least, I don’t think they do.)

Say what? Woodhands in China? Unh. Well, after all this travel and opulence and meeting a million people, it would have been a real downer if the show had sucked. But it didn’t! I (Dan) was a little nervous at first, staring out at the crowd at Star Live. “What if they don’t care? What if they don’t get it?” Luckily for us, Woodhands is pretty low concept: synths + drums + screaming = dance party. Or at least that’s the theory…

It was pretty obvious off the bat that it was going to be okay. Pretty much from the first scream. Not only did they not think I was a freak (or maybe they did), but the entire crowd screamed back! WTF? Why has it taken me so long to find my brethren? Never has a crowd ever screamed at us like that before. It was intense. Also of note is the intense love of keytar that permeated the room. I don’t want to get into it but it felt…good. This whole trip has been awesome but the big question has been whether our music translates over here. Note to indie rockers / electro kids / what-have-yous: play China. They will appreciate it, they will thank you for coming, they will rock out harder than you can imagine.

Paul’s going to blog a bit later so I’m going to keep this short, but here are some photos from the last couple nights of shows. Also there are a ton more show photos that I’m going to upload after I get em on my computer.  but check out this awesome photo of Pet Conspiracy, my new favourite Chinese band.  Also, we should mention that we met the biggest rock star in China, this guy Cui Jian who is pretty much the coolest dude ever.  I wish I had the photos.  Check these musicians out!

Lates!

Except for all the people in this photo.

Paul crept into the room at 6:30 AM this morning, gave me a high five, and promptly headed out to the market to buy a camera to capture this moment in our careers. I mumbled “haggle…” and then he was out the door.

Last night I got my first look at the venue that we’re playing tonight and was treated to three crazy Beijing bands, my favourite of which was Pet Conspiracy, who lived up to their awesome name. It was your basic recipe for success: crazy hot girl singer, dude in a glittery gold jersey and sunglasses playing synth with one hand, and a wailing guitar player. Awesome! I wanted to take them all home with me. The beers were too expensive so we cruised outside and drank Tsingtaos outside a grocery store across the street. I had 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ on my phone so we had our own little dance party. I contend that ‘Gotta Make it to Heaven’ is the best track on that album, and I felt a certain connection to 50 Cent, having just visited the Temple of Heaven and knowing exactly where Fiddy wanted to go, and why he cared so much. As you can see from the photo above, the Temple of Heaven is where dance troupes from Indiana greet you with smiles, while wearing matching shirts that say, “I danced on the Great Wall of China…(really, I did!)”. In a word: Paradise. Shortly after this photo was taken I invited them to our show. In unison they smiled, nodded politely, and melted away.

Tonight is the big show, and attendance is predicted to be high. It felt real, real good to soundcheck today and lock eyes with Paul again. It’s only been a couple of weeks since our last show but it feels like forever. It felt good to exercise those muscles again today and to test out the gear – you never know what might have happened on the flight so it’s an added relief when all the lights are blinking the way they are supposed to. With You Say Party! We Say Die! and Champion both playing tonight too, it’s going to be a crazy dance party. Beijing beware!