Digestive tract; Hot new traxx

Noteworthy workxperiences:

Checking and changing the names of every subway stop in the Beijing City area, using an unfamiliar design program, on an old iMac, with a jumpy mouse, in Chinese

Proof-eating for the “Beijing Eats” food guide.

This entailed a jaunt across town with colleagues, to sample the (refined?) gloopiness of Shandong province cuisine. For ethical reasons, we skipped out on the sea cucumber – apparently they’re endangered – but felt morally obliged to give “9 turn intestines” a try. The dish consisted of cylindrical cross sections of I forget what animal’s intestines, in a delightful little brown sauce with a rich, barn-like fragrance. You order it by the centimeter. We bought 23.

The ensuing facial expressions were priceless. It’s a rare sight to see the faces of five out of six self-professed China buffs at the exact moment they realize they’re still clinging to Western food preferences. I would best describe the look as “nauseous.” But hey, we ordered bland tofu and poorly-realized bread too.

Computer and taste-bud challenges aside though, it’s been a good first week. I haven’t been able to do much writing of my own, but I did start to compile a Beijing time line for a walking guide to the city. The juxtapositions were comical at times:

• 1911 – Qing Dynasty collapses
• 1969 – Beijing subway opens.

Needless to say, some additions were made.

This week I also realized how glad I was that my boss is also a bass player – two out of five working days I have to leave early for sound checks. We agree they count as “research.”

Tuesday was 2 Kolegas’ weekly experimental series, and Hot and Cold’s first show since January. We had pretty mixed expectations, considering that the sound equipment is worse than the shitty knock-off amps we play on in our practice space, my bedroom’s indoor balcony. I think both Simon and I were happy with how it went though.

Our second last piece of the set, known to me only as “Elephant Graveyard” (I can’t decipher any of the other lyrics) built up into a sort of drone-anthem. At various intervals, Simon was offstage, microphone in front of the PA, feedback-making, except we were already playing so loud that you almost couldn’t hear the difference. I proceed to work myself into some sort of Peking Opera gong-banging frenzy, eventually losing my mallet, and throwing the gong and myself across the venue’s floor. We then reconvened for what I hope was an endearing cover of Life Stinks, by Pere Ubu.

A good time was had by all.

Most.

Some.

A couple people.

Well, I know Dan enjoyed himself.

I had been tentatively booked for a solo performance at D-22 since early May, but I never really thought it would pan out. I’d performed alone there before, but at that time I had actually written material. So I was surprised to pick up the bar’s concert schedule in some clothing shop on the other side of town and see the name “Josh” written under two other bands for Thursday the 16th.

Thankfully, Dan answered my pleading calls, and agreed to join me for an improvised performance Thursday night. The first (and last) time we played together was in August 2007, but we both had a good time playing with noisy toys and drumming on plastic bags, so I think to a certain degree I was confident that things would be at least passable.

Maybe we were the only two who felt this way, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well things fit. We improvised two pieces of about 10 minutes each. I think popular consensus favoured second little ditty. It was — explosive, I suppose. While Dan drummed all tribal-thud like, (with a touch of classy cymbal), I set up a Buddhist prayer loop drone, and proceeded to accidentally break an electronic toy piano (“This is piano fun. [Sound stops] This is no fun. [Snapped cable falls out of jack] This is broken input. [Scattered pitying laughter].”)

Temporarily instrumentless, a momentary two-man drum and gong solo ensued, with Dan and I on either side.

Not too be outdone, I continued by inadvertently putting my bass out of commission when a small but crucial piece of plastic snapped off and disappeared forever.

By this point, though, loop after loop of echo-y drones had been layered on top of each other – basically the sound of seven basses playing together – as the drumming crescendoed.

Somehow, (maybe I’m just really great at screaming “1-2-3-4″ ?) everything stopped – at the exact same time.

We were pleased.

Some pictures from Tuesday – apparently we move too fast to be captured on film.

Music Discipline School was a bizarre and somewhat pathetic hour and half long play that followed us. It was actually sort of excruciating, and featured a cross-dressed guy with coke bottle breasts and bunny ears that were blown up condoms. It was mostly unintentionally absurd. They read off scripts. We made the mistake of lending them our piano  – as a prop.