家常菜 / Jiachang cai / “Homestyle food”

I love how the only place in Beijing I know of that’s smokier than D-22 is the Hubei province jiachang cai restaurant I ate lunch at today. When we left after feasting for three dollars, my throat burned and my eyes were stinging.

Oh, we also got a dish in a sizzling iron bowl that was served with a cigarette stub on the edge of the platter.

The food was delicious.

Oh the parties we had?

Sunday night was my friend Justin’s birthday, and celebrations were suitably fucking awesome. Festivities were taking place at D-22, where he does sound and plays drums, so Simon and Caitlin and I headed out on yet another long (but cheap) subway journey to “Beijing’s CBGBs”… or whatever.

Beforehand, we stopped over at last summer’s favourite hole-in-the-wall Xinjiang place, lovingly referred to as Ali Baba’s (啊里巴巴). The meal was especially remarkable because for reasons, typically incomprehensible, my friend Steve was in town and used to go to the restaurant at least three times a week. It was also nice that two naan breads, three plates of noodles, a bowl of noodle soup, and four beers cost 51 RMB, or $7ish dollars.

Anyway, in honour of turning 27(?) Justin played two sets with an absolutely crazy folk singer named Xiao He, who has a penchant for beautiful shrieking, deep, Mongolian throat singing-style delivery, and wearing red pants.

I end up saying this a lot in Beijing, but it truly was one of the most astounding musical things I’ve seen. The two of them were improvising, but they were so attuned to each other, that when one of them screwed up and didn’t stop playing, the other messed up and did the exact same thing.

Having performed with Justin a number of times, it was interesting to have an understanding of how he would play. I was impressed by how much he held himself back. At times, he’d play a rhythm and Xiao He would match it exactly with his voice. Xiao He  played only acoustic guitar, plugged in, but he used numerous looping pedals (for his instrument and vocals), one of which I have. The combination of knowing how Justin improvises and knowing how Xiao He’s pedals work meant that I was involved in the performance in a way that I’ve never experienced as a member of the audience before. It was quite impressive.

Monday night were the Bar and Club Awards held by my guidebook company’s sister magazine, The Beijinger. The ceremony itself was on the tacky side (a girl dancing with a snake? come on…) and the free Stella Artois and Vodka were dangerous.  Miraculously, I’m fine today. Here’s a choice summary of events:

• A shirtless Mexican man stands on a table at the bar we relocated to, pulls down his pants, then his boxers, and stands motionless, naked, for 10 slow, slow seconds. (Thankfully we had the rear view)
• After stealing food from his friends, a colleague tells me that we’re like Inuit: “we don’t waste any part of the quesadilla.”
• The Arcade Fire came on the stereo, in a Mexican-food-serving sports bar in Beijing. Where am I?
• It rained it rained it rained
• No one came to work on time the next day
• The first order of business was lunch.

Still around…

First of all, this Parts and Labor video is incredible.

This week has been deceptively exhausting. I’ve started work on the “Insider’s Guide to Beijing,” which is a yearly-updated guidebook. It’s a pretty cool project to have, and I’m in charge of both the music section and the adult education chapter (studying at universities in China, etc). There’s a lot of material that’s re-used from year to year, so by no means is it an insurmountable task. The only thing is, it can be excruciating arriving at the office in the morning, sitting down at the computer, and basically just saying to yourself “I’m going to make progress on the chapters.” I’ve read over previous issues of the book so many times that I think I might go crazy. It’s hard to not feel compelled to change the chapters a lot to keep them interesting, but after 4 years of being published, sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to reinvent the wheel. So basically: this past week = a lot of thinking, a few odd pages of hopefully useful notes. A little bit tiresome.

Hot and Cold played Thursday at D-22, to probably about 10 people. There was no applause; complete dead silence between songs. Simon and I were both pretty tired, and I felt as though it went terribly in a legendary sort of way.

The day after, though, I listened to a recording of the set that Caitlin had helped us make, using our Fisher-Price “My first cassette player.” And thankfully, it was pretty great. Or pretty less-bad. Either way, much more enjoyable at a second listen. We’re now trying to transfer the cassette onto Simon’s computer…

Did I mention last weekend we played on a boat? Like, the floating kind. Moored on a scummy green canal not far from our house. There were love seats in the lifeboats. I attacked the drum set with an inflatable pink dolphin.

A good time was had by all.

“Beijing’s own Canadian duo”

Hot and Cold had a great show on Saturday!

It was a night of many firsts:

• Our first Saturday night show. (We definitely caught a few poor foreigner suckas who didn’t realize Beijing faves Carsick Cars weren’t playing)

• As a result, we played to Our first sizable audience (Most of them didn’t run away after hearing the first song, either).

• Our first show to open with Simon and I screaming for 20 seconds (and no instruments). All right!

• Our first heckling. I thought it was a joke at first: “You guys suck, play some real music!” Too bad I didn’t think to remember the guy’s face – D-22’s sound man wanted to beat him up afterwards. Hot and Cold has now firmly established itself as a too-cool noise-rock band.

• Our first major paycheck. (Around 70 Canadian dollars – how did that happen?!)

• And finally, it was also the first time Toronto band Woodhands came to China and opened for us. This was especially funny because two nights before, they played at one of the largest venues in Beijing. And all the other bands at D-22 on Saturday were “experimental.” (On a musical Venn-diagram, keytar playing and “experimental” never co-exist). Actually, D-22’s deliberately fuzzy sound system made them much more appealing than before, and they really warmed the crowd up (dancing, even!) so that when we got to make our racket, it was appreciated).

Following our set, Shouwang, the guitarist of Carsick Cars, played a brief solo piece. I never cease to be amazed by him. At one point, held his guitar in the air by its neck, and gradually let it slide through his fingers, resulting in lower and lower notes. The fact that Shouwang had returned to Beijing from Europe only a few days earlier and was entirely improvising this melodic drone song only enhanced the performance’s brilliance.

Without stopping, he then invited Simon and I to join him on stage. As we gradually worked into a frenzied crescendo, our friend Justin, an astounding drummer from New York City, darted over, and proceeded to pound us into even louder territory.

The four of us play together fairly frequently considering I’m rarely around – somehow, it always clicks. I was very happy with how it sounded: Shouwang and Justin are probably my two favourite Beijing musicians, and I think the best in the city as well.

We were followed by 10, the crazy, only-red-wearing, toy-breaking duo from Korea and Japan. As always, they were great, but I think my favourite part of their performance was having dinner with them and seeing how happy they were to eat rice served in a pineapple at a nearby Yunnan restaurant.

Finally, at 2am, Justin joined saxophonist Li Tieqiao, for yet another phenomenal performance. At one point, Li took off his mouthpiece and played through it by itself, and continued by blowing through his mouthpieceless saxophone, getting it to sound like a trumpet.  For most of the set, Justin used only a snare, and played standing up, with the drum strapped onto him. Amazing.

I was in bed by 4am.

Evidence:

Hot and Cold

Oh, I forgot: also, the first time I played bass and recited a tale of receiving fish by air mail.

Shouwang takes chopsticks to his guitar (how we roll in Beijing).