Catshanghai

The Kronos Quartet is an eclectic chamber ensemble with attitude, but they didn’t manage to show enough of it until the second half of their show at the Shanghai Concert Hall last night. The first set featured Iraqi folk songs, Sigur Ros’s Flugufrelsarinn, selection of Chinese classics and Terry Riley compositions.
Wu Man is known to [...]

I almost couldn’t make it, because the booking office told me yesterday that all the tickets had already sold out. Today, I rang the office again and I found that there are plenty of tickets still available. They have only sold all of the 100 RMB tickets. How many times have people tried to book [...]

Isn’t Caroline Martin wonderful? It’s a shame that she has cancelled her UK tour and forthcoming album. I hope she reconsiders and plays a show in Shanghai one of these days. She’s the real deal. Caroline plays beautiful, sparse folk music with very dark lyrics. She once played a set at a rowdy punk club [...]

Zooma has done a great job transforming 4Live into a really decent live music venue from the nightclub that was formerly known as Fabrique. (The website is a bit dodgy as it is almost impossible to navigate!) The stage has swapped places with the bar so it could almost pass as a gym with blackout [...]

I know nothing about this music except what I have read on local websites. This is what SmartShanghai says about him:
4Live presents the drummer Emil de Waal who is one of Denmark’s top musicians, having appeared on more than 150 albums. He also holds the Danish Jazz Grammy nomination. His latest project is described as [...]

I’ll always be young, because I’ll always be younger than Sonic Youth and Madonna.

I’m really happy today. I’ve just heard from Msittig that Sonic Youth will play Shanghai at the Concert Hall on April 24th. I will always love Sonic Youth even though their recent albums have been rather dull. Sonic Youth were wonderful in [...]

It is wrong or at least illegal to steal music, but high prices and unfair copy protection make piracy a rational choice for many Internet users who steal songs from online file sharing services. The solution is to offer legitimate low cost alternatives without DRM. AllofMP3 offers low cost downloads, but the artists do not [...]

I just read this breaking news on Tech Crunch. It has also been reported on the BBC and New York Times. Steve Jobs has just published an open letter to the music industry asking it to abandon DRM on music that is purchased as downloads. This is extraordinary considering that all music bought on the [...]

I have 46 minutes until I leave to go on holiday to Phuket for a much needed rest away from computers, Shanghai and the winter. Before I go, I’d like to wish anyone reading this a happy seasonal time whatever place and religion you happen to be abiding in. I will keep this post short [...]

Between October and New Year, you will hear nothing in England’s high streets shops except for the same Slade and Freddie Mercury Christmas records. It is the soundtrack to tills opening and closing as part of the most spiritual of British past times; shopping. These awful cliched songs really make you just want to curl [...]