Spiritualized and Orbital to headline 2012 InMusic Festival

This just in from our friends at Beijing Gig Guide – playing this year at the InMusic Festival, aka Zhangbei, aka that festival that’s pretty much in Mongolia, are Spiritualized and Orbital. Other announced international headliners include Joyce Jonathan (France), Linkoban (Denmark) and Joanna Wang 王若琳 (Taiwan). On the domestic side, they’ve booked Tang Dynasty, Brain Failure, Queen Sea Big Shark, Miserable Faith and A-BOYS, with many more to be added, we’re sure.

InMusic has a history of booking good acts – see Little Dragon and Tricky in ’09, CocoRosie and Killing Joke in ’10, Tricky (again) in ’11 – and sparse attendance. We’ll be curious to see if the 1-2-3 punch of Orbital (EDM kids), Spiritualized (space rockers, Brit fetishists) and Joanna Wang (pop lovers) will finally draw the crowds out to Mongolia Hebei.

Black Rabbit Music Festival 2012

Editor’s Note: Department of Shameless Self-Promotion, Population: Us. As many of the readers of the blog know, as Split Works we are co-producing Black Rabbit Music Festival.

After the smashing success of last year’s Black Rabbit Music Festival, event co-producers Taihe Live and Split Works are incredibly excited to formally announce that the festival will be returning for a second year. Happening in October in Shanghai, we can’t reveal the artists coming for Black Rabbit Music Festival 2012 just yet, but rest assured that they are even bigger than last year’s lineup of Ludacris, 30 Seconds to Mars, Hebe, PK 14, Yellowcard and more. We’ll leave it up to you to contemplate the possibilities.

In the meantime, re-live the magic with the official 2011 Black Rabbit Music Festival wrap video, and follow Black Rabbit on Facebook, Twitter, Douban and Weibo for all the latest updates, lineup announcements, ticketing, venue, prizes and much much more.

“Show of Peace”

OK, so in the last week, there have been a slew of comments on our “Show of Lies” post way back in January. There are only two commenters, but they are certainly sticking the boot in.

Show of Peace is an initiative by the “social entrepreneur” Rick Garson. We were hugely skeptical when it was first announced and even more skeptical when Garson himself confirmed Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas for the event at a press conference. LG and the BEP’s subsequently confirmed there were no such confirmations.

The postponed date (October 10) is fast approaching and there have been no updates to the official site. However, the commenters have drawn attention to a new producer, Jacqueline Beaudette. Said commenter is less than complimentary about Jacqueline, but sure enough, her Facebook profile features a picture of the Show of Peace logo.

We suspect this one will run and run.

Killers update…

We received this update from LiveNation clarifying the cancellation of the Asian dates vis-a-vis the ongoing shows in Australia

Dear All

I am writing in regards to the very recent and very disappointing cancellation of last months tour by The KILLERS.

We keep getting asked why they are still playing Australia ? – so to set the record straight I wanted you to know that they have not played any dates in Australia and unfortunately the first few dates down there have been cancelled due to the severity of the illness of the family member.

Here is a full statement form the band released just now:
http://www.thekillersmusic.com/story/news-live/statement_from_the_killers-1

When it is appropriate we will commence discussions about rescheduling the shows.

Many thanks
LiveNation

Massively happy Chinese New Year to you all.

Liar, liar…

Timeout in HK have been doing some heavy investigative reportage.  Things got a bit messy when American band the Torino’s, on a festive tour of Greater China, sent a press release around via their (duped?) promoters. Among other claims were:

  • They were hosted by Jack White’s imprint Third Man Records
  • Their debut release had slipped into the Billboard top 40

That big, hard to use tool, the Internet, failed to corroborate any of these claims, prompting a diligent Timeout to contact Third Man Records.  The label replied immediately that they had never heard of the band.  In fact, they gave this rather ascerbic statement:

The band The Torinos are absolutely in no way associated with Third Man Records. Nobody in our organization has ever had any contact with them, and until today I had never even heard of the band. And now that I have, I am not terribly impressed. In fact, there is little here to recommend to any label, in my opinion.

You can read more at Timeout HERE, and check out the Torino’s MySpace HERE. The lack of information on the Myspace gives clues, but big-up to Timeout for hunting this one down.

It is hard enough promoting relatively unknown international bands in China, without bands that arrive waving CVs that are full-of-shit.  Avoid these shows when they come to your town…

US clamping down?

(CelebrityAccess MediaWire via Hypebot)

This isn’t specifically about the Chinese Music Industry, but what with all the China band tours that have been happening recently (HERE and HERE), we thought it might be of interest.

Members of the touring industry warn that stricter enforcement of U.S. immigration regulations could interfere with the U.S. touring plans of international artists. According to Billboard, no new regulations have been enacted, but the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Service has begun using a much more restrictive reading of current regulations in approving visas. Formerly, artists wishing to work and tour in the U.S. needed to apply for a work visa (type “O” for solo artists or “P” for groups). The visa would then cover the artist for a period of time; up to three years for a solo artist and up to one year for a group. Additionally, a U.S.-based sponsor such as a label, manager or tour promoter was needed to apply for the visa.

Continue reading

Some big band action

If you head over to Livenation’s Asia site, you will see confirmation of the Killers live in Beijing.  They will play at GongTi Worker’s Gymnasium on the 26th January.  Tickets prices are as yet unconfirmed, but we imagine they will be ex-pen-sive…

Livenation are also promoting Karen Mok’s Original show in December (11 Beijing, 26 Shanghai).  These shows will be popular as she hasn’t toured for a while.

You can see all information at the Livenation Asia site.

In other news, it seems like Lady Gaga world domination is coming to Beijing.  Nothing is confirmed as yet, but we are expecting an imminent run of Gaga-gear in the Sanlitun YaShow markets.

The Media in China

We have a band in town this week.  They are pretty hot all around the world.  You can see them tonight in HK, Wuhan tomorrow, then Shanghai and Beijing.  Tickets are all pretty much sold out which is extraordinary for a new Western band in China.  The band polarises people.  Decide for yourself.  Details HERE.

But the reason for this post is to alert you to some quite amazing Chinglish put to Adam of Owl City in an interview today.  How would you answer it?

7. I wrote a dairy about you, which says Adam is not only the begining of human being, but also open the new era of pop music, the era using the old-school keyboards and modern electroic tones, the era which we called: Steam-Punk style, welcome! Period. What do you think about it?

UPDATE: Our resident professor of Chinglish, Morgan Awesome, has come up with this translation:

I refer to “Adam” as not only the first man in Abrahimic religions but also as “Adam” in Owl City — the man originating the style of using vintage keyboards to create new and exciting electronic textures.  An era — and if you’ll forgive me if the English translation is a little strange — we Chinese dub “Steam- Punk”

A tasty rumour for a Friday afternoon

As readers of this blog will know, we are not big fans of the Killers. Actually, we thought Hot Fuss was a pretty awesome album, but as for that singer. Well, you can read more about that HERE.

Anyhoo, an employee of a well known Music Group that owns the Nevada band’s Island Records label has let slip on a Chinese microblog that the Killers MAY play the Gongti Workers stadium in January 2010.

Watch out for it!