An impromptu 'party' - I ran into my photographer buddy Nick O'Pix down by the lakes, so hung out with him and some of his mates prior to the show; we picked up a random American tourist en route; and then Tulsa joined us at Jiangjinjiu.
I have now seen IZ several times, and it's always a good show, always seems to include a lot of fresh material. Almost always there'll be one or two Xinjiang girls in the audience who'll get up and dance (Xinjiang girls are gorgeous, far better looking than your average Han Chinese). And the lead guy, Mamer, is an extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, with a deep, wonderfully distinctive voice; apparently he's much in demand for session work, and often hooks up with foreign musicians who come here (one of the best gigs I've seen him play, actually, was a couple of years back at a venue called the South Gate Space out in the Dashanzi 'art district', jamming with the visiting American folkie Abigail Washburn).
Despite this long familiarity with the band, I still have no idea what their name means or how to pronounce it. They always capitalize it, so perhaps it's an abbreviation. Then again, maybe it's a name or a word in the Uyghur language (Mamer, in fact, is a Kazakh). Or perhaps just a made-up nonsense word. Is it pronounced to rhyme with 'whizz', or do they favour 'Eye-zed' or 'Eye-zee'?? It's a mystery. One day, perhaps, I'll get around to asking.
Fantastic show, anyway. And another very late night.
1 comment:
Yes, I'm in love with them. They brought out my nomad blood.
Not sure what the point of going out to listen to other bands is now that I've heard IZ. Can anything else really compare? Can anything else really take me back a thousand years like they did?
ah well, if I can't have steak every night, I'll settle for hamburger, lest I die of starvation before the next steak day.
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