Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Recommended Posts, April-June 2011

A selection of favourites from the middle of last year (a relatively quiet spell on here)...



Guided Tour - recommended posts from the 2nd quarter of 2011


1)  Weekend Musical Interlude  -  1st April 2011
Middle Eastern musician Abaji visits Beijing with his amiable style of 'world music'; I offer a micro-review, and a couple of nice YouTube clips of his playing.


2)  Is it really that easy?  -  8th April 2011
An intriguing discovery from a recent holiday in Malaysia: a cheap knock-off 'whisky' with a beguilingly simple recipe.


3)  The Parting Glass  -  9th April 2011
Another in my 'Great Drinking Songs' series: three great versions of the poignant Scots/Irish leaving song.


4)  The Beatles, but not as we know them  -  23rd April 2011
Another musical oddity - a version of Come Together performed by Siberian folk-rock throat-singing band Bugotak.


5)  It's déjà vu all over again  -  25th April 2011
I lose patience with the annual farce of The Beijinger magazine's Bar & Club Awards... and offer up my own shortlist of contenders (not actually bars that I like myself, but the bars which would be appropriate for consideration for such an award). I later nominated some more detailed 'alternative awards' here and here.


The May holiday brings the first of the year's outdoor music festivals in and around Beijing... but I find I'm not enthused this year.


7)  The worst pool tables in the world?  -  12th May 2011
The chance discovery of some spectacularly grotty outdoor pool tables (long a rarity in Beijing) reminds me of some of my earliest experiences of playing pool in China.


8)  HBH 233  -  13th May 2011
One of my better haiku, celebrating the sublime meditativeness sometimes achieved on the long stagger home.


9)  Skipping the Party  -  28th May 2011
This year, I gave the 2 Kolegas Birthday Party a miss. For a long time it was my favourite live music venue in the city, but lately I'd been losing the love.


10)  Saving a tailspin  -  30th May 2011
A really horrible day is surprisingly redeemed by a chain of improbable experiences in the evening - such is Beijing life! (And here's a more thorough example of the sort of fortuitously wonderful day I sometimes enjoy here.)


11)  Wisdom of the Froog  -  7th June 2011
Some more of my insight in the matter of hangovers...


12)  How to hold a music festival (or not)  -  9th June 2011
The new Kama Love Music Festival was - even by Beijing/China standards - one of the most spectacularly ill-organized I have ever experienced. At least it provided me with a template for how one ought to do things right at these events.


13)  More musical magic  -  21st June 2011
I am bewitched by a recital by the lovely Lan Weiwei, a virtuoso of the pipa (Chinese lute), at The Bookworm, and turn up this YouTube video of a masterclass of hers.


14)  Dazed and, er, 'feasted'  -  28th June 2011
A celebration of the superb party which was the inaugural 'dazeFeast one-day music festival at 2 Kolegas (and some thoughts on the superiority - for all concerned - of free gigs).


15)  Mogwai!  -  29th June 2011
My slushy side is revealed by the impromptu rescue of the world's ugliest kitten.


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