I can listen, I can talk

You Can Listen You Can Talk by Carsick Cars  
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11 You Can Listen You Can Talk.mp3 (4769 KB)

Last night I got to see the one Beijing band I had previously heard of, Carsick Cars. It happened to be their major tour-ending, 2nd cd-releasing blowout show. Not much of a blowout actually, just two bands. The first one had a very atmospheric, shoe-gazey thing going on, which was fine until it was punctuated by weird guitar thrashes and high-pitched wailing, along with seriously obnoxious lights (not their fault). I wasn't too into it but I had no expectations and I was psyched to see anything with a general indie reference point.

The Cars, though, were pretty good. I've heard them compared to Sonic Youth from several sources, but I didn't hear that so much at first. They played a solid 45-minute set that sounded like an average of every SST record put out in 1984 except with an overall posi (read: saccharine) vibe. Nothing groundbreaking, but very enjoyable. After this first set they made one of the least subtle "ok we're done unless you really want us to play another song" stage exits I've ever seen. The obligatory encore literally started within 2 minutes. And I was much more into it. I started to understand the SY references, this was darker and noisier. They finished one song, played a crowdsourced hit, and then left again. This time I thought there was about a 50% chance of another return. They came back 5 minutes later and did a pitch-perfect cover of my favorite Stooges song, which sealed the deal for me. Big co-sign.

After the show I explored some abandoned hutongs with a group of people who all have very cool job titles: graphic artist, urban game designer, architect, filmmaker, Artforum correspondent. Got me thinking: can I still call myself an archaeologist even if it's just to sound cool? At any rate I did employ my archaeological skillset to date the abandonment of the hutongs we were sneaking around in to ca. 1999 as there were not one, but two Matrix posters hanging within. There was a weird high school bad kid element to the whole hutong session (jumping fences after midnight to drink warm beer in an abandoned lot?), but it was fun. Topics of conversation evolved naturally from architecture to cryogenics (I think MJ's passing was somehow the mediating point). I didn't talk much, mostly listened.

Woke up feeling a bit raw from the aforementioned warm beers and my day got a little rawer when my landlord came knocking down my door to inform me that my bike had been stolen. Several people I've never met confirmed this as I walked down the one flight of stairs separating my room from the outside world. That these people knew it was my bike that was stolen and aggregated seemingly for the sole purpose of informing me of the theft was weird and, to be honest, a little suspicious, but I'll write it off as community development and chock it up as a W. The bike was, in fact, gone, which sucks.

RIP THE MIGHTY KHAN: 6/21/09 - 6/27/09

Up next: Beijing Bicycle Lock

Posted via email from Josh Feola