The first time I saw Kelli Schaefer play it was at The Know on NE Alberta. It’s rare to see a crowd of people stop talking and just listen to someone they’re not familiar with play music, especially in a town like Portland where it seems like everyone is in a band. But that night everyone stopped what they were doing and took the time to listen. I think everyone one at the show felt a little happier, walked a little lighter, and whistled a little more on the way home. I’ve been to quite a few shows since then and I’ve never been disappointed. Tonight she’s playing at The Woods on SE Milwauki. I wanted to post a song for you to listen to, but I’m having some problems because technology doesn’t seem to like me right now. So you can go here and listen for yourself.
D-22 feels a little bit like home for everyone. I walk in and I think Portland, my friend Lisa thinks San Francisco, my German friend thinks Berlin, and the Chinese people I talk to don’t think about any other place because D-22 is home. The last few times I’ve been there I’ve felt like I’m in a womb floating through the crowd listening to music and eaves dropping on conversations on my way to the bathroom. The space is appropriately dark, there’s killer a foosball table and, most importantly, there’s music.
Live music.
Guitars, amps, effects pedals, musicians sweating on stage, bands playing, people listening… not a big deal if you’re in the US, but here in Beijing a venue like this is a fairly new concept and the idea of going out to see a rock/punk show is still catching on.
- P.K.14 at D-22 photo by Matthew Niederhauser
Last week I got the opportunity to get together with Nevin Domer, D-22’s bar manager and booking agent to talk about the venue. We went out for lunch and talked while over delicious Korean food. It feels like everyone working with D-22 is doing it out of pure love. Domer is constantly working on something that in one way or another helps build the music/art community here. Michael Pettis, the owner of D-22 opened the venue in 2006 because there was no real place for bands to to play in Beijing at the time. Pettis even covers costs out of his own pocket when funds coming into the venue aren’t enough. Over the years D-22 has seen the rise of China’s most formidable musicians such as Carsick Cars, P.K.-14, and Xiao He. This month D-22’s label, Maybe Mars, is sending their bands on an East Coast tour in the US. The tour starts on November 4th at the Von in Manhattan, check here for a schedule and maybe you’ll be able to catch a show this month.
Carsick Cars at D-22 photo by Matthew Niederhauser
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Portland.
Meet Beijing.
Beijing, I’d like you to meet Portland.
I just moved to Beijing from Portland where I am surrounded by 17 million heartbeats. The city has a rhythm all its own, although it’s pretty dissonant most of the time- screaming, yelling, laughing, honking, screeching, Chinese, English, Spanish, Swahili… I walk for five minutes and my ears hear things in combinations I didn’t think were possible. The music scene here for me is undiscovered, but its revealing itself slowly. My first exposure to any music not blasting out of someone’s cell phone while I’m waiting for the bus was this crazy metal, experimental, noise band. In Chinese you would pronounce their name “Funk.” I was a little too tipsy to try to look up the character so I could know the meaning of the word, but as I write this I just realized there is no sound in Chinese that sounds like that…
Funk.
Fuck.
I guess I heard it wrong.
But I will go back to the venue and find out what they are called because it was their music that inspired me want to share the scene here with the folks back home. Starting next Friday I’m going to try to post once a week about the music out here and what the scene is like, hopefully I can find lots of good things to share with everyone, until then I just wanted to introduce myself and say hi.
Yeah.
So.
Hi.
