If the early bird were ever to catch a worm, it would be in May. Nine music festivals start on or before the first of the month, and if you haven’t kept abreast of things here at www.thebeijinger.com, you may have snoozed and lost.

But perhaps you’d heard news of these goings-on before the holiday weekend: transmitChina/2009 Midi Nights at The Star Live, metal festivals at 13 Club and New Get Lucky, D-22’s third anniversary party, the Ditan Park Music Festival, Modern Sky’s Strawberry Festival and the Zebra Festival in Chengdu.

You may notice no full-blown Beijing Midi Festival this year. Sad, but true. It seems the school has opted to take the action to Zhenjiang (May 1-3), and Beijingers will just have to make do with a local collaboration with transmitChina. (If you fancy the trip to Jiangsu, however, you’d catch exclusive appearances by Cui Jian, Spring Autumn and Twisted Machine. More at www.midischool.com.cn.)

And yes, we’re aware the Zebra Festival doesn’t take place in Beijing either, but it might as well, seeing as a substantial chunk of the 50-plus artists billed are local – Brain Failure, SUBS, Hedgehog, The Gar, etc. It would have been easier on the bands, too, if Zebra had gone down around town, as some of these folks will be performing back-to-back nights in different cities.

Such is the life of a rock star: to satisfy the demands of us patrons. So if you can’t make it down south or out west for the long weekend, you can probably catch individual bands somewhere in town during the month. And you don’t have to be in Sichuan to get in on the philanthropic vibes – Yugong Yishan will host their own memorial concert for the victims of last year’s earthquake on May 12. This event will be a follow-up to last month’s “Charity Folk Concert for Blind Children,” which featured the similar line-up of Zhou Yunpeng, Wang Juan and folks.

May is also good to those who are fond of hip-hop, electronica, jazz and world music, i.e. the week-long NineGates Jazz Festival, Los Angeles underground hip-hop trio Ugly Duckling and esoteric instrumentals from Ratatat. But the biggest surprise is probably the late announcement of seminal UK band Sham 69’s tour of China (see photo, above). Catch the punk legends on May 9 at The Star Live.

Lastly, as we celebrate music this month, let us also celebrate the life of a man who loved music – Ian Sherman, Beijing-based music promulgator and critic, who passed away on April 8 after a long battle with cancer. We have a hunch he might appreciate, instead of a moment of silence, that in his honor you crank the volume up full blast.