the Beijinger

Despite the fact that big international bands keep failing to make it here (by "big" I mean famous, not necessarily good), promoters are still trying their best to bring quality acts to Beijing. Krautrock trio The Secret Machines and singer-songwriter Julie Doiron are playing tonight at Yugong Yishan and 2 Kolegas, while Zuoxiao Zuzhou performs his first solo in eight years at Century Theater. On Saturday, Japanese synth punk band Triple Nipples drive into 2 Kolegas for a night of god-know-what-would-happen. On other sides of the town, French folk duo Vialka and world music group Dawanggang jam at Tiny Salt Coffee club, whereas Low Wormwood frontman Liu Kun releases his solo debut at D-22 with supports from some of Beijing's best folk musicians. Heavy weekend for live music, so take out your wallet now, you know musicians need money more than faith to keep rocking.

The net is abuzz with chat about The Beijinger’s Annual Restaurant Award results which were officially published yesterday morning – here’s a roundup of online reactions.

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Not to get Nietzschean on everyone, but life is a series of senseless motions, random happenstances and chance encounters, requiring someone special to parse into moments that matter and those that don’t. That’s the artist’s gift to us. Attending Julie Doiron’s songwriting workshop this Friday (March 19) won’t necessarily give you this power overnight, but it certainly won’t hurt.

"My brother Andrew lives in Beijing and I am excited to visit him again!"
- Brandon Curtis

Before conducting this interview with The Secret Machines (www.myspace.com/secretmachines), I went through all their albums – days later, the psychedelic thunderstorm of “First Wave Intact” and the innocent love story in “Alone, Jealous & Stoned” are still living in my head. As the band prepares to tour Beijing (Mar 19) and Shanghai (Mar 20), we talked to Brandon Curtis, vocalist/keyboardist/bassist, about the music that brought them to this point.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone who’s actually Irish. For everyone else, it’s just a normal Wednesday and you should be hard at work and not thinking at all about going out on a school night. Not without a good excuse anyway. What's that you say? Your dog's Irish? That'll do, let's go and get smashed. If you’re out to celebrate the land that gave the world the likes of Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Roy Keane, Bono, B*Witched and Colin Farrell, here’s what’s going on in Beijing tonight:

Following our breaking of the news that Beijing’s Show of Peace had been postponed last week, the Global Times managed to obtain some additional comment from organizer Rick Garson, published in today’s paper.

Mao Mao Chong has settled swiftly following its relocation from Wudaoying Hutong.

Yesterday (March 16) saw the best of Beijing’s culinary talent gather at Joy Luck for the Beijinger’s 7th Annual Reader Restaurant Awards, the capital’s oldest and most credible dining awards. 191 Beijing restaurants were nominated across 35 categories, and over 5,000 votes were collated to come up with this year’s results. Hosted by the wonderful Dominic Johnson-Hill of Plastered 8 T-shirts and Beijing personality Ai Wan, the awards attracted a diverse crowd of revelers as they rolled on through the afternoon.

So, without further ado, the winners are…