According to insiders, China’s ministry of culture cancelled shows scheduled for September 14 and 17 because they had discovered images of the exiled Tibetan spirtual leader hidden in the backdrop of a video used during a Bon Jovi Taiwan concert in 2010. And similar to the situation behind the recent cancellation of a Shanghai performance by Maroon 5, a member of Bon Jovi was discovered to have made a supportive tweet about the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama is a vilified figure in China accused of advocating for Tibet separatism and extremist actions. This upcoming fall marks a politically sensitive time as China celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

We all suspected he was going down in blaze of glory, but it appeared frontman Jon Bon Jovi was first going to woo China on a bed of roses. Bon Jovi had been promoting the concerts in an online video featuring him singing the Chinese love ballad The Moon Represents My Heart, as made famous by Taiwanese crooner Teresa Teng.

The band also has two upcoming performances in Macao scheduled for September 25 and 26. We’re not sure of the fate of these two shows, but seeing as it’s my life and knowing that we weren’t born to follow, hopefully the personal freedom of seeing a rock show will still carry through in these cases. But if the worst comes to pass and the likes of Bon Jovi aren’t wanted in China – either dead or alive – well then, who says you can’t go home?

And if you’re tired of the Bon Jovi puns, you’ll want to skip all these comments from Twitter today:

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We’re not entirely sure how this came about. But here it is, in all its glory.

Photo: Youku screenshots

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When The Nanfang spoke to Gary, he expressed optimism about the future of rock music in the PRD, but stressed that Shenzhen was still far behind Guangzhou, where there were more venues and more bands, and Shenzhen suffered from lack of demand for live original music. The band also includes Liang Ying, a Shenzhen-born singer and percussionist who is more influenced by Jimmy Page than Jimmy Lin. So he is confident that there is a hungry rock audience out there somewhere. He also pointed to The Nanfang’s own Rue Moyer, who is covering the most interesting music in Shenzhen on his blog.

Because the line-up includes members from Britain, Mexico and China, and has collaborated with musicians from all over, its influences are eclectic. As well as rock, their sound includes funkadelica, British folk and Balkan and Arabic fusion. Their new album is called The Zen Kick, but they also play covers when they perform live.

Rock music in China has a short but colourful history. It began to emerge in the early 1980s after Deng Xiaoping introduced reform and opening up policies. Its birthplace was in Beijing, and much of it remains underground due to censorship of lyrical content and lack of mainstream demand.

You can hear the Smiling Knives’ music here.

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3.4 out 5

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a decade since Kentucky five-piece, My Morning Jacket, released their debut LP, The Tennessee Fire. Packed full of alt-country leanings, folk, classic southern rock, and vocals recorded in a grain silo (seriously…), their impressive debut was then bested two years later with the longer, jammier At Dawn. The successful double-shot was good enough to get the band a major record deal with BMG/ATO in 2002. It was then smooth sailing until 2008’s mess of a record, Evil Urges. Though MMJ can’t be blamed for pushing the boundaries of their progressively proggy sound (see the excellent “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt.2”), Evil Urges missed far more than it hit (see the horrific “Highly Suspicious”). Thus, it was with great excitement, and by “excitement”, what I really mean is “trepidation”, that I approached their sixth LP, Circuital. The good news is that it’s better than Evil Urges; the bad news is that the critical propaganda citing “return to form” and “best record since At Dawn” is way off the mark. Immensely front-loaded, Circuital plays more like an exceptional EP that’s been stretched to a mediocre LP.

Things start off impressively. The first three tracks are sequenced perfectly, bleeding one into the other. The opener, “Victory Dance”, starts with a gong hit, organ and Jim James questioning rhetorically: “Should I close my eyes and prophesize, hoping maybe someday come?” At the conclusion of the first verse, the bass and percussion drop, resulting in the sort of slow, trudging, jammy groove MMJ have been justifiably padding their bank accounts with for sometime. While the tempo remains constant, the track’s momentum gradually builds to a huge, blown-out crescendo. Although I would have appreciated a little more of a pay-off, MMJ more than compensates on the title track. Keeping things fairly simple for the first two minutes, “Circuital” erupts with some of the best electric guitar work on the record. Critics often talk about the strength of James’ vocals, which are certainly evident here; less discussed, however, is how James is largely responsible for making extended guitar solos cool again. MMJ is famous for their impressive live jams, yet have somehow managed to do so while remaining relevant among hipsters and indie rockers alike, and, more importantly, avoiding that cheeky “dad rock” moniker. That’s quite a feat considering the band emerged in the era of stripped, lo-fi, garage rock.

“The Day Is Coming” completes the opening trio with some spacey Flaming Lips-like organ and vocal harmonies, picking up where their 2005 LP, Z left off. This gives way to the acoustic-guitar driven “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)”, one of the finer moments on the record. Road-tested with James’ side-project Monsters of Folk, “Wonderful” is a gorgeous lap steel and string-accompanied ballad that really captures the richness of James’ vocals. Moving into the second half of the record, unfortunately, is when things fall apart. “Outta My System” and its amusing drug narrative (“They told me not to smoke drugs, but I wouldn’t listen. Never thought I’d get caught and wind up in prison.”), is wrapped around Beach Boys’ layered vocal production, and pedal-steel guitar that’s derivative at best. Equally amusing, “Holdin’ On To Black Metal” is an instructional tale on the perils of, as its title infers, not growing out of Black Metal fan-dom. Somewhat ironically, the track’s arrangement is wrapped up in a brass filled, children’s choir backed, funk jam. It’s not quite as bad as Evil Urges’ “Highly Suspicious”, but it’s pretty darn close. Elsewhere, “Slow Slow Tune” has some pretty atmospherics and guitar work, but, again, for a track that has so much going on (guitars, drums, bass, organ, vocal harmonies), it somehow sounds like a kitsch rendition of a 1950’s slow-dance number.

I can’t recall the last time I listened to a record that was so front-loaded. Circuital plays like the honeymoon phase of a relationship destined for failure. All of the energy and muscle of the record’s first half all but dissipates by the fifth track. According to the band and producer, Tucker Martine, Circuital was recorded in a church gymnasium in Louisville, Kentucky in an attempt to capture the huge, live sound MMJ are so famous for. Though there are moments where I buy that argument, on the whole, Circuital simply doesn’t come close to capturing the energy of an MMJ live performance. My recommendation to you, the listener, is to download the first four tracks of Circuital and pretend it’s an EP. That way you can relive that joyous honeymoon over and over without ever having to wonder what might have been.

– Ewan Christie

Circuital is currently streaming in its entirety on MMJ’s myspace page

Follow @PRD_SpinDoctor

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4.5 out of 5

Seattle-based quintet, Fleet Foxes, had not only one of the best debut LP’s of 2008, but one of the best records…period. Following the release of the Sun Giant EP, their self-titled debut was a gorgeous collection of baroque hymnals, stunning three and four-part vocal harmonies, and a folk-rock sensibility; or, as the band themselves describe: “baroque harmonic pop jams”. Despite their antithetical mainstream compositions, Fleet Foxes’ debut resonated with both listeners and critics, going Platinum in the UK and selling over 200,000 copies in the US, an astounding achievement for a band with such a sound.

In early 2009, the band began the grueling process of rehearsing material for their follow-up, which they hoped to release by mid 2010. The trying sessions, however, didn’t go as planned and the material was scrapped, costing the band an estimated $60,000 of their own hard-earned cash. Principal singer/songwriter, Robin Pecknold, was quite candid in describing the period as a creative and personal struggle that resulted in tension within the band and the disintegration of his five-year relationship. The resulting Helplessness Blues, is a darker, more elaborate and ambitiously complex record than its predecessor. That’s not to suggest Blues is a marked departure from the debut; the boisterous tone and Brian Wilson-style arrangements are still present, but the lyrical content is all together more melancholic. Moreover, the addition of multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson to the band’s line-up brings an edginess to the arrangements that was absent from the slick-sounding debut.

Pecknold’s personal struggle is stamped all over the self-referential Blues. This is immediately clear in the first few passages of the record opener “Montezuma”: “So now I am older than my mother and father, when they had their daughter, now what does that say about me? Oh how could I dream of such a selfless and true love, could I wash my hands of, just looking out for me?” Elsewhere, on the excellent title track, Pecknold comes to terms with his own role and insignificance in the world: “I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see. And now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be, a functioning cog in some great machinery, serving something beyond me.”

Helplessness Blues certainly has more 1960s swagger than the debut record. Check-out “The Shrine/An Argument”…all eight minutes and seven seconds of it. The track opens with an arpeggiated acoustic guitar and the harshest vocal tone Pecknold has yet to employ: “sunlight over me no matter what I do” he shouts, showing a raspiness we’ve yet to hear in his voice. The track comes to a dead stop before opening-up, picking-up the pace, and transitioning into the beautiful “An Argument”. It’s one of the loudest moments on the record with crashing cymbals, a thumping kick drum and a sadness clearly metaphoric of a disintegrating relationship: “In the doorway holding every letter that I wrote, In the driveway pulling away putting on your coat, In the ocean washing off my name from your throat, In the morning, in the morning.” The crashing then subsides, and is replaced with the somber tone of Tibetan singing bowls, before being slapped with a barrage of free-form saxophones and strings. It’s an incredibly ambitious track and, though it perhaps overreaches, it’s symbolic of a band that is not afraid to take risks for growth. It’s also indicative of a frontman attempting to distinguish himself from an accomplished ensemble. Pecknold has always been the Foxes’ frontman and principle songwriter, but on Blues, he appears much more comfortable in the role. Even when stripped to its bare bones, Pecknold’s voice and lyrics present a candidness that was absent on the debut. It’s no accident that the larger than life “The Shrine/An Argument” is immediately followed by the minimalist “Blue Spotted Tail”. The only track on the record without any reverb, Spotted Tail plays ying to The Shrine’s yang. With nothing but Pecknold’s voice and guitar, it’s a wonderful moment of solace on an otherwise complex and elaborate record.

Blues closes with a song of promise; “Grown Ocean” is a tasteful, up-tempo blend of all of the things you’ve come to expect from a Fleet Foxes tune. It’s innocuous in so much as it is indistinguishable from anything off of the debut. But it shows just how easily it would have been for the band to complete another competent record void of any real growth or risk. Though Helplessness Blues lacks the immediate draw and simplicity of the debut, instrumentally and lyrically there is so much more to explore. And though they are clearly attempting to move away from American influences such as the Beach Boys and CSNY, to the less commercial British influences of Pentangle and Roy Harper (Pecknold has stated Helplessness Blues was inspired by Harper’s 1971 record Stormcock), it never seems to be contrived or plagiaristic. It may have cost them $60 large, but if the music on Blues is any indication, they should make it back ten-fold.

– Ewan Christie

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3.9 out of 5

Not to be confused with Spanish electro-pop band “Delorean”, or the infamous stainless steel paneled car of “Back To The Future” fame, Dolorean takes its name from “dolorous”, an adjective meaning grievous, or to cause pain. Considering the Portland, Oregon-based band craft songs of aching, introspective Americana in the vein of Joe Purdy and Richard Buckner, the name is rather apt. Over the last decade, Dolorean have quietly put together a respectable discography that culminated in 2007’s stellar You Can’t Win. Despite widespread critical acclaim and a lengthy European and North American tour, it failed to create the sort of commercial buzz the band (and, more notably, its label) hoped for. Rather than pack it in for good, the band went on a three-year hiatus, and parted ways with their former label before returning, with their fourth full-length album, The Unfazed. Despite lacking the raw, live approach of You Can’t Win, The Unfazed is a rewarding, more sonically diverse record than its predecessor.

Dolorean’s greatest strength remains singer/guitarist and principal songwriter, Al James. A poet in his pre-Dolorean life, James’ clean, almost whispered vocals are well matched for the band’s musical arrangements. Yet his greatest strength is his uncanny ability to combine understated yet striking melodies with impeccable lyricism. It’s this distinction that helps The Unfazed rise above typical folk/alt. country fare. Although there’s nothing particularly novel about a record recounting a relationship gone sour, James drops lines that go well beyond your run of the mill “you done me wrong”. Take the second track, “Country Clutter”, for example. The near syrupy melody and backing vocals, courtesy of Mara Lee Miller of Bosque Brown, are cut with lyrics that are anything but remorseful: “If you find anything I left behind, well you can have it. Let it clutter up your life, the way you cluttered up mine.” Even Robert Johnson rarely sounded so pissed off. And therein lies The Unfazed’s inherently contradictory sound. Although the music is wistful and the arrangements are rich, James’ lyrics feel like a sucker punch to the kidneys.

The Unfazed is a decidedly different beast to that of You Can’t Win. Though lacking the rawness found on the latter, (a by-product of its near live recording style), The Unfazed’s cleaner production has resulted in sharper arrangements. On the moody “Black Hills Gold”, the mid-tempo number is complemented with organ flourishes, fantastic drumming and some stellar electric guitar work. The same can be said for “Hard Working Dogs” where backing vocals, piano and fiddle perfectly flesh-out the mix: “Give-up this touch-up job” sings James, “there’s no way to make it pretty.” “Fools Gold Ring” contains some distressing observations on a broken relationship: “It’s just a fools coin toss”, says James. Things don’t get much better by the chorus. Juxtaposed with a dazzling pedal steel guitar line, James explains: “Even fools have needs” and “It’s just a fools gold ring.” The track is one of the more devastating moments on the record, both in its beauty and its lyrical directness.

It’s that aforementioned lyrical directness that makes The Unfazed such a pleasure to revisit. In the liner notes for You Can’t Win, James commented that the title’s philosophy had become something of a rallying cry for the band. It appears as if Dolorean have stuck with a similarly cathartic approach here. Though they may never attain the level of commercial success of some of their contemporaries, they’ve perfected a sound uniquely their own. If the worst thing that Dolorean does is to continue to churn out records as sublime as The Unfazed, I have a hunch they’ll be just fine.

– Ewan Christie

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3.9 out of 5

Bill Callahan could very well be the greatest American singer-songwriter you’ve never heard of. Callahan fans would no doubt scoff at such a suggestion, particularly considering he has been releasing a steady stream of records since 1990 (including his work recorded under the band name Smog, Apocalypse is Callahan’s 15^th LP). That said, Callahan’s work has never really cracked the mainstream, and I’m always surprised at the number of singer-songwriter aficionados unaware of his extensive catalogue. If you happen to be among them, you too may soon be singing his praises.

There’s something immediately striking about Callahan’s style. Part classic rock, part folk, part alt-country; his songs are often void of the traditional verse-chorus structure, opting instead for simple, repetitive chord progressions and fantastic lyrical phrasing. Most striking is his baritone voice. Though somewhat lacking in range, his delivery is direct and void of any reverb or other vocal effects. Listening to a Callahan record often feels like he’s sitting in your living room, telling you a story: every word is clearly articulated, and every lyric conjures vivid imagery.

As Paul Ryan’s cover art suggests, Apocalypse is a record about the American West (the painting is titled “Apocalypse at Mule Ears Peak, Big Bend National Park in West Texas”). As I was listening to Apocalypse’s seven songs, I couldn’t help but think they would have provided the perfect soundtrack to the Coen Brother’s recent screen adaptation of Charles Portis’ True Grit. Both are commentary on America’s Manifest Destiny, the Western Frontier, and of a country for better (and often for worse), in transition. Moreover, like True Grit, Apocalypse is subtle and slowly paced, yet interspersed with moments of loud violence, which is indicative of the very landscape and period it describes. The intention is apparent in the opening chords of lead-off track “The Drover”: “The real people went away” sings Callahan, accompanied by acoustic guitar, percussion and an electric guitar twang straight out of a Sergio Leone film. “One thing about this wild, wild country” sings Callahan in the chorus: “It takes a strong, strong, it breaks a strong, strong mind. And anything less makes me feel like I’m wasting my time.”

“Baby’s Breath” is a beautiful slow burner, telling the story of a man who finds a plot of land and a bride to share it with. The track constantly shifts tempo and gradually builds to a wonderful climax, courtesy of Matt Kinsey’s fantastic electric guitar accompaniment. The mood quickly changes for third track “America!”, the one jarring and divisive moment on an otherwise concise record. At times unabashedly sarcastic: “America, you are so grand and golden”, the track goes on to reference some of America’s more abhorrent acts of cultural imperialism; including Vietnam, Iran and Native America. As the country’s military representatives, Callahan cites some of his songwriting heroes by their actual rank and respective branches of the military: “Captain Kristofferson, Buck Sergeant Newbury, Leatherneck Jones, Sergeant Cash”. However, in the midst of all the military jingoism, he takes time to clarify that he himself never served his country. By the end of its 5:33 running time, if the wry, sarcasm of “America!” hasn’t caught your ear, the thumping kick drum and screaming, distorted electric guitar certainly will.

Callahan gives you a moment to relax again with “Universal Applicant” before dishing out what has to be the most beautiful moment on the record, “Riding for the Feeling.” Here the harshness of “America!” is replaced with soft brushes, melodic and understated electric guitar, and Jonathan Meiburg’s Wurlitzer. The album closes with “One Fine Morning”, a simple two-chord ballad that despite an almost nine minute running time never loses its trajectory. The track has a wonderful warmth and off-the cuff nature to it: “Yeah one fine morning, yeah it’s all coming back to me now. My apocalypse.” It’s a solid closer to a solid record.

Though much of Smog’s earlier work was often characterized as “lo-fi”, Callahan’s solo records are expertly produced, and Apocalypse is no exception. His voice is upfront and personal, and there are no production tricks, or fancy effects in sight. It’s refreshing to listen to a record where all of its collective parts are readily accessible and perfectly complementary. Gordon Butler’s fiddle, the percussion, pianos, and guitars are all clearly discernable, yet never compromise Callahan’s lyrical directness. For an artist who has been releasing music for over twenty years, the quality of Callahan’s catalogue is impeccably consistent, and one that any songwriter would be envious of. If you feel like stepping back in time, and traversing through an older, more rustic America, then Apocalypse is your record. Just don’t be surprised if you become a Bill Callahan fan in the process.

– Ewan Christie

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