One of the joys of traveling in China is that you can pick up CDs and DVDs you won’t get in the capital. Like yesterday evening, on Kunming’s Wen Lin Jie shopping/café area I found a treasure trove of recent releases, including the Kaiser Chief’s latest for RMB10, about a euro. The packaging varies between provinces too. This place had some of the neatest packaging, CD cases in paper casing with nice rounded corners. There’s the mystery of the yellow sticker on CDs. Does that mean they’re the real deal, licensed imports? Technically yes.

So why the different packaging? 

A pleasant high-altitude city in the country’s southwest, not far from the Burmese border, Kunming has a thriving backpacker culture and plenty of cafes for travelers who’ve just buses or flown up from southeast Asia. Fakes CDs abound in Vietnam but tend to be poorly packaged by comparison, using paper photo copies of the original sleeves.

There are certifiably real CDs in the shop. Not as nicely packaged as the other albums, there’s Guns N Roses’ Appetite For Destruction and Coldplay’s Rush Of Blood to the head. Many other, mostly pop and lite classics (Cliff Richard is in that section) come with a “Special For China” label applied.

The choice of real albums in Chinese book store chain, Xinhua, is always curious: a lot of Sting, some Tori Amos, Roxette, and always some U2 – curiously prevalent is the lackluster seller Pop.

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The People of The Year Awards website gives some indication as to what genres they think most people will look to when casting their vote. Amongst the names mentioned are Phil Coulter, Enya, Paul Brady and Ronan Keating, all, well, nearly all, fine musicians in their own right, and all appealing to a very particular demographic, “The Mammy”, or “Female 35-50” as I’m sure she’s known to the marketing department of the awards sponsors. 

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On Sunday 15th July, Dublin will see the first Irish performance of Glen Branca's "Hallucination City: Symphony for 100 Guitars". Below is a taster of what you are likely to hear on the night. Personally, I think it is great but then I also dig Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' and Steve Reich.

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First off, the man who in my opinion is, along with his cousin Jack, one of the two lost fathers of country music, Woody Guthrie.

Now, the man who first tuned me into Woody, the Boss himself, performing a Johnny Cash favourite.

Now, the Man in Black, performing one of his greatest and darkest songs.

Next, a guy who is one of America's greatest songwriters, John Hiatt.

Finally, a guy who became a hero to me at 14 and remains so decades later, Steve Earle.

Until next time; ride hard, die hard, and keep on twangin'

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Until I saw Karen Taylor on BBC3, I thought that casting Renee Zellweger as Bridget Jones could not be bettered, now I'm not so sure. Taylor is the first English comedienne in recent years to emerge from the British club comedy scene who looks like she could steal the crown of Victoria Woods or Dawn French. The second episode of her series for BBC3, "Touch me, I'm Karen Taylor" saw her turn the Arctic Monkey's hit "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" into the sort of glitzy, big band ITV dance extravanganza that Morecombe and Wise used to lampoon so memorably. Karen Taylor is funny and sexy, one to watch, and here is a taste of her smart, modern and ribald humour courtesy of YouTube.

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The band with most influence on the Paris scene? The Libertines, who seem to have inspired the formation of half the guitar acts in the city (Plastiscines, for example, met up one of the London band's Paris concerts).

It's somehow logical, then, that the most popular band of the Paris scene sound so similar to Pete Doherty's former group.

Naast, namechecked by every young Paris band as the best of their peers, share The Libertines' raucous rough-cut garage style. In short, your attitude towards Naast will depend largely on your attitude towards The Libertines.

In a further act of imitation, this time of The Ramones, the four members use the band name as their surnames. Hence Gustav Naast the lead singer, Laka Naast on guitar, and so forth. And they also share some of Da Bruddahs' attitude (but, alas, none of their pop quality).

They do show one streak of individuality, however - they sing in French, whereas most of their fellow bands have at least a few English-language tracks.

And they can certainly walk the walk. After a recent Bordeaux gig, where a hostile crowd hurled cigarette butts and beer cans at the stage, Gustav is alleged to have attacked the 15-year-old bass player of local band Cowboys In Africa - specifically, by stabbing him in the eye and body with a fork. At the time of writing, the matter has not yet been resolved.

Not altogether ironically, one of their singles is called 'Mauvais Garçon' ('Bad Boy'). Here's the video:

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I turned on the radio this morning to Phantom FM, a station I normally don't get to listen to, and what did I hear ? A surf report giving surf conditions for Ireland! Hey, all I can say is that Sound Waves has caught the zeitgeist.

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First things first: we must shatter a popular myth - Django Reinhardt never lost any fingers. For all of his life he had the full set of ten. Look at the picture below right and count them (okay, so you can't see his thumbs).

However, what is true is that, because of injuries he sustained in a fire when he was 18, two fingers of his left hand were badly withered (due to the same incident his right leg was so badly damaged that he had to use a cane for the rest of his life). Although he depended on his two left forefingers to do nearly all his fretwork, he occasionally could use the two damaged fingers.

Disability was not the only obstacle Django had to overcome. He was a gypsy at a time (the Nazi occupation of France) when many gypsies were deported to concentration camps (the Third Reich tolerated neither ethnic minorities nor jazz). He escaped to Britain during the war with the help of a Luftwaffe officer called Dietrich Schulz-Kohn (known to his friends as 'Doktor Jazz') who was a huge fan of Reinhardt and his music. After the war he returned to France and his encampment to the north of Paris - today if you take the train between Charles de Gaulle Airport and Paris, you'll still see modern gypsy camps in the same area near the Stade de France.

Reinhardt never adapted to modern life nor sought to join the settled community. Happily for him, the modern world would, out of admiration for his astounding music, often adapt itself to him. One of our favourite Django stories (and there are loads out there) tells of the time that the Belgian royal family, huge fans of his music, invited him to dinner in their palace in Brussels. When salad was served Django ignored the cutlery and began eating with his fingers. After several seconds of stunned silence the royals, not wanting to offend him, also began eating their salad with their fingers.

Reinhardt lived his final years in Samois-sur-Seine, outside Paris, and this weekend the town honours him by hosting its annual festival of the 'jazz manouche' (or gypsy jazz) style he defined.

Django's most famous works are those from his time with the 'Hot Club de Paris', the group he and violinist Stephane Grapelli played with in the jazz bars of Saint-Germain. The recordings that Reinhardt and Grapelli made are essential listening and continue to influence artists of all genres. In particular, we loved the Hot Club Of Cowtown, a Texan trio (now split up, unfortunately) that mixed jazz manouche with country swing. Strangely enough, the English band called Hot Club De Paris plays indie-rock.

From the rare surviving footage of Django in action, here's 'J'Attendrai':

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The Live Earth concerts are on 7/7/2007. This is about the event, this is the full lineup of artists performing, and this is how you can take action to help.

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