Picking up a copy of the 'new' That's Beijing magazine last night I found more (not unexpected) proof of the awfulness of local English-language media produced by local publishers who ought to know better. That's Beijing used to be produced by a US-run firm called True Run Media, and they did a decent job of listing all the worthwhile events, restaurants, bars etc in the city. They also ran some good writing on local art, music and literary scenes.

When their Chinese government-run partner/sponsor handed the magazine to a local firm - China Electric Power Media - its former publishers (True Run) relaunched as The Beijinger. They also took the writers and advertising, by the looks of the 'new' That's Beijing. It's mostly filled with over-written cliche pieces on pub crawls, weekend lunches and shopping outings in Beijing, interespersed with ads for spas and hotel bars. There's one worthhile article, on the founders of D-22, the rock bar in the university district of Wudoukou. Nothing in it though about how the bar has been told it can't have live music during the Olympics: local authorities gave them the choice of either selling drink or having music, and the proprietors have put concerts on ice till September.

The Beijinger - which has a couple of well-written pages on how the Olymics shut down on live outdoor venues is effecting the local rock scene - is edited by foreigners for foreigners. Hence it's what foreigners read, and where they go to advertise.I never stop wondering at Chinese publishers' preoccupation with the country's expatriate community - especially given that Russians, Koreans and Japanese make up the bulk of Beijing's expats and many don't even read English. Native English speakers/readers meanwhile would be hard pressed to maintain interest in what a magazine like That's Beijing - now written by Chinese for foreigners - puts out. There's nothing about rock music or anything else recommendably alternative in Expat, a new title focused at expatriates. Only advertorial and ads for watches, malls and yes, spas and hotel bars, in this title of heavy glossy pages.

Here's what happens to people who write about worthwhile, unwritten issues in Beijing. A cameraman for Czech TV on assignment near the north Korean border says undercover police searched his room, seized four videotapes and went through his computerafter he conducted interviews with North Korean refugees. Officials at the Chinese Foreign Ministry quizzed him for two hours, perused his computer and camera memory cards, then threatened the journalist with a deportation order, on the grounds that he "funding and planning the storming of 'foreign offices' in Beijing. His story is one of many of police harassment of reporters tackling issues - don't expect to read about in the 'new' That's Beijing or Expat magazines.

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It's s so hard to get a good quote from anyone in Beijing these days. A reporter is unlikely to get anything more than the obvious from company spokespeople: they’re so scared of saying something that could be interpreted as negative by super sensitive local authorities. Here’s a sample of a reply I got to 5 questions I emailed to a local real estate developer that’s just opened a luxurious apartment complex in the centre of Beijing that’s too expensive for 95 percent of the local population.

“Obviously, Beijing will become a test field for many world class architectural dreams. Beijing strives for the best and it is my hope that whatever develops will be good for the city. Each building need not stand out on its own, but rather should contribute to the fabric of the city and serve the people it is meant to serve. No matter developer or architects, we must never lose sight of the human being. That is how we will keep our profession most relevant in the future. Quality is the foremost issue related to humanistic approach.”

My original questions related to how environmentally friendly the new building is, the quality of the construction and the chances that the real estate market will collapse after the Olympic Games next month. The gunk I got in reply doesn't serve the media-hungry company since now I'm not going to write anything about them.

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July 14 may well be the birthday of modern France, but modern French people prefer to celebrate July 12. Ten years ago today, the French football team won the World Cup, beating Brazil 3-0 in the final in Paris.

Even for non-football fans, this date now carries enormous emotional weight. The French side that night was a multicoloured mix of black, white and north African origins - an accurate cross-section of French society. Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme-right Front National, had bemoaned the excess of non-white players in the French squad - completely misjudging the mood of the moment. There were optimistic hopes that the exploits of Zizou and co. would slay the beast of French racism.

This optimism was cruelly shattered in 2002. In that year's presidential election, five million French people voted for Le Pen and put him into the second round run-off against Jacques Chirac. As for les bleus, their World Cup defence was a disaster and they came home from South Korea after the first round.

Tonight at the Stade de France, scene of that famous victory a decade ago, the 1998 squad will play against an international selection managed by Arsène Wenger and Hristo Stoitchkov.

For French people, one piece of music evokes those dizzy heights of le douze juillet. Yes, football fans here get all misty-eyed whenever they hear that old disco classic, "I Will Survive".

Why has a feminist anthem from the 1970s become the theme to France's 1998 World Cup win? Well, anyone who's ever attended a French international rugby match will have heard a brass band in the crowd, playing 'La Marseillaise' and other motivational tunes. During the 1998 World Cup in France, these sports-loving musicians took to playing the trumpet refrain from a 1995 cover of Gloria Gaynor's hit, by the Hermes House Band. The French trumpeteers would throw in a few "Olé!" flourishes and break into a can-can rhythm, all to entertain the crowds.

It caught on, and soon French fans were singing along in "la-la-la" style and repeating that one line all through the night. By the time Didier Deschamps lifted the trophy, that single line embodied the joy and celebration of a nation.

Even today, if you find yourself at a French party or campsite and you wish to break the ice, just start singing the trumpet break to "I Will Survive". Here's the Hermes House Band version that captured the imagination of all France:

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The 2006 follow-up, ‘No Promises’, fared less well. Musical versions of works by some of world literature’s most celebrated poets, including W.B. Yeats and Emily Dickinson, the songs were formulaic rehashes of Bruni’s successful style.

Since then, Bruni has kept a hermit-like low profile, avoiding all publicity and carefully keeping her private affairs out of the media spotlight. We can’t remember hearing her name at all in the last year.

Oh, apart from marrying the President of France.

Bruni (she’s using her own name for her album) insists that most of the tracks on her album were written before she had even met Nicolas Sarkozy. This hasn’t dissuaded the trawl for Sarko-references in her lyrics. For instance: The first single is called ‘L’Amoureuse’! And she’s married! To him! So it’s about him! And so forth.

In truth, there’s nothing on this record that wouldn’t appear on any other romantically-inclined MOR folk-pop album.

By contrast, left-leaning newspaper Libération called the record “bad” and “inaudible” (in the sense that you can’t listen to it, not that you can’t hear it). But Les Inrockuptibles, the politically-engaged culture magazine that regularly runs anti-Sarko covers, gave the album a qualified thumbs-up and noted its debt to the similar-sounding folk-pop of Françoise Hardy. And while the current President of France never got a mention, there was a reference to one of his predecessors, Georges Pompidou. Of course, that could be an ‘Inrocks’ ploy to whip up feeling among its readers. You see? This record was always going to be overwhelmed by its context.

So, when a convoy of motorcycle policemen pulled up to Chateau French Letter with our review copy in a diplomatic pouch and made us sign the Official Secrets Act, your blogger had to try hard to focus on the music. We made our scrunched-up concentrating face and listened. And… we gave a French shrug. It’s light, airy uncontroversial MOR acoustica à la française. There’s more instrumentation (strings, wind, synths) than on her debut, but other than that Bruni is sticking to her formula.

The album will get a worldwide release with the title ‘Simply’. Until then, you can listen to tracks from it on Carla Bruni’s MySpace page, which she no doubt updates every evening at the Elysées Palace. Here’s the video for ‘L’Amoureuse’:

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Slacking off as usual, your Paris correspondent didn’t go to day two of Solidays. Because we live near the festival site, we felt complacent. Two hours of queuing tend to dampen one’s enthusiasm for standing in a field. Speaking of damp, the weather forecast was bad. And the line-up wasn’t much better. The one exception was MC Solaar, who we hear put on a blistering show of his greatest hits.

We were saving ourselves for what, if Sky Sports held the rights to French music festivals, Richard Keys would no doubt have been calling Super Grand Slam Solidays Sunday. Getting up at the crack of noon, we dashed over to Longchamps in fear of another stretch in the queues. As it happened, we strolled through the gate in all of two seconds. And the weather was fantastic. (It was raining in Eire. But then again, isn’t it always?)

In terms of seeing favourite bands, Friday had been a bust. Sunday was different. First up, young Grenoble trio Rhesus. Our regular readers will recall how we have nothing but encouragement for them and any other French band ploughing the lonely furrow of ‘la pop anglaise’. They clearly love ‘Disintegration’ by The Cure for its lovelorn sincerity and charming melodies. While there’s some way to go yet before they hit such dizzy creative heights themselves, they have potential.

Indie cred topped up for the day, your blogger dashed over to another tent for some trashy pop thrills. We have a soft spot for the dayglo disco-pop of Yelle. It’s pure kitsch, but so what? It’s great fun. Yelle herself, only recently discovered on the Internet, performs with the wide-eyed wonder of a normal young girl whose dreams of stardom have just come true. Her energy, colour and cheekiness are hard to resist; her current hit ‘Je Veux Te Voir’ goes “I want to see you/In a pornographic film/to know everything about your anatomy”. How do you follow that?

Well, with Foals, as it happened. We were impressed by their debut album, ‘Antidotes’, and found they shared Vampire Weekend’s cosmopolitan vibes. Alas, their live show feels like a rather tedious jam session. The band members were facing each other instead of the crowd, and what sounded like grooves on record felt like ruts on stage. A pity.

For the indie kids at Solidays, the weekend’s climax was Sunday night’s show by The Gossip. And it was as good as a fireworks display.

Herself (left) was in top form. Dressed in her underwear and wrapped in what looked like a lace curtain from your granny’s bedroom window, Beth Ditto padded barefoot around the stage like a lioness. But all was not well; there were tears in paradise. “I shaved my eyebrows without any water,” she explained, “and now they burn!” She bravely surmounted her suffering and inspired her troops to an intoxicating performance, mixing funk and rock the way teenagers mix cider and lager.

Granny took her drapes back; for the encore Ditto came out in underwear and with a towel wrapped around her head. She sung “Standing In The Way Of Control” from down the front of stage, pressing the flesh with the first row of punters. Set finished, she scaled a speaker stack to soak up the adulation.

Here's Beth Ditto onstage with The Gossip at Solidays in Paris last Sunday night:

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Surfing on Second Life is a (virtual) reality, according to an article on Surf Nation.

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I always enjoy chatting with the inimitable and irrepressible Yang Yu, founder of www.rockchina.com. He titles himself 'webslave' on his business card. Another of his roles however is founder-manager of Painkiller, China's admirably successful metal magazine. Painkiller has been turned into a cottage industry of gigs and merchandising by mild-mannered and helpful Yang, and the experience has made him one of the more forthcoming and infomed go-to people on the local industry scene.

Proof that there’s a market for music, even gothic metal in China. The German band Lacrimoso was the biggest earner: 1,000 local fans paid up to RMB670 (VIP tickets) to see the German metallers in Beijing’s Star Live. The organizers only cleared RMB4,000 profit (after paying band flights, hotels and visas) but that’s more than normal: “it’s so hard to make a profit, we usually only break even.”

Yang’s own festival, Metal Battle, has been affected: Canadian and German artists couldn’t get visas. After Bjork’s pro-tibet chant during her concert in Shanghai this year the local government culture bureau which gives out performance licenses and approves visas has played things extremely safe and effectively barred any shows – certainly anything outdoors till after the Olympic Games. They’re worried about protests or similar outbursts by visiting artists.

Nothing is said directly – the local police met with Midi chief organizer to effectively tell him it was off, only a week before the festival. The face-saving official reason was a train crash near Beijing and thus worries about youths travelling to the show. There was a vague compromise suggested: the festival would happen in October, unhindered. That has apparently, and understandably, annoyed the organizers of the separate Modern Sky festival, timed for October. Now they’ll be squeezed together and cash-strapped students will likely be forced to choose between one.

Local organizers have shaved any foreign names off planned events – indoors or outdoors – for fear of the show being shut down entirely. The shutdown period may be a time for reflection for everyone: Yang believes the local foreigner gig presence may if anything have grown too fast too soon.

Foreign bands want to come to China for the same people run marathons: to tick it off the list of challenging things to do. But China is not that challenging: small punk bands come on tourist visas and play dive bars on a seven day train tour of China’s largest cities, do a youtube video and a blog on their website. They won’t earn much but they don’t spend much either: hotel rooms can be had for 10 euros in most Chinese cities.

Yang is sure the Rolling Stones didn’t make any money off their gig in Shanghai last year: to get the symbolically important gig and the headlines that went with it (the band’s 2003 gigs were cancelled by the onset of SARS) the Stones dropped their fee and settled for a smaller indoor venue. Unfortunately only about 5 percent of the crowd was Chinese - the rest couldn't afford or bother to go.

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CODES (live in The Academy, Dublin)

Review Snapshot:  CODES have once again proven themselves to be one of Ireland's finest live acts on a night that ended all too soon.

The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10

Full Review:
When you have to virtually swim to a gig during the first weekend of July you realise two things; one, you should probably find somewhere else to live and two, you must really like the band you're going to see.  However, sometimes a band can be so good they stop you from packing your suitcase and instead provide you with a shelter so satisfying you can ignore the odd storm.

Opening the proceedings were Tidal District, an appropriate name given the monsoon like conditions that swept Dublin on Saturday night.  Unfortunately for the band, the venue was virtually empty at this stage, with less than twenty people in a room capable of holding 30 or 40 times that amount. Unperturbed, Tidal District entertained those of us who had ventured in early with a complex melodies and a strong rhythm section, all nicely complimented by the vocal jousting of Gary Donald and Noel Duplaa.  It worked well for the most part but their style of song structure (soft, loud, soft, loud, chant, loud, end) waivers perilously close to becoming repetitive.  That being said, giving it your all in front of such a small crowd deserves plenty of kudos.

Thankfully, the audience numbers had increased significantly by the time CODES appeared on stage.  By blasting into their set with the anthemic This is Goodbye and Guided by Ghosts the band ensured the audience would be nothing but captivated.  Our Mysteries, Memorial and Edith were all complimented by excellent lighting work and the sound in The Academy continues to impress. 

It is difficult to describe CODES in terms of other Irish bands because there is nobody like them.  The more I see of the band, the more I'm convinced that they are a band destined for greatness and deserve to perform to venues much bigger than The Academy.  It's the kind of music that summer festivals and stadium venues were designed for; grandiose sonic landscapes painted in painstakingly minute detail.

In fact, the only fault I could find with the entire gig was that it was all over by 10.30.  Yes, 10.30 on a Saturday night when surely there are no curfews in place?  It's becoming a more common feature of Irish gigs and is a worrying trend for those of us who like our music to drift into the early hours of the morning.  However, it's hard to fault CODES for this as I'm sure it was a decision by the venue. 

Overall, a good gig was only slightly tainted by such an early finish.  If there is any justice in the world, CODES will be the big Irish winners at this weekends Oxegen festival.  If you're going, be sure to check them out.

Steven O'Rourke

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For those who arrived at the site entrance on Friday afternoon, it will come as a surprise to learn that the festival had organisers. No matter what time one landed in Longchamps that day, most people spent TWO HOURS in the queue to get in. A few people fainted in the warm sunshine and had to be treated by medics.

On the logic that we could probably see the French band soon enough again, we went for the visiting group.

Then something happened. Vitalic (right) decided to ease off the big beats, and he dropped a funky little bassline. The thousands gathered there suddenly turned on him. Boos, whistles, cat-calls, thumbs-down: we’ve seen and done it at football matches but it was our first experience of seeing a live performer seriously getting the bird. Perhaps festival audiences, wandering like window-shoppers from field to tent to back-of-lorry, are a more fickle bunch.

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In order to pick its favourites, Key Notes relied quite a bit on google, wikipedia and, most importantly, this one.  Here are his choices in list form:

1982 – Prince – 1999
1983 – U2 – War
1984 – Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain
1985 – Kate Bush – Hounds of Love
1986 – Paul Simon – Graceland
1987 – Prince – Sign ‘O’ The Times
1988 – Public Enemy – It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
1989 – Neil Young – Freedom
1990 – Depeche Mode – Violator
1991 – Nirvana – Nevermind
1992 – Soul Asylum – Grave Dancers Union
1993 – The Flaming Lips – Transmission From The Satellite Heart
1994 – REM – Monster
1995 – Elliott Smith – Elliott Smith
1996 – Rage Against The Machine – Evil Empire
1997 – Radiohead – OK Computer
1998 – Elliott Smith - XO
1999 – The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin
2000 – Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast
2001 – Ryan Adams – Gold
2002 – The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
2003 – New Pornographers – Electric Version
2004 – Interpol - Antics
2005 – Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
2006 – Joanna Newsom – The Y’s
2007 – The National - Boxer 

Some notes regarding the above:

Though most people have gone for Thiller in 1982, Key Notes isn't a fan.

There are a number of Flaming Lips and Elliott Smith records in there but both have been a huge influence on Key Notes musical development and so he makes no apologies for having more than one entry.

Key Notes hasn't chosen an entry for 2008 because he believes the best record of the year is still to come, though it probably won't be Chinese Democracy.

'How can you not include Funeral by Arcade Fire?' you ask.  Key Notes hasn't listened to Funeral since while Antics is still on the playlist.

So, that's been Key Note's day wasted, fill in your favourite albums in the comment box below.

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