Jess Meider: A Beijing Star

One of my favourite Beijing-based musicians, Jess Meider is great listening, just guitar and a great soulful voice that dips in and out on smartly penned numbers she’s put together in hang-outs down Beijing’s old hutong alleyways. She was down there the other night, at Yuggong Yishan to play some of her new songs. Take a listen to my favourite, So Simple, a simple acoustic job like the title suggests, on her Myspace page.

I often wonder why Beijing, for all its traffic grid-lock and ugly high rises, is such a magnet for creative westerners, who find form here. From small-town America, Meider teaches yoga in the daytime and plays gigs at night, and on Sunday afternoon jazz in several bands around town. This Berklee School graduate became a founder member of Junglecat when she moved to Beijing to learn Mandarin. Another one of those great Beijing experiences/existences and it’ll be worth going to her next gig, on August 26 at Luce Café, in hutong-land, Gulou.

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