Tag: The Jing

Stevie Mac & The Mac Daddies – Debut performance

Stevie Mac and The Mac Daddies

Once upon a time about a few months ago, Steven did not have his Daddies. This show was The Mac Daddies first! “First time is always terrible” didn’t really apply, cus tey owned that fucking stage! BIG TIME. The crowd was so committed!

Steven could have had them do anything, I thought to myself when he had do the du-du-du-du-du-du-du-du intro for a few minutes to Uptown Funk. But they trust him and he wouldn’t abuse that to humour himself. Simply because he is a good guy. I judge him being good by the ridiculous amount of love he gives his English students. So proud of them all – as if they were his own. Yuck! Disgusting! Right?! It’s so cute I wanna puke.

A feeling of dissatisfaction with what he was singing already in The Avengers of Music, and the urge make music closer to what he actually listens to, rather than what others listen to, was where it all started. This overwhelming feeling of wanting to do more! Something bigger! Something better! Something amazing! Not to feed an ego, but to keep a promise to ones younger self. As a boy he wanted to start “Steven and The Rockers”. Singing in the Avengers didn’t quite satisfy “Little Steven”. I suppose it was that little boy in him that actually made him to move on. I imagine Steven sitting frustrated shouting at this little boy in his head who should have been happy already a year ago. Cus Steven was in a bandm, he was singing, all the in the China. But it wasnt enough. “ALRIGHT LITTLE STEVIE! I will start another band! Just shut up!”…

Time goes by… Lil’ Stevie waits and waits…

The finally 1 day, DEBUT PERFORMANCE at 4 Corners – Stevie Mac & The Mac Daddies! Posters, wechat, Facebook shares results in fuck loads of people and high energy on stage and dance floor!!!
Little Stevie nods with a smerk and goes “I could not have done it better myself” And finally, he shut his trap. The end.


Note: Steven and The Rockers would be a friggin awesome band name aswell.

Bye Bye Kitty at Kokomo

BYE BYE KITTY

BYE BYE KITTY

90’s COVERS PLAYED WITH HONESTY

BBK at Kokomo Sanlitun
Jeff, Rich, Jon and Cian are not the same age, but you might think so when seeing them live.

Cian brings the calm, cool and collected. Rich the energy (obviously), Jeff the power and Jon the most important instrument. The drums! I’ve seen em live many times and every time it feels like the first, because there is no repetitive pattern and they always bring their best. No matter if they are happy with the sound system the venue has provided or not, no matter how much frustration they have had to deal with during the day; they will play as if they are the last fucking band in the world.

Cian plays in a few bands actually and Jon bakes cookies on the side. Jeff knows how to rap and Rich seems to be on every freaking cover of every freaking magazine all the freaking time. I met him in Wudaouko last year at Lush during Lush Rush, when I working there as photographer (for tab). We shared a cab back to the centre of Beijing together and decided to stay in touch. I suppose we because we both figured that the other one might come in handy one day. Then I ended up shooting their show at VA bar a long time after we met, and my best shot from that night ended up on their poster for this gig at Kokomo. Its funny how the cookie crumbles…

Through that Lush Rush gig, I met a lot of great people, some bad as well to be honest. Luckily though, these guys aint the bad ones, and the bad ones doesnt take up as much of my time as the good ones.

Irish Wave 798 Exhibition

Niamh Cunningham

150th Birthday of W.B Yeats, the first Irish noble prize winner. Irish Wave is an annually returning project promoting cooperation between Chinese and Irish artists, containing exhibitions and talks. This years theme was a poem called Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats. The national poet of Irland.

I was lucky to meet and greet with one of the featured Irish artists, Niamh Cunningham, at the Irish Ball. We chatted a bit and I found out that the painting I had been starring at was her doing; and that she had given it to the charity auction. The word “flood” had to be removed from the original title because Chinese customers are usually very spiritual and wants nothing to do with any floods. She told me all about Irish Wave and invited me to the last guided tour at their exhibition at Inter Art Gallery in 798, Mars 22. Inter Art is mainly a photography exhibition gallery, but they make exceptions sometimes. There she invited me to the Irish Embassy’s Yeats Poetry Night, which turned out to be fantastic. My Irish friend Fionn warned me that a Yeats night might get dark, since his poetry is really heavy. I love the guided tour, I love the Yeats night, it was great to be apart of that scene for a while and just dive in to Irelands beautiful culture.

“Painting is silent poetry.
There is a picture in every poem, poetry in every paiting.”
– Mr.Fu Hao

Little Adoption Shop

Jack

Today we started a photography project. I call us The Dogoods, but it is no official name. We do not really have a name for our project either, but it is leaning towards something like “An ounce of exposure”.
What we are doing is raising peoples awareness to certain important causes through beautiful photography. First out is The Little Adoption Shop. This is a non governmental dog shelter in Beijing, housing 300 dogs. It is run strictly out of love and empathy by Chris and Paul, who lives with these dogs full time. Paul starts every morning with patting every single dog on its head saying “Good morning”. He takes 80 dogs out for walks every day, cleans the floors twice, feeds them all and gives the occasional baths. We will through our photography try to have as many dogs as possible adopted in Beijing, and ship at least 5 of the big ones to US, since they are not allowed in here.

This shelter has gone though a lot. It aint an easy task to take care of 300 individuals while it feels like everybody around you is trying to make it difficult. Landlords kicking them out after big and costly renovations, neighbours complaining about dogs barking, finding space for all the animals coming in and the list goes on. What they are doing is unselfish and simply beautiful. Imagine spending your whole days taking care of dogs with heartbreaking backstories, uncurable healthconditions and different needs to see to. Every dog that comes in is more work and more expenses, every dog that gets adopted is a heartache because you have grown to love this furry forlegged friend.

You cant even imagine can you? These guys though, Paul and Chris, they are doing it. They are heroes and deserve much more than they get for themselves. Warmhearted people are the ones who are not elbowing their way through life, so they dont get as much as the nasty ones who do. At the same time as they have made their choice and they are aware of the consequences, we can still give them a little reward.

We can make a small donation of our time to help them walk the dogs or clean the floors, bring a bag of chewy toys or an old leash we dont need anymore. What we have to do to help to boils down to one small simple matter. Care. All we have to do is care.