Wednesday, June 29, 2011

China Visual Festival - Documentary Films



Looks like an interesting festival, check out: http://chinesevisualfestival.org/
All this weekend in London.

Monday, June 27, 2011

New Mix - DJ set from Electric Sheep Anthology Launch



Here are the tunes I played at the launhc party for The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology earlier this month. A lovely book with articles on cult and world cinema and some great illustrations too. My favorite is a full page illustration of Gong Li's face taken from the shot at the end of the Zhang Yimou movie Ju Dou.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Back on the turntables! Fri 29th July



I am pleased to announce I will be DJing at the lovely bar Mango Landin' in Brixton on Friday 29th July. I will be spinning my usual mixture of vintage vinyl 45s of various genres: 60s Hong Kong pop, sound tracks, Reggae, Ska, Rocksteady, 60's Soul, Rhythm n Blues, Lounge and Cha Cha Cha!

Not a Lucky Cat night as such so there won't be any Asian snacks but Mango Landin' do have a BBQ style restaurant garden area for delicious jerk chicken etc. The cocktails are pretty good too (mango mojitos mmm). Come early for food, I start playing at 9pm and won't stop till I drop (around 3am). Dress up in your qipaos and get ready to skank to some Chinese Reggae.

Directions, menus etc on the Mango Landin' web site: www.mangolandin.net

I doctored this great propaganda pic for the flyer,turns out Mao was very fond of mangoes, read more here .

Ai Wei Wei @ Somerset House



I was very pleased to hear the news that Ai Wei Wei had been released (on bail) yesterday. In an earlier post I mentioned all not being a bowl of ju-jube berries when I visited China. The media control in society was difficult to swallow for me and I really felt it whilst I was there as when I visited Hong Kong Ai Wei Wei had just been arrested and it was all over the media. When I entered back into mainland China it was Ai Wei Who? I didn't see anything in the media at all. I'm sure young people were talking about it in code online but the air was strangely silent. I also had not realised the still marked difference between Hong Kong and mainland China media.

Here are some photos of my visit to the Ai Wei Wei sculpture exhibit at Somerset House in London last month. I thought it really suited the setting and I enjoyed my visit tremendously (as did my little 'kitten' who you can see splashing around in the fountains).

If you haven't been there are only a few days left so make a plan and visit!:
www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/ai-weiwei-circle-of-animals-zodiac-heads

See also:
Further article on Ai wei wei's release



Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Excellent Radio Piece on Flutist Guo Yue

Heard this by chance on BBC Radio 3 the otehr day. A very nice interview with flutist Guo Yue who grew up during the Cultural Revolution in China. You can listen again via the iPlayer if in UK:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011txy8/Between_the_Ears_On_the_Rubble_of_My_Home_I_Played_My_Flute/

Also check out this Youtube clip:


You can buy his 2006 CD Music, Food and Love and find out more at Real World Records.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Lucky Cat Mixes on Mixcloud

I've decided to start using Mixcloud as uploads are unlimited! I will be posting up mixes from my vinyl collection and delving deep into the Lucky Cat archives. Hope you enjoy listening.