The Four Represents

The Four Represents

Author: Jon Campbell

Publication: "Foreign Devil" column at PopMatters

Publication date: 23 February 2005

url: http://www.popmatters.com/music/columns/campbell/050223.shtml

Article describing the New Get Lucky bar, the 13 Club Beijing, a so called "the International Holiday Club" and the Midi Music Festival.

Abstract

Weekends are for rock shows at Get Lucky, Beijing's best-known live music venue. There's always some kind of show at Get Lucky, but most other nights it's a Filipino cover band, a flamenco-meets-Central-Asian-Gypsy-Kings-wannabe act, or a couple of guys singing very bad pop songs along with karaoke CDs. Get Lucky isn't exactly in a rock 'n' roll neighbourhood: To get there, you have to walk through a strip mall of high-end restaurants and cookie-cutter lounge bars. There are two doors to Get Lucky, both at the front: You'll go in the one on the right. The door on the left leads upstairs to a neon-lit corridor of baroque-meets-Roarin'-'20s private karaoke rooms, and the only people who use that door are the da kuan -- the big spenders, the managerial class. They're not looking for the latest punk or nü-metal band. These dudes, with their pleather clutch-purses, buzzcuts and lack of fashion sense, are here to sip tea, XO and wine -- the latter two on the rocks, maybe with a bit of Sprite -- while they sing their hearts out with the help of the short-skirted 'hostesses' that come with the room.