Videos

  • Officially a MAMAMOO Fan~

    It’s been just a few months since I seriously started listening to MAMAMOO, and they’ve just won me completely over with the release of Melting, their personalities, talent and just pure swag. Oh gosh, these girls are hilarious, just the fact that they’ve released a sped-up version of one of their singles for the giggles. It’s super cute. AND THOSE VOICES.

    Funny fact, I was checking my Facebook post history to see when I started posting about them… and it turns out I did post about their debut back in June 2014 when it first showed up on my YouTube timeline because I used to call my friend (who’s older than me) Mamamoo. LOL

    mamamoo-debut-betty

    So I’m psyched they won their first Inkigayo, and they really really had the feels because it means something when an artist/group signed to NOT one of the big labels win a popularity contest against others who are part of big labels.

  • Everyone for Ankur Tewari’s Love Shots

    The first episode/short film, The Road Trip, for Ankur Tewari’s Y-Films web series, Love Shots, has finally been released. And it’s awesome. It’s kinda sad that YRF has to put so much great talent on the web and not on the big screen, but it’s great that they put together such a great list of talent. The first episode has Nimrat Kaur, so we all can get our fix there, alongside Tahir Raj Bhasin who crept everyone out in Rani’s Mardaani. Their chemistry sizzles here. They’re both great.

    Promising start for the series~

    A new episode will be released every Tuesday until all six shorts are out.

  • Laura Marling Has Come to Me~

    They all come to me~ xD

    Bjork, Miyavi, Big Bang, JeA~ Too bad I don’t have my dad to be my music companion :( He would’ve loved seeing Laura Marling in a cozy musical setting. He was that kind of person. We would also be waiting for Adele, Shiina Ringo and Faye Wong. lol

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ta7OMbqfVc

  • Sing My Song: Because You are Mavis Fan~

    So I’m late to the party (as always), and just started watching this year’s season of Sing my Song (中国好歌曲), which has been airing for a couple of weeks. It’s honestly my favorite of these many music contests because it’s new songs. I never ever stay through the actual contest, but… I do enjoy their blind auditions for the surprises!

    Episode one, so far, has given me that awkward moment when Laurence Larson 罗艺恒 sings better Mandarin than me… nobody turns for blues singer 黄晓宁 Huang Hsiao Ning which makes David Tao cry (and reminds me of my dad, hence also making me teary), and gives us the meta moment of the night (and probably of the season) when Liu Wei 刘维 sings Because You Are Mavis Fan (因为你是范晓萱), using many Mavis music and lyrics cues, to make Mavis herself cry.

    I’m a Mavis fan and I love I Want Us to Be Together to bits, so of course I loved it.

    The song is available for download over at QQ (apparently, officially), but you gotta download their APP, sign up for an account (maybe pay to get the 320kbps version)… and for sign up, it’s asking for a mobile number to send a verification code, and I don’t use a phone, so I can’t sign up [Hipster First World Problems]~~~ so I only got myself a 128kbps from somewhere murky on the net LOL. If you happen to get the 320kbps one, do share it with me pretty please.

    And it’s not like EVERYTHING is available on iTunes. On time.

  • Tan Wei Wei Slays for the Year of the Monkey!

    I really really enjoyed many of the performances in this year’s Spring Gala, which included a dance rendition of a Mo Li Hua (茉莉花) instrumental, the suspended dude on a mast on top of a digital display of the ocean (直挂云帆), and the Drum Dance in Prosperity Xi’an Terracotta Army, The Silk Road (丝绸之路), The Beauty of China (山水中国美). Also, my biases Zhao Wei and Sa Dingding (doing the Good Luck Song (吉祥吉祥)) were there! Donnie Yen showed up too! Dude! I even enjoyed the super Red Song, My Homeland (我的祖国), which was performed by Wang Li (王莉), Wang Qing Shuang (王庆爽), You Hong Fei (尤泓婓), Jin Ting Ting (金婷婷) and a special appearance by opera soprano Guo Lanying (郭兰英).

    I also enjoyed the Inner Mongolia [1][2][3] and minorities medley In the Great Embrace of your Hometown (在你伟大的怀抱里) numbers xD In turn into a bit of a Red Song somewhere there by the end, but it wasn’t even the Reddest song of the night. LOL But I enjoyed it.

    Tan Wei Wei’s (谭维维) number, though, featuring Zhang Ximin (张喜民) and Huayin Lao Qiang performers (“华阴老腔”演员) floored me. So much damn fun and energy. I loved it. The song was presented under the titled “the Huayin old tune in high tone shout” (华阴老腔一声喊, huayin lao qiang yi sheng han). It also teaches us all about Huayin Lao Qiang (Huayin Old Style “Chinese Rock’n’Roll)!

  • The Fitoor of Begun Hazrat

    *dies*

    It really kills me that this movie is opening a few days after my birthday, and I can’t watch it. WHY DO YOU GUYS DO THIS TO ME?

    Sidenote: The Fitoor promotions have brought some interesting interview bits with Tabu- like she wants to be part of Golmaal 4 (I haven’t seen Golmaal, but that’s a Rohit Shetty movie, so… xD), she’s fishing for a comedy, she likes David Dhawan’s type of comedies (which are so 90s comedy style type of not my thing), and wants to do a movie with Govinda… who, if I recall correctly, actually doesn’t like many of the 90s comedy movies he did xD

    Comedy is such a particular genre, so difficult to please people.

    My type of comedy, I’ve found out, is in the realm of Roxana Avalos, Rosalind Russell, and Sandra Ng. I laugh quite a bit with Hong Kong/Chinese comedies.

  • In case you didn’t know Fitoor is coming~

    Though Fitoor might get trapped by remaking Alfonso Cuaron’s version of Great Expectations… I’m still looking forward to Tabu as Begum. I’m also looking forward to see Haminasto (aka. also romanized as Haminastu) [YouTube] because it’s my favorite track in the whole soundtrack, even though I’ve been butchering some of the other songs out loud late at night. xD I like the song so much that I ended up looking for Zeb Bangash, found Pakistani duo Zeb and Haniya, discovered Coke Studio [1][2][3][4][5 non-Zeb related], and downloaded the compilations on iTunes [S2][S6].

    It messed up my language library because there’s so much Punjabi, Urdu and Pashtu, and Turkish… I don’t know which is which xD

    ANWYAY~ OCD frustrations aside~

    Fitoor promotions are at full throttle~ and it includes the release of this micro clips of dialog, which I don’t understand at all… but Tabu’s just saying “Firdaus, Firdaus, Firdaus” gives me the chills.

    More: Duur, Qubool.

  • HAYA and the Wild Child

    Don’t ask me how I Am A Singer (我是歌手) elimination works xD, I thought I wouldn’t see HAYA again… but here they are with a version of Silent Sky (寂静的天空)… from their 2009 album.

    Also making a surprise appearance~ the Wild Child, Su Yunying~

    (more…)

  • HAYA Band Bids I Am A Singer Adieu

    Well, that was quick.

    And don’t give me that excuse that the voting audience doesn’t like World Music because Han Hong is pretty much World Music too. Shaking bad vibes aside, HAYA Band’s sound fills me with energy. It’s the show’s loss. CoCo loves them too, you can tell. Anyone who loves music could feel their passion and energy.

    I usually don’t watch the show myself, just the clips, and wait for the recap that just lists the final ranking~ but, my gosh~~~ is the ranking section annoying as f*ck! Why does that have to last like 30min?

  • HAYA Band + Daiqing Tana for I Am A Singer 4

    If I’m not mistaken, I’ve been listening to Daiqing Tana (黛青塔娜 / Дайчин Тана) for quite a few months, so total surprised to find out that they’ll be performing in the latest season of I Am A Singer (我是歌手). Strange on its own, because we all know that Chinese people’s music taste is all sorts of conventional love ballad. And I love LOVE LaLa with all my bobo heart, but come one~ COME ON!

    Now THAT’s a fuckin’ performance!

    Also~ the mysterious Guan Zhe (关喆), who performed that catchy Beijing, Beijing, Wo Ai Beijing (北京，北京，我爱北京) number, will also be participating. Both he and HAYA Band (HAYA乐团) placed last.

    If you’re interested, the performances (sans interruptions) are available on Xiami. Including the clean version of HAYA Band.

    Also check out HAYA Band’s albums Migration (迁徙) and Crazy Horse (疯马), which are available on Xiami and iTunes. Apparently, you can also buy Migration on CDBaby, and there seems to be an up-to-date-ish Facebook page. However, the best place -always- is Weibo + DaiQing Tana’s.