Coldplay are handing out free copies of a new live album, LeftRightLeftRightLeft, at upcoming shows in their Viva La Vida tour; and as of yesterday you can download it too.  Isn’t that nice?

Last week NIN, Jane’s Addiction and Street Sweeper released an EP to promote the U.S.A. tour they will begin next May. The EP contains six tracks: Jane’s Addiction’s “Chip Away” and “Whores”, Street Sweeper’s “Clap for the Killers” and “The Oath” and Nine Inch Nails’ new tracks “Not so Pretty Now” and “Non-Entity”. To download the EP you just need to go the official website of the Ninja2009 tour, give your email address and you will receive a code to download it.

You have to follow a similar procedure to download the “Battle for the Sun” from Placebo’s website.  It is the first single to be released from their sixth album, also titled Battle for the Sun, due for release in June this year.

Festival season is beginning all over the Northern hemisphere, and one of the big ones is SXSW (South by SoutWest) held in Austin, Texas, U.S.A. It began yesterday (March 18th), and it will go until this Sunday. This year is the fifth time this festival has been held. One of the largest in North America, it includes music performances, films, art, exhibitions of art, in summary all you can think to find in a Spring festival.

Some of the bands performing this year are: Primal Scream, Peter Murphy, Tori Amos, Tricky, Devo, Graham Coxon, Echo & The Bunnymen, Camera Obscura, Calvin Harris, Circle Jerks, Juliette & The New Romantiques, La Habitación Roja, Manchester Orchestra, The Decemberists, The Von Bondies, Peter Bjorn & john, Glasvegas, Vivian Girls, N.A.S.A, Fanfarlo, The Hold Steady, etc. etc.

In previous years the organizers put together torrent files to download containing music by the bands performing at the festival; but this stopped last year.  However, they are publishing the mp3s on their website, so a torrent file was made anyway, by some very nice people who put them all together for us to download. This year the mp3s have been grouped into three torrent files containing 6Gb of free music (that’s a total of 1267 mp3s!!!) with music from all the artists performing at the festival this year. Of course you will find things for everybody’s taste, including your mom, your grandfather, your girlfriend, and of course you.

To get a more accurate idea of what music you will find in these files you can check the SXSW schedule. And to download the three torrent files, if you don’t have a torrent client, yet we recommend you to use utorrent.

Tag Team is a small Record Label taking care of some Chinese rock bands, including Arrows Made of Desire and Rebuilding the Right of Statues (Re-TRoS). The Tag Team website shares tracks on its website, so go there for a short surf and download some cool songs.

Last week we saw and heard Dorian Concept at The Shelter hosted by Free the Wax. He totally rocked with his MicroKorg. Everybody was hungry for more and more music and he played until his batteries were totally spent.

If you want more or missed it, you should download his album Seek When is Her, released by Earstroke in 2006.

DJ Matt Kitshon is one of the greatest DJs in the history of house music in Shanghai. The first time I ever heard him I could not stop dancing to his infamous music; after that I followed him closely so as not to miss one of his gigs. Kitshon left Shanghai in 2007 to go back to his hometown of Brisbane, Australia where he is still playing and producing music.

Matt Kitshon’s mixes are a hard graceful thunderstorm of sounds and you can download any or all of them here. Listen to them and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

In preparation for the arrival of Typhoon Brainfeeder, check out what happened when the storm touched down in Barcelona. Samiyam, Gaslamp Killer, and Flying Lotus performances are all available. Get it before it’s blocked!

I would like to direct you to Nabil Elderkin’s Vimeo page. This is one talented, new director, who is putting out some pretty impressive visual efforts. I especially recommend the video for K’naan’s “T.I.A.”. This intricate moving collage assaults your eyes with its vibrant colors and and images. Also, the newest one, for Kanye West’s song “Paranoid,” is done in a cool, faux-noir style. For more videos than on the Vimeo page, also connect here.

VBS.tv streamed last year this short documentary about Birthday Boys touring illegally around China during 2007. The series, titled “Rock under the Red Flag” , consisted of 6 short videos documenting the band’s trip from Beijing to Wuhan, passing by Shanghai, Nanjing and Changsha.

During their trip, Birthday Boys met Hedgehog, Yang Haisong from P.K. 14, and other interesting people in the underground music scene of China.

If you like this series, then you may also find “Shanghai Super Girl” very educational, also on VBS.tv, about the huge Chinese talent showcase “Super Girl” from a few years ago.

Ok, so this is a shameless Twitter-style re-tweet of a post by Adam J. Schokora on 56minus1.com; but it’s so damn cool I couldn’t let it go by.

Click here to watch just about the most creative ‘re-mix’ I’ve ever seen, of the track ‘Nude’ by Radiohead. It takes ages to load, and the first minute is not representative of the rest (so hang in there), but it is definitely worth the wait!

Rebuilding the Right of Statues (aka Re-TRoS) are made up of 华东 Hua Dong, ex drummer of P.K. 14, on guitar and vocals, 刘敏 (Liu Min) on bass and vocals, and 马晖 (Ma Hui) on drums. These guys have been together since 2003, toured China and the U.S.A, published two EPs, and now they are touring China again for the release of their first LP on Modern Sky Records: Watch Out! Climate has Changed, Fat Mum Rises…

Re-TRoS will be at YuYinTang on April 18th for the penultimate date of the tour. To begin to warm up for that day, check out this video made for “Hang the Police” off their EP Cut Off!

[youtube width="300" height="200"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APpmRDHOfbs&eurl=http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=104540854&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

I’ve been listening to Andrew Bird’s latest album (Noble Beast, released in late January) pretty much on repeat since I got it. For the uninitiated, Bird is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Illinois whose music is characterized by pizzicato violin and whistling. Trust me, it’s way better that it sounds from that description.

Anyway, it reminded me of this funky video for the track “Imitosis” from his previous album, Armchair Apocrypha.

[youtube width="300" height="200"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnXCzFnkxtY&feature=related[/youtube]

There’s been too much punk rock lately… to refresh our ears here’s a great instrumental track by Cold Fairyland “Shadow Play” from their album Seeds on the Ground of 2007. Progressive rock straight from Shanghai to your speakers.

Cold Fairyland “Shadow Play”

Here you can see the video for this song.

I’m beginning my weekend late at night on Wedenesday, but I have an strong feeling the weekend is near.

I’m listening to Herbie Hancock as I write another article and thinking about a song to play here now. This is the first one supported only by our disclaimer: Herbie Hancock, funky. Here are the first two tracks from the 1973 soundtrack to The Spook who sat by the Door. Just listen.

Herbie Hancock “Revolution”

Herbie Hancock “The Spook who Sat by the Door”

阿雷克磨擦乐队亲自送上“神秘的墙壁汉堡”

“夜上海”是阿雷克磨擦乐队０８年出的专辑。我们在此播放其中的第三首曲，名为“神秘的墙壁汉堡”，为庆祝Layabozi新成立的专栏。有关于这首曲目阿雷克这样解释道： “想象一家提供所有你理想食物的餐厅，从食物加工到放入你的盘中，都是来自于墙壁。在舞台上，一位饥饿的年轻管乐器表演者把一张声音“神奇墙纸”贴在墙上。 他像是在等待墙壁给他制作的汉堡吗？或许这首曲子的意境根本就没法描述！”

Ye Shanghai is the 2008 album by Alec Haavik Friction Five and we are playing the third song, “Exotic Wall Burger”, for the inauguration of this new section of Layabozi.

In the liner notes Alec explains the track like this: “Imagine a restaurant where any food you dream of will materialize, from the walls, onto your plate. Up on stage, a hungry young horn player layers the walls with an ‘Exotic Wallpaper’ of sound. Maybe he’s waiting for the wall to produce his burger? Or maybe this tune just can’t be explained!”

Alec Haavik Friction Five “Exotic Wall Burger”

*Photo by Trina Lion