Since there hasn’t been a whole lot of news so far this weekend, let me turn now to something totally different.Some of my friends know that on the side I am very heavily involved in the Beijing underground and experimental music scene.For those who don’t know, the music scene here has exploded in the past two or three years, and as someone who was very actively involved in the heady music atmosphere of New York in the early-1980s I can say with some confidence (and a number of well-known foreign critics and musician have told me the same thing) that Beijing right now may be one of the five or six most exciting cities in the world for new and experimental music.
For any of my blog readers in the UK or Europe, you have a chance to see one of the astonishing young figures of the Beijing underground music scene – 22-year-old Shouwang.His underground rock band Carsick Cars just played England’s prestigious All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Cambers Sands last night, and to great success I hear.The band will subsequently play dates in Manchester and Glasgow before opening for Dinosaur Jr. at London’s Koko on May 15.His experimental duo, White, will then tour Europe with Germany’s legendary Einsturzende Neubaten, with dates, among others in Amsterdam (May 20), Brussels (May 21) London (May 22) and Berlin (May 24).I know my blog is meant to be about Chinese financial markets, but one of the most exciting things going on now in Beijing is the music scene, and I am a close friend and huge fan of Shouwang, who may be the first young genius to emerge from this scene.His performances are riveting.Go see him if you can.
Monday is CPI day, and I promise I will return to financial topics.
No need apologise for posts like this. The "China story" is an interesting one however it is told.
By zardoz - 5/10/2008 11:32 AM
Great to know that Jeff is doing great, how come he is shouwang now? the king of the monsters?
By Ali - 5/11/2008 8:24 AM
oh, u meant Zhang SHou wang, just releaize it's his chinese name
By Ali - 5/11/2008 8:24 AM
hey, i saw carsick cars at the atp festival on friday, i had barely heard them and was totally motivated to discover some new bands after they played, so refreshing to catch something new or at least one ive not heard before.
Michael Pettis is a professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets. He has also taught, from 2002 to 2004, at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and, from 1992 to 2001, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the board of directors of ABC-CA Fund Management Co., a Sino-French joint venture based in Shanghai.
Pettis has worked on Wall Street in trading, capital markets, and corporate finance since 1987, when he joined the Sovereign Debt trading team at Manufacturers Hanover (now JP Morgan). Most recently, from 1996 to 2001, Pettis worked at Bear Stearns, where he was Managing Director-Principal heading the Latin American Capital Markets and the Liability Management groups. He has also worked as a partner in a merchant banking boutique that specialized in securitizing Latin American assets and at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he headed the emerging markets trading team. Besides trading and capital markets, Pettis has been involved in sovereign advisory work, including for the Mexican government on the privatization of its banking system, the Republic of Macedonia on the restructuring of its international bank debt, and the South Korean Ministry of Finance on the restructuring of the country’s commercial bank debt.
Pettis is a member of the Institute of Latin American Studies Advisory Board at Columbia University as well as the Dean’s Advisory Board at the School of Public and International Affairs. He is the author of several books, including The Volatility Machine: Emerging Economies and the Threat of Financial Collapse (Oxford University Press, 2001). He received an MBA in Finance in 1984 and an MIA in Development Economics in 1981, both from Columbia University.
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- 5/13/2008 3:32 AM
September, 2007