Jan 14 - Jose Gonzalez

I started getting a cold the other day, and now it's getting worse and worse. So I left work early and now here I am at home sitting on my couch, in my tiger onesie, taking medicine and drinking Lemsip, and watching American Idol. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon, and hopefully it makes me get better before the big weekend ahead.

Another good way to spend the afternoon is with Jose Gonzalez. He hasn't done any solo stuff for a while now, since he's been focused on putting out albums with his band Junip. I do enjoy Junip as well, but I much prefer his solo stuff. And now he's got a new album coming out this year, Vestiges & Claws, which I'm very excited about. He put out the first single, Every Age, late last year. And before that, he put out another track, This Is How We Walk On The Moon, which was part of the Red Hot + Arthur Russel, a compilation which also included a new track from Sufjan Stevens who also has a new album coming out later this year. Sadly, This Is How We Walk On The Moon won't be on his new album, but it's a great song, it made it into my playlist for best tracks of 2014, so enjoy.

Jan 13 - James Bay

Since I'm only doing a song a day, it gives me the opportunity to share the single good song by an artist that I'm otherwise unimpressed with. One artist on this list is James Bay. I heard Let It Go somewhere, on some blog or playlist or something, and I loved it. I was immediately so impressed with this song. It's beautiful, and his voice is great. This song is killer. Having heard something this good, I was of course very, very excited to hear the rest of his music, and it's super disappointing. He kind of reminds me of Ed Sheeran in that sense. When Ed Sheeran's first album came out, there were a couple of fantastic songs, songs which I still love (A Team and Give Me Love, if you're curious), but the rest was just extremely mediocre. And then he put out a second album which is just not good. But at least there's those two gems.

If you are so inclined, you're more than welcome to go and listen to the rest of James Bay's music (of which there's not too much, so you might as well I guess), but you've been forewarned. Don't expect it to be as good as this.

Jan 12 - Flyte

So this feels like it's pretty much straight out of the 80s. When the song first started, I was not at all convinced. But then it got to the chorus and I was. And then I listened to it like 5 times in a row and only stopped because I had to go to dinner. And then I came back from dinner and listened some more. And I know we're not even 2 weeks into 2015, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this will be one of my favorite songs of the year (even though technically it came out last year).

What song is this, you ask? Light Me Up, by Flyte. Again, Flyte is a band I know nothing about, although I think they're English. And they only have a handful of songs, it seems, by far the best of which is Light Me Up. It is also not on Spotify yet. At least, it doesn't seem to be on my Spotify, although their Facebook says they are, but it could just be some licensing thing. Point being, I can't wait for it to be available to me on Spotify.




Also, they somehow oddly remind me of Local Natives, even though I realize they are nothing like Local Natives.

Jan 11 - Leon Bridges

I went to a wedding dress market today. I have a friend getting married soon, so she was thinking about getting a dress custom made in China before moving away. Being the wonderful, amazing human being that I am, and having wonderful, amazing skills at Chinese, I agreed to go and act as a translator. I also thought it would be a weird, bizarre and interesting experience, because where else in the world would you have an entire mall that pretty much sells nothing but wedding dresses?

Lizzy and I entertaining ourselves while dresses are tried on

Lizzy and I entertaining ourselves more
with funny, matching jackets

 Well, it turns out I was right about what a wonderful, amazing human being I am. I was not quite as right about how interesting it would be. In fact it was pretty boring. And I hope I never have to do it again. But in my friend's defense, she was very good about getting in and out quickly. We only spent 2 hours in the mall, and I did get to pick a hideous wedding dress for her to try on and keep me entertained. And we had another friend with us, Lizzy, so I wasn't sitting alone looking at wedding dresses the entire time. It's also pretty amazing how cheap you can get some of these dresses for. As in, it could be cheaper to fly to China, have a vacation while you wait for your dress to be custom made, then take it home, and it might still be cheaper than just buying a dress in America.

After the market, the deal was that we would go and see stuff in Suzhou, since I'd never been to Suzhou before. So we went and had dumplings and then decided we were really tired and wanted to just go home and so we just went home. Suzhou apparently has some nice gardens that it's famous for, and there's temples and whatnot as well, but in the end I just couldn't be bothered. At least I got dumplings and a story, though.

Then we found dresses made out of balloons

I also fell in love with this song today, Coming Home. The world needs more music like this. Leon Bridges only seems to have two or three songs, but that voice. It reminds me of the first time I heard Kwabs (who now makes a completely different style of music, but also has an incredibly deep, rich voice that's just captivating). I'll definitely be looking for more by this guy, and waiting for it to get onto Spotify. And also by Kwabs, who should finally be releasing his album this year.

Jan 10 - Goat

I feel like it's time for another full post. And now that I'm sober, unlike my last post, I'll actually take some time to write something and put up some pictures. Although I have to say, I am quite eloquent when I'm drunk.

I just got back from my first business trip of the year, which was down to Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province. It was my first time in Nanning, although not my first time in Guangxi, but I wasn't very excited about being there. It's just another big Chinese city, nothing very exciting. I thought I might take some pictures and post them, but there was nothing interesting to take pictures of. Also I spent most of my time in the hotel because I was there for a work event which was being held in the hotel where we were staying. I did, however, manage to take a couple pictures, which I think sum up 3rd tier China quite nicely:













1. Here is a man changing his pants in the middle of the airport, in front of a random white guy whose face is plastered all over medical advertisements in the airport.




















2. Here is a car at the airport this morning, which my plane was supposed to follow (you may have guessed that already from the neon sign that says FOLLOW ME) and which for some reason had a sign in English.

This is my first trip of the year, but this year is already pretty packed with travel. I can pretty much tell you where I'll be every week from now until May, and most of those weeks include something other than Shanghai, if they include Shanghai at all. I thought it would slow down when I moved to China, but I was wrong. Which is why, despite all my negative feelings about it, I've finally started online dating.

I was pretty against it for a long time. I feel like I don't need the internet to meet someone. But, well, I haven't met anyone. And also a good friend of mine met the love of her life on OK Cupid recently, so I figured I might as well try. So I've been on OK Cupid for a while now, and it's not nearly as bad as I expected. I've been out on one date so far, which was not particularly good, but we'll see how it goes from here. I've got a couple more lined up this week, since I'm actually in town this week, one of which I'm actually excited about. That's a weird feeling.

The worst part about OK Cupid here in China (and I guess dating in general here in China) is the utter lack of Jewish women. If I search for Jewish women in Shanghai, 6 show up. Out of these 6, one is my very good friend, and another is a man (I know this not from personal experience, but from anecdotal evidence). So slim pickings. Which is why I also enjoy searching for Jewish women in other random places around the world. And I've come to the realization that I should probably be living in Washington D.C. But that isn't likely to be happening anytime soon.

Another exciting event this week was when I found the band Goat. Goat is a very strange Swedish band that somehow makes world music that seems to originate from everywhere in the world. It's kind of a cross between psych rock, West African music, Eastern European folk, and all other kinds of weird things thrown in for good measure. They also have some weird background story they've made up about having originated in some village in Northern Sweden that was cursed by voodoo magic and they all wear tribal masks when they perform. I'm not really sure what's going on here, but I like it.

Apparently they put out an album in 2012, which I missed. It was called World Music, a name which I guess sums these guys up. My favorite song off the album is Goathead (they have lots of songs with Goat in the name. Again, I'm not really sure what's going on here.).




And then they also put out an album in 2014, called Commune. Now I know I'm only supposed to share one song per post, but when introducing a new band I may share two. Also this gives me a bit of leeway in the future to claim that I shared two songs in a day and can therefore skip a day at some point (likely either due to travel or alcohol or the Chinese government hating free speech) but still feel ok about it because at the end of the year I'll have 365 songs.

I was planning to share Talk to God, the opening track on the album, but when I searched for that I got weird Jesusy stuff and nothing about Goats or Swedes. So instead I'll share the second track on the album, Words, which is also great.




If you don't like it, I totally get it. But I love it and I hope you do too.

Jan 9 - Sylvan Esso

I'm a little bit drunk. I had a work dinner tonight. Being the only white guy, everyone wanted to drink with me. Thank God I got away with only 3 shots of baijiu. For those of you who aren't in the baijiu know, consider yourselves lucky. For those of you who are, consider me lucky. I'm in Nanning, at best a 3rd tier city in a 3rd tier province, where they love nothing more thank drinking a bit (or a ton) of baijiu, and I made it through dinner on only 3 shots.

My 3 shots went like this "you are white and we are so happy to have you here so you must drink with us, and we have a tradition that when you drink one you drink three." That was pretty much it. That's when I realized that a) baijiu isn't so bad in small doses, and b) baijiu is terrible in anything more than very small doses. Emphasis on the very.

So I'm drunk. Ish. Not so drunk I guess. I haven't made too many typos, although the majority of that is due to the fact that I get red lines under words I spell wrong. Also I remembered to write this blog. I have no idea how, and no idea what song to share even though I have to pick a song in literally twenty seconds, but I'm here. That's gotta count for something.

So today's song, because I'm not drunk but too drunk to think about it more, is....

Sylvan Esso - Could I Be. My favorite new band of the year last year. My favorite album of the year last year. Hard to pick a favorite song but maybe one of my favorite songs off of the album (also listen to Hey Mami and Coffee and every other song they ever have and ever will make), but I do know this is a good one.

Jan 8 - Lorde

I'm in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi province. It's down south, near Vietnam. The internet is terrible, so I'll make this short. I'm here for work, but if I see anything nice (unlikely) or funny/interesting (much more likely) I'll post it when I'm back.

For now, I'll just share whatever song came to mind. That song is A World Alone by Lorde. I was thinking about posting this the other day, which is why it came to mind first. I actually don't like Lorde all that much. I want to, I like her as a person, but I think her music is mostly just meh. There are a few good songs though, and I saw her live at a festival last year and was actually quite impressed. But then I went and gave her another try, and still meh. But this song. This song is great.