Posts Tagged The Illumin8tors
The Illumin8tors Solar/Lunar CD Release
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on April 18th, 2012
I am very proud and excited to announce the release of Solar/Lunar by my band, The Illumin8tors. Since the run of shows that we did at the end of last year we’ve been squirreled away in my studio working on this CD.
We’ve decided to make a track available as a special preview. This is Pang Meng, the story of the wicked man who tried to steal the Pill of Immortality from Chang-E. Here. check it out.
The show will be a full performance of the rock opera and will feature The Horde in support, along with DJ Sal both DJing and reprising his role as our sitar player. It’s Sunday May 6th at Mao Livehouse. 50 RMB, plus CDs will be available for a very special launch night price.
River South Arts Festival – your last chance to see Solar/Lunar
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on November 29th, 2011
The River South Arts Festival is this Thursday through to Sunday and features a bunch of really cool shit. Most notable is the final performance (at least for now) of Solar/Lunar – The Legend, that fabulous rock opera by The Illumin8tors (which I am in, for those who are new to the blog). If you’ve already seen it, come on down for one last hurrah. And if you haven’t caught the spectacle yet, why not come on down for one last hurrah.
Here’s a quick rundown of what’s on, night by night.
Thursday December 1st, 7pm – Shanghai THRONES
Redic is both a singer and a visual artist, and he’ll be exercising both facets of his personality on the opening night of the festival as he puts on a show, and shows of his artwork – 12 reclaimed chairs. The show is called Shanghai Thrones and will be on display until the 15th. It’s free.
Friday December 2nd, 8pm – Solar/Lunar
Yup, this is it, the big one, the final rock opera performance. There will be a support set from Hello Money as well as some collaborative performance poetry from Renee Reynolds. 80 RMB, and worth every jiao.
Saturday December 3rd, 7pm – H.A.L. Publishing Book Launch
Those crazy cats and HAL are launching their new book, Middle Kingdom Underground, and they are also hosting a poetry slam event, SLAMHAI 3. For 100RMB you’ll be entertained all night and you’ll also take home a copy of the new book.
Sunday December 4th, 2pm-6pm – Brunch, open mic and poetry.
120RMB.
Full details on the flyers, I hope you can make it down there.
Rock Opera Updates
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on November 13th, 2011
The Illumin8tors’ big show at Mao last Thursday went really well. Here’s a few pics:
Sun Dude, Emperor Yao, Wu Gang, Moon Lady and Chang-E singing Chang-E Takes the Pill
Wu Gang, Moon Lady, HouYi, Chang-E, The Queen Mother of the West, The Cassia Tree performing the finale - The Moon Always Comes Around
The Cassia Tree performing Cassia Tree
Xiao Zhong of Pairs fame was good enough to record a few songs on his infamous camera. He has uploaded it to tudou – check it out here. The songs are the end of Climbing the Stairs, a brief interlude, Cassia Tree and Allende (Houyi has it) featuring Jamalla.
So the good news is that if you missed the show last week, or if you saw it and just can’t get enough, we’re doing it all again this Friday at Dclub on Changyang Lu in Yangpu Qu. And we’ll be filming the show for posterity and a DVD release. So if you’d like to be immooooooortalised , come on down and dress to impress. Before you freak out at the distances involved in getting there, I read somewhere that if you show them your taxi receipt for 40RMB or more, they’ll give you a free drink for your troubles. It’s also very close to Dalian Lu station on line 4 – google maps link here. And that’s not all – we will be joined by the extra awesome DJ Global Ruckus from Portland, Oregon. This is his soundcloud. And here’s a killer set he did a couple of months ago in Sydney, Australia.
Dialectic Radio 180 feat GlobalRuckus (Portland) LIVE at Uber Lingua Sydney by uberlingua
He plays crazy, eclectic shit from all over the world and really brings the party.
November is now being shared with The Illumin8tors
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on November 6th, 2011
That’s right – contrary to my previous post, November this year is being jointly occupied by Friend or Foe and The Illumin8tors. In less than a week my band, The Illumin8tors will do a full scale performance of our rock opera, Solar/Lunar – The Legend. This performance will be massive – we are going to take over Mao Livehouse and totally rock out. The last show we did at Logo was a huge success, and things are only going to get better from there. There will be support from Upnavala Groove and Jammalla. Not to be missed.
This Thursday 10th November. 50RMB on the door, 9.30pm. Mao – 308 Chongqing lu near Jianguo lu.
Rocktober v2.011a
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on October 19th, 2011
The remainder of Rocktober is looking pretty exciting. On Friday night Three Chord Truth brings us a ‘Bossa Nova and Samba Party’ at Brown Sugar in Xintiandi. This party features an apparent legend of Brazilian music, Toninho Horta. He didn’t invent Bossanova but from the praise of Pat Metheny, it sounds like he’s amongst the giants of the style. Metheny says “I’ve often described him to other musicians as the Herbie Hancock of bossa nova guitarists.” There’s gonna be a full samba band and hot dancers. It’s 120RMB on the door – see you there.
And on Saturday night, the real excitement begins. It’s another gig from my band, The Illumin8tors. We will be in the support slot at the next installment of Trash-a-Gogo at Yuyintang – headliners are The Fadeaways from Japan. The other support is former Beat Bandits’ Toshi’s new band, The Macaronians. The Illumin8tors will not be performing our whole show – we only have a 30 minute slot. But you will be hearing a bunch of the tunes and maybe even seeing some sexy choreography.
Fear not, for the following night, Sunday 23rd, we will be performing the first (almost) full presentation of Solar/Lunar: The Legend at Logo. There will be singing, dancing, capoeira, costumes, sitars, masks, stories, the whole she-bang. It’s free and it’s something of a warm up for the big gig coming up in November at Mao. Come on down, you will be entertained.
The Illumin8tors present Solar/Lunar
Posted by gunsella in Uncategorized on September 6th, 2011
It is with great pleasure that I announce the launch of my latest project, The Illumin8tors. Some of you may have read an article mentioning the project in City Weekend’s print version. For those that are still in the proverbial dark, prepare to be Illumin8ted.
The Illumin8tors is part band, part acting/dancing troupe and features members from a bunch of other bands including Hotter Than Teppanyaki, The Beat Bandits, Pause and Break for Borneo as well as myself. We are putting on a rock opera called Solar/Lunar: The Legend. The subject matter is the legend(s) surrounding the fast approaching Mid-Autumn Festival. There’s the archer Houyi, charged with the task of shooting down nine excessive suns that make the Earth too hot. There’s his hot wife, Chang-e, who eats the pill of immortality. There’s the even hotter Queen Mother of the West who gives her the pill. And the less hot but still cute (original meaning) Jade Rabbit, floppy ears n all, played by Dave Hampson of Teppanyaki and Beat Bandits fame. We’ll be having a large scale performance at Mao Livehouse in a few months, but in honour of the long weekend for the festival, this Saturday will see our first public performance during which we’re going to preview some of the songs from our show. Also featured in our show and in a support-band role on Saturday night, is Upnavala Groove. This is a superb ‘world-music’ group featuring some members of The Illumin8tors along with the ubiquitous Toshi (Beat Bandits, Instigation, Dropkicks etc) and the almost as ubiquitous DJ Sal (Shanghai Yard Soundsystem). But in this band, Sal is not dropping reggae tunes, he’s playing the freakin’ sitar. Yep, the sitar. I know, nuts, isn’t it!!!
The show is at Beedees (Dagu Lu, Chengdu Lu) and should kick off around 9.30pm. I hope you can make it.
Luwan Rock- Solar/Lunar: The Legend May 11, 2012
- The Illumin8tors Solar/Lunar CD Release April 18, 2012
- When it rains it pours, 50s-60s style April 11, 2012
- Eatliz – Art Rock from Israel March 18, 2012
- Last Minute Operatic News (and nothing to do with the Illumin8tors) February 19, 2012
- Enter the Dragon February 8, 2012
what are the people saying?