Beijing, China -

eijing is a rock and roll town, and it doesn't take a night in a sweaty, smoke-filled live venue to figure it out. You can feel the yaogun (rock and roll) in the air: sandstorms, after all, are so rock. You can see it in the crumbling hutongs; in the chaotic traffic patterns; in the RMB 1.2 Xiali taxis held together by little more than duct tape; and on a summer night when the local men wear little more than skivvies and a t-shirt tied above their belly. You can smell it when you catch a whiff of the cumin-covered yangrou chuanr (lamb kebabs) that dot the streets; you can taste it in the dumplings and noodles (note: a Peking duck meal at a tourist trap is not rock and roll, but dinner in a hole in the wall where a bird goes for less than RMB 30 sure is). Ditto for Yanjing beer and the rock-and-rollingest of all alcohols, erguotou, the local firewater favoured by cabbies and cops alike, at its most yaogun in canisters the size of oil drums.

Sure, Chinese rock is happening in other parts of the country. Wuhan is known for its punk scene, as is Chengdu. The northeasterners are heavy into their metal, while folk blows in from the northwest and Guangzhou has long been fertile ground. But Beijing remains the centre of the country's rock movement. Bands from around the country move there because they agree that it's the best place to be a musician. Add the foreign student contingent – the more successful of Beijing's earlier venues were in the university district – and a diverse music scene ensues.

Rock is a loose definition for the music being played: punk of a hundred schools; heavy metal, speed, death, black, nü and more; hip hop; experimental laptop sounds; electronic music; even jazz and pop cover bands occasionally get lumped into the yaogun fray. If there's a genre of music out there, it's more than likely that several Beijing groups claim to be representing it. Rap metal mimicking Korn, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park is widespread, as is a punk scene that has expanded beyond the Sex Pistols school of who-needs-talent-when-you've-got-mohawks to a more intellectually-driven post-punk inspired by bands like The Cure and Joy Division. In between are warring punk factions, a tight-knit death metal scene, an expanding pop-punk scene, an ever more experimental experimental scene and some great straight up rock music.

There's no way to know how many bands are playing in Beijing, but it's safe to say that on any given weekend you'll find what you want if you know where to look. The problem with yaogun, however, is that it's generally not very organised. Bands are often the last to know about their own gigs, and many are uninterested in promoting themselves, even to their friends let alone their fans. What this means is that whether or not you're in the loop, be at peace with the idea that the venue rather than the band may be the main draw.

The Fab Four

The casual rock fan is best steered toward Yu Gong Yi Shan for an entry into the local music world. The club, one of the newest venues in town, has already established itself as a hangout for a hip mix of foreigners and locals and become the focal point for live music of all stripes. From the free jazz of drummer (and former frontman for hair band Black Panther) Dou Wei and his Bu Yi Ding crew to live funk, blues, rock and punk, manager 'Gouzi' (Dog) has turned a nearly impossible to find club into one of the hottest spots in town. The crowd that jammed in to see Swedish punk act International Noise Conspiracy and five local warm up acts was only outdone when over 700 people packed the house for old school pop-rock king Zhang Chu's return to the stage. Gouzi has shown restraint in scheduling live shows; the very non-yaogun move of rarely showcasing more than two bands a night means that bands that share a bill are more likely to be musically compatible here than in most places.

1 Gongti Bei Lu (enter by the Huatong Xin Hotel on Chunxiu Lu), Chaoyang district (+86 (0)10 6415 0687)

At the other end of the spectrum is Club 13, a new venue catering to the university crowd that was once the centre of the local rock movement. This joint certainly takes you back: minimal graffiti splatters barely cover the walls, the drinks list isn't exactly overflowing with choice and the bathrooms are the public ones right outside the front door. But why worry about bells and whistles when what the kids really want is live music? And 13 delivers. Expect at least half a dozen acts to hit the stage on a show night and hordes of young rockers to join the fray. Like just about everywhere else, there is no common theme for live shows, so what you get will probably range from death metal to pop-punk to experimental laptop.

161 Chengfu Lu, Haidian district (+86 (0)10 8262 8077)

The New Get Lucky has had a long, strange fall from its heyday, when the club was smack in the midst of a neighbourhood crumbling around it. Moving into the high-class Super Bar Street meant that not only did the KTV rooms get an upgrade, but millions of renminbi were spent on downstairs renovations. Big concerts – rock legend Cui Jian and Second Hand Rose have played rare gigs here, and every so often a drum/guitar god puts on a clinic – and multi-band showcases are interspersed with auctions of scroll paintings. There's nothing much weirder than watching hippie music fans taking surreptitious swigs of the beers they snuck in and paunchy, XO-sipping, man-purse-toting managers trying to outbid each other for a painting of a horse from Shandong. Back in the musical world, the second the rock music ends, the techno music starts. There are regular Xinjiang flamenco and pop cover shows, and even Russian techno dance teams.

1A Super Bar Street, Nuren Jie, Chaoyang district (+86 (0)10 8448 3335)

In 2008, when the Asian Games Village gets a new name, Nameless Highland will be sitting on top of one seriously pricey (though hard to find) piece of real estate. The bar has a military theme, with camouflage draped behind the stage and guns, walkie-talkies and radios placed around the room. On stage, a regular rotation of the city's best acts play most nights of the week, supported by occasional out of town guests. The second floor – a great place to take in the music from a safe distance – is often reserved for high rollers, but a bit of attitude or cultivated ignorance can often get you up the stairs. The crowd ranges from down and dirty local rockers to music purists debating the intellectual properties of the music to big spending nouveau riche types, depending on, well, depending on absolutely nothing at all.

Bldg 14, Anhui Li, Yayuncun, Chaoyang district (+86 (0)10 6489 1613)

Best of the Rest
The What? Bar (72 Beichang Jie, Xicheng district; 139 1020 9249) gets points for being hard to find and down and dirty. Their tiny club hidden by the west gate of Tiananmen is resolutely no frills but their newer location (yes, the New What? Bar; 3 Guanghua Lu; 139 1020 9249) features much more space and a clean (for now) interior. Violet Bar (4 Xueyuan Nan Lu, Haidian district; +86 (0)10 8666 7526) is a miniscule bar made up of three microscopic rooms, but they do love to host music there. CD Jazz Cafe is the place to catch live jazz – go on Thursdays when the Ah-Q Jazz Arkestra plays more than your standard(s) fare. (Agricultural Exhibition Hall main gate, Dongsanhuan Lu, Chaoyang district; +86 (0)10 6506 8288)

See Them Before They Sell Out/ Burn Out:

Subs is every Chinese rock fetishist's dream: Not only do they rock the house with their onstage energy and ferocious garage punk, not only will they be playing a major Norwegian show (Oya Festival), but they've got a chick singer.

Ruins' brand of atmospheric space rock will blow your mind. Think Radiohead before the electronics.

Nogabe plays a life-changing brand of traditional Madagascarian music on Thursdays at the Goose and Duck.

Kazakh folk may not scream 'Beijing rock', but Iz is one of the capital's best bands.

The experimental scene is led by the poet/critic/SubJam label maven Yan Jun, who combines laptop sample twiddling with Tibetan bowls and bells and is just back from a throat-singing course in Labrang Monastery. Think sounds rather than music, art rather than rock, and as alternative as it gets in Beijing.

See www.chaile.org for up-to-the-minute gig information and reviews.