Win Tickets To Eatliz & DME's JUE Finale!

Perhaps saving the best for last, Sunday night’s JUE curtain-closer sees Israeli alt-rock outfit Eatliz and Boston's Devil Music Ensemble close the festival. As a prelude to Sunday night’s show, Eatliz will also be giving a Q&A session at the Hutong on Saturday evening where they will be screening their incredible award-winning music videos. Then on Sunday night at Tango both are on the bill in a fitting climax to this year's JUE Festival. We've interviewed both but more importantly we have a pair of tickets to give away for Sunday. Read on to read more from the artists and to find out how to win.

We caught up with Eatliz as they prepared for their Friday JUE performance in Shanghai to find out what we can expect from Sunday’s show and what in blazes the big frog was about in the Hey video!

You’ve been described as mesmerizing, fragile and bitchy. Are there any other front men/women that have influenced your style?
Actually, there’s quite a few that I admire. You might be surprised at my answer! My favourite is David Bowie, and Robert Plant and Michael Jackson. But I have no idea what I look like from the outside.

Your music videos are great, but they look painstaking! How long do they take to produce?
They actually take a very long time. The video for Lose This Child took about six months. The entire video was made using stop-start animation. And the video for Hey took about three years to make! There were a few people working on it. Guy (Ben Shitrit) in our band directed the video and was in charge of the animation.

What was the inspiration behind the award-winning video for ‘Hey’?
It’s about a girl that’s handling growing up with an imaginary friend at the beginning of the story. It’s a big frog and during the video she is growing up and big frog becomes a balloon. It’s like bizarre and weird, but it’s her own way of handling the challenge of growing up and entering the grown-up world and reality.

On Saturday you guys will give a Q&A on your videos at The Hutong. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever been asked at a Q&A session?
We’ve actually never done this before. We don’t know what questions to expect they will ask us, but we’re ready for it!

We’ve heard that you try to make each of your live shows unique. Can you give us a sneak preview of what to expect at Sunday’s show?
Tonight (Friday) we’re in Shanghai as part of JUE Festival and then on Sunday in Beijing, but both shows are going to include videos. Some videos that you already know and some videos that we’ve made especially for the festival. So it’s kind of a visual extravaganza mixed with our music and it’s gonna be an adventure. We did a couple of shows like this in Israel, but this time the whole show from the first minute is going to include video so it’s going to be really special.

Devil Music Ensemble close this year’s JUE Festival with a performance of their critically-acclaimed live soundtrack to the silent film Red Heroine at Tango. It’s not often you get the opportunity to take in a live soundtrack performance, so we strongly suggest you take the chance to see one of the leaders in the genre right here in Beijing. We spoke to DME and respectfully requested that they fill in our knowledge on the genre.

How many live soundtracks have you performed, and how long have you been touring ‘Red Heroine’?
Red Heroine is our seventh soundtrack for classic silent film. We've been doing Red Heroine since 2008 when we premiered it in China Town Boston, MA, USA. We did a 6.5-week tour of USA in 2008 and a six-week tour in Europe in 2009.

Live soundtrack performance is a fairly niche genre. Are there any other performances / performers that you rate highly?
There is a great group also in Boston, MA called the Alloy Orchestra. They've been doing it for years. There are some others in the USA as well. Cinematic Orchestra. Silent Orchestra. Tom Verlane from Television has done some great silent film scoring. Club Foot was one that is now no longer together. But the two groups in USA most known for this are DME and Alloy, and both in the same city! How crazy is that?

What would be your ideal movie to provide a live soundtrack for?
Red Heroine! It has drama, comedy, action, strange moments, sad moments, magic and because it is set in feudal China, it gave us the opportunity to explore the traditions of Chinese music and incorporate them into our score. After we found out about Hong Xia it took us three years to get our hands on it, and it was worth the wait.

Are there any film scoring projects on the horizon for DME?
We're not sure as of now, but we'd love to find another Wuxia film to score and come back to China!

To win tickets for Sunday's JUE Festival finale all you need to do is answer the following question: Which city are Eatliz from? Send your answers to win@thebeijinger.com. The competition closes at 2pm on Sunday, March 25. Winners will be notified via email soon after. Good luck.

Images: JUE Festival