The Urinals to play in China

Happy Squid Records is reporting that the Urinals will be heading to China to play a handful of shows. The band will play three shows in the first week of May as part of Pop Music Week at Beijing's Chaoyang Park. They'll also be flying up to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, for additional performances. The band will be documenting their adventures in their weblog Just Like Aquanauts.

The Los Angeles based three piece commented on the prospect of bringing their show to the People's Republic:

Emily's been working on this venture for about a year and a half. Originally, the plan was to have us attend the festival in May of 2004, but things didn't work out. There were initial doubts of course - someone with no booking experience that we're aware of, from a culture not known for its contributions to contemporary popular culture, arranging for us to be subsidized by what is thought of in the West as a monolithic, humorless, tyrannical bureaucracy. It's beyond comprehension, especially given the content of our material, which has not as yet been reviewed by Beijing (I envision a scenario where, immediately after our first number, the Senior Minister of the People's Culture is hauled off to a labor camp on the Plateau of Leng.) And yet, here we are, with airline tickets in hand, visas in preparation, and arms inoculated. As David Nolte told me, "it's so bizarre, it's off the map."

Head to the blog for more, particularly the section "Things that could work against us."
The Urinals formed in 1978 in a UCLA dormitory and went on to play shows with Black Flag, the Go-Gos, Middle Class and others. Renamed 100 Flowers in 1980, they continuned to record and play shows until splitting in 1983. The Urinals reformed in 1996 and in October of 2003 released a CD of new material titled What Is Real And What Is Not.