The word "festival" often gets thrown around Shanghai to describe events that have questionable-at-best festival qualities. I’m not going to get into the semantics of what a music festival's true purpose is or should be, but I’ll go ahead and give you a basic definition – it’s the number eight. That’s a minimum of eight hours of music from eight live acts or more on at least two stages. Double that for “DJ” or “EDM” festivals, so that would be a minimum of 16 DJs with at least two rooms or stages. Who am I to create this standard? I’m Sacco dammit, that’s who. You know I kid with you Shanghai, and in reality any event that features decent music or homemade cookies is just fine by me (even if it's mislabeled). Luckily the Booshkabaash brahs who have their 6th annual festival this weekend just barely fit my definition. The main event is this Saturday Sept 6th at the QSW, featuring a mix of international and local acts of various genres. Here's a few of my favorites playing this Saturday.

Tempers

American shoegaze indie rock outfit Tempers are just one of three bands playing that feature a girl/boy duo. I guess the Booshkabaash is feeling the love this year. While relatively new, Tempers have received good press on websites like Pitchfork and Nylon magazine. They released a couple singles on the New York dark rock label Pendu who recently went belly up. Hopefully we will see a full-length album in the near future despite the label troubles. I wouldn't call their music groundbreaking but they do have a subtle charm and I look forward to checking out their set live. For now let’s take a look at the video for "Eyes Wide Wider."

My Little Airport

Hong Kong super duo My Little Airport are my personal favorite on the Booshkabaash line up. The band features Lam Pang who writes the songs and Nicole Au Kin-ying who sings them. Secretly they are in my top ten list of guilty pleasure listening. Just the cutest kids in the world dropping dark humor and singing about how breaking up is hard to do. Known for singing in broken English, the band started out while they were studying journalism in Hong Kong. Now they get millions and millions of hits on Chinese social networking platforms and have received numerous awards. If painfully adorable girl/boy indie pop is your bag, then My Little Airport is for you.

Cairos

For a taste of down under, make sure to catch the mild-mannered antics of Cairos, flying in from Australia. While I usually prefer my Aussies hard rocking, these four boys from Brisbane put out thoughtful and sincere indie rock so I’ll give them a break. After six years of extensive touring around Australia and a string of EPs, they just dropped a full length album on the major rock label Island Records. I gave the album a complete listen along with past EPs and while most of it is a little safe, a few tracks stuck with me. One such track is last year's "Obsession", which had me coming back for a re-listen five or six times.

Blue Hawaii

In my opinion the most original band playing Booshkabaash is Blue Hawaii, composed of girlfriend boyfriend team Alexander Cowan and Raphaelle Standell-Preston. While Standell-Preston is well known for fronting the more conventional band Braids, the heartfelt electro pop of Blue Hawaii speaks more to me. Hailing from the bustling Montreal scene they combine the elements of indie rock and electro just right. At times I could even see myself dancing around to a few of their more uptempo songs and I look forward to hearing them on a proper sound system, which QSW usually provides.

Bass Sekolah

My final pick for this year’s best of Booshkabaash is Kuala Lumpur boy/boy duo Bass Sekolah, who are playing the after party at 390 Bar. They produce deep bass filled tracks and are working on a full length LP. Recently they toured with Modeselektor artist Phon.o, who they also made a track with. Good to see our brothers down in Malaysia elevating the scene. Booshkabaash ticket holders get into the after party free. That starts at 10pm and also features DJ Fuck Echo. This year looks pretty damn international, with the USA, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Australia, Malaysia and more represented. Make sure to get to Booshkabaash on time Sunday for opening act Next Year’s Love who are Shanghai’s premiere all-girl darkwave outfit. More info on the festival here. ***