Over this weekend, Blue Frog celebrated its grand opening in Macau's Venetian in a glitzy event that featured performances by Shaolin monks, Australian DJ Alex Taylor and Shanghai's very own Sugar Mama and the Cotton Club Band. Apparently, quite a number of people flew over from Shanghai for the event (too bad for us, we were never invited). In this video, Blue Frog looks a lot more like a club than anything else, and certainly......

Due to multiple requests (total of two, and one was me) here is more golden week festival news. The previously mention Hop Festival has gotten an official name...so....let it hence forth be referred to as the Yue Festival. Ticket prices are set at 140rmb for students, 280rmb advanced purchase and 360rmb at the gate. Rock-ing has also released their ticket prices and they range from 280-880 depending on how special you want to feel. For......

These are definitely the dog days of summer and as in summers past, live shows have dried up with the heat. Ironically enough Shanghaiist has chosen to skip town and head to even hotter Hong Kong where PK-14, Hedge Hog, New Pants and the Re-tros will be playing in the cramped but intimate Fringe Club on Sunday. For those of you stuck in Shanghai and hankering for some live music check out Etienne (Gypsy Jazz......

Having just spent some time in Denmark ourselves, we were delighted to discover that some great Danish musicians would be arriving in Shanghai to play so soon after our return. These guys are quite well-known in Denmark and Europe, having recorded and toured around the world a bit. When we asked our Danish friends about these guys, they said that drummer Emil de Waal is famous as a player of every kind of music, not......

Another great one from the hard-working folks at Danwei/Danwei TV/Danwei Music: This Danwei Music interview with the [Sparrow Quartet] was recorded on a hutong house rooftop as they jammed with Illiqi and Hujilitu, two members of the Beijing-based Mongolian folk band Hanggai, before they left for Tibet. Also on Shanghaiist The Sparrow Quartet at Cotton Club......

Good Boonna Café: We miss bohemian charm like we miss an old-fashioned milkshake. Luckily, Boonna Café (open in two locations; Boonna 1 is on Xinle Lu, Boonna 2 on West Fuxing Lu, directly across from JZ Club) has both in spades, not to mention attentive waitstaff, a Mac G4 (how often do you see one of those in a coffee shop?), and no cell phone rings set to the blare of (bad) Korean pop. Yet.......

Stop reading. Call JZ Club. Find out how you can buy tickets for tonight's Sparrow Quartet gig. They were excellent last night at a packed Cotton Club. It's so nice to see skilled musicians (including one who many consider to be the best ever at his instrument of choice) having a great time making music together. And Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, Casey Driessen and Ben Sollee really did seem to be having a great time......

• A book talk by Paul French at Glamour Bar: Access Asia's Paul French is a reluctant Shanghaiist reader who actually made an appearance at our recent Halloween party. Perhaps more importantly, he is an author who puts out about a book a year. His latest, Carl Crow: A Tough Old China Hand, is out now from Hong Kong University Press. He'll be talking about the book at Glamour Bar tomorrow at 4 pm. Here's......

“Great day, great bands, great venue…but we wished more people would have turned out”. -- Unnamed Fuxing Park Jazz Fest promoter Oh, we feel your pain. Here’s hoping that you attended one, if not more, of the gigs listed below. We’ll start with the one mentioned: Fuxing Park Jazz Fest: We attended Friday night’s show, and it was well put on. Despite the early rain soaking the asses of the ass-less pants wearing kids there,......

Strumming her banjo and singing in English and Chinese, Abigail Washburn performed traditional American music last night at the Cotton Club with three esteemed bandmates. Playing a mix of bluegrass, country, gospel and old-time music, the former Beijing resident was joined by eight-time Grammy winner Béla Fleck who is considered the best banjo player in the world. With Casey Driessen on the fiddle and Ben Sollee on the cello, the packed club audience enjoyed a......

Last weekend was quite a stunner, what with Japanese punk, Korean horror-movie music, and a new addition to the C's revival (better than "200 people turning up to DKD wearing mp3 players and dancing in their own heads all night"); but we live in the city where 酒不醉人人自醉 ("people, rather than alcohol, enebriate") and with a population of 13 million, the party doesn't stop so easily. Read on for this week's contributions to our city's......

Shanghaiist was in the mood for jazz last night, so after a simply delicious dinner at Simply Thai, we headed up Fuxing Lu to JZ Club. Unlike the bluesy house band at Cotton Club, JZ tends more toward roots jazz and improv jams, so we were surprised when we showed up to find jazz fusion/electro/drum & bass combo This Is Junglecat setting up on the stage. Led by vocalist Jess Meider and drummer Mico, the......

Too often, we hear Shanghai residents bemoaning the lack of good live music, especially when compared to our neighbor to the north. Sure, we all love a good Filipino cover band every now and then, but ... Well, tonight and, sadly, only tonight, the Sam Hooper Group will perform a night of blues rhythms and funky, rock-infused jams for their groove-thirsty fans in Shanghai -- and they'll do it for free. Last night, they jumped......