Results tagged “hipster”

     

This may have been obvious to anyone who's ever been at a show at Zhijiang Dream Factory, but Shanghai (and we're assuming greater China) has got an ever growing population of *gasp* hipsters! Exhibit A: M-Style magazine, which has apparently been churning out monthly issues since January 2008.

While the big news this week was the postponement of the Kayne West concert, Shanghaiist was busy contemplating what gigs to check out on Friday. Tonight there is a new(ish) bar getting in on the live music action. Bee Dees bar on Dagu road is playing host to Hard Queen with a free show and we are curious to find out what this bar is all about. There has been some confusion over where the Shy Tall Mighty, an old school punk band, is playing this weekend. Originally we saw postings for them out at Live Bar but more recently fliers have been appearing having the concert placed at Yuyintang, which is where we will be.

This weekend there is no lack of gigs worth checking out with some in familiar places and some in places that are new to the live music scene. Celebrating their 1st year anniversary, party promoters STD have pulled out all the stops, booking a massive space in the heart of Moganshan Road's art district. On Friday, Beijing heavy weights, New Pants, will be joined by Shanghai masters of chill, Cold Fairyland, and DJ R3. Saturday, in the same venue, post punkers Re-Tros, Banana Monkey and Mr. Tsang will help STD wrap up their 2-day birthday bash in style.

We’ve known since arriving in Shanghai that there are two types of waiguoren out there: the ones with the chauffeur-driven cars, portly bellies and a company villa in a hermetically-sealed Jinqiao gated community; and the rest of us. Not that Shanghaiist is bitter or anything, in fact, we quite like the directionless romantic bent of our life at present. Which is why we’re suspicious of labels, such as this one, dug up by John at...

For any one who missed it, Cold Fairyland and the Scoff both had concerts last night at the Shanghai Concert Hall and 4Live, respectively. Yesterday afternoon Shanghaiist had spent a solid 2 hours writing an exquisite piece of prose about these two shows... but alias, the evil internet goblin crashed our computer, causing us to lose forever that beautiful essay... well, at least you won't miss out on what is happening tonight.

For this Shanghaiist, lunch during the work week typically consists of lukewarm slop served downstairs in the company canteen. So, when we get a rare chance to take a day off from work or telecommute, we like to venture out and take advantage of the many lunch specials that are offered by Shanghai's popular restaurants.

For one reason or another, when it comes to nightlife, Shanghaiist has its reservations about the Bund. Sure, we do the promenade/requisite bar crawl when out-of-towners come to play but, at the end of the day, we’re just not sold on it. (Our aversion was further amplified upon recently discovering a Facebook group called “THE SHANGHAI ELITE” – yes, they’re so elite they need to shout their name wherever they go. The activities of this group – Shanghai American School repruhzent! – revolve around “wild, breathtaking, heart aching, crazy and absolutely WiCkEd and crazy SHIT”. Among the ELITE’s favourite clubs, according to a recent thread, are Bar Rouge and Attica. We rest our case.)

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week.

Local police said the lecture was "unacceptable", the newspaper said.

What was this about relaxing on the last weekend of a holiday? Nonsense, that’s what it was. We’ve been busy -- actually Brad’s been busy and we tried to help him (more on that in a few), but we still managed to get the show out … albeit, a few days late. Sorry.

It's a brilliant idea. And we can only hope she keeps it up for decades to come -- and then maybe we can see some changes. What we learn from this segment of her life is that Asian women don't age much in three years and that Miss Lee abandoned black-rimmed hipster glasses for a short period of time and then decided to give them another try. A good move. They look good.

We weren't expecting much -- just maybe to hear these guys play their dueling guitars, spy on some hipster chicks and down a few Xinjiang Black Beers. What we got was one of the worst cover bands we have seen in China (that is saying a lot) and a crowd that looked like we had perhaps happened upon the 25-year reunion of the Shanghai International School. (There actually was a party there, we think. We saw a sign that said "Belgium, Second Floor.")

Shanghaiist was shopping for bikes along Xiangyang Lu when, tired and bedraggled, we saw, like a mirage in the desert, a sign that promised exactly what we were craving at the moment: Illy.

Growing up, we dreamed of the day we could stroll bleary-eyed into the office after going back to the swanky hotel with an international pop starlet in one arm and a tequila bottle in the other -- except that last night, it was more of a service apartment and our starlet was actually Fan Yi Chen, with some Lawson's best baijiu … lovely guy, nonetheless, and apparently he's "kind of a big deal".

Torontoist (where it's 75 degrees F as of this writing) is keeping things cool this summer, nudity and blood optional. Less cool are the comments in this post about a hipster auctioning off crap so she can buy a house. And no summer would be complete without the twin guilty pleasures of crap dining and crap TV: get them both with Torontoist's interview with "Rockstar: Supernova" star Lucas Rossi and a look at the safety ratings of some of Toronto's favorite greasy spoons.

Where do you stand in the 021 Bar/Shrock.cn controversy? Shanghaiist has been light on the scene for a while and wasn't there for the height of the drama, but by reviewing the thread linked above you can get the general idea: a run-down bar in the Yangpu district run by some "rock immigrants" from Xiamen, has the support of local favorites San Huang Ji, over-enthusiastically and haphazardly organizes concerts, sometimes announcing bands who later deny that they had been contracted to play.

Shanghaiist, still jobless, was heartened to read this news from the Hindustan Times about the shortage of baristas in Beijing and Shanghai:

Houstonist reports on cross-dressing thieves and undressing educators this week. A Peeping Tom defends himself with a papaya and an outraged onlooker asks Ken Lay, "TATER TOTS OR FRIES?" Also, FEMA wants it's money back.

Shanghaiist was taking a look at some of 2dog's photos when we noticed a picture of a strange confection that's been nicknamed the "Chinese pizza". Some of you have probably already seen stores and street vendors selling these things for about 3 yuan apiece. Apparently it's caught on big in Beijing and other big cities. The provenance of this "pizza" is supposedly from one of China's ethnic minorities, known as the Tujia (土家族) minority, who mostly hail from Hubei province. According to this article, in May of the last year the first Tujia pizza (土家烧饼/掉渣饼) franchise opened up in Hubei's provincial capital, Wuhan. In the next eight months franchises spread all over China -- costs of franchising vary from 3,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan, though this article claimed that you could open one up in Shanghai for a 30,000 franchising fee. We won't tell you much about the taste -- we haven't had one yet -- but evidently it's popular with people looking for a quick kebab type meal on the go, which means it might also be good for the post-shitfaced munchies, if they're open that late. It costs a mere .62 yuan to make one of these, and yet they are sold to the unsuspecting public at a huge markup -- 3 yuan!

What was that NWA song again? "Love Tha Police"? "Truck Tha Police"? "Funk Tha Police"? Well, whatever it was, that song came to mind when Shanghaiist learned that every hipster's favorite Shanghai bar -- Tang Hui Pub -- was being forced to shut its doors. "We're in a quiet neighborhood, and the police are always coming in," explained bar owner Zooma, who is also the soulful and spasmodic frontman for the band Xingfu 13, which kicked ass last Friday at the Shanghaiist launch party. The bar, located on tiny Xingfu Lu in Changning District, will close sometime in November.

Get your Hipster Bingo cards ready, Shanghai's fledgling underground music scene will flex its puny indie-rock muscles this Saturday at Hong Dou Dou Music Bar near Shanghai Stadium. If Shanghaiist decides to go, that's four bingo spaces filled right there. (We'll let you figure out which ones.) Maybe five if we smuggle some PBRs in our pockets. Or, since we're in Shanghai, would REEB count? A can of REEB and a mirror equals hours of hipster fun.