Ratatat - whose song we once featured here against a backdrop of Spring Festival fireworks - may be gracing Shanghai with its presence this Spring. According to local concert promoters S.T.D., the Brooklyn-based indie electro-music duo will play on May 21 at Zhijiang Dream Factory, along with Wuhan dance punk group AV Okubo. Ratatat has toured with the likes of Björk, Daft Punk, Interpol, Franz Ferdinand, The Faint and The Killers, and have produced remixes of songs by The Knife, Television Personalities and Animal Collective. Check out their Myspace. more ›

Shanghaiist are unabashed meat-lovers. We are also big fans of all-you-can-eat places, since blogging is, how shall we say, not a paying gig the most lucrative of professions. So we were delighted to come across a Brazilian churrascaria that doesn't a) rip a new one for drinks and b) actually has a nice, relaxing ambiance to it. Samba Brazilian Steakhouse was one of the places in the New Factories that we peeked into on our... more ›

Saturday was a very successful day for the festival, drawing medium-sized crowds again in the afternoon and selling out completely the evening portion. The day started with E-Groove, a Shanghainese funk-fusion band who play a popular brand of original instrumental music a la '80s Michael Brecker. These guys play a regular concert series at the Jin Mao concert hall, and can occasionally be seen featured at JZ Club. Following them was Islaja, a Finnish duo who used lots of loop-based soundscapes to support the female folk vocals. She played guitar, and there was a man who played bass, and he played lots more chordal stuff than traditional bass lines. It was a slightly psychedelic, soothing sort of Finnish folk. more ›

The second day of the JZ Festival went well, with another bout of perfect weather and slightly cooler temperatures. The afternoon crowd was about the same as the first day, nearly filling up the relatively small amount of space in between the buildings at the New Factories where the concerts are being held. The musical pattern set on day one seemed to hold through the second day as well, which was: begin the day with some solid, swinging straight-ahead jazz; from there move into an eclectic mix of Scandinavian groups for the rest of the afternoon; then start the evening set with a local blockbuster group and finish it with some popular Chinese pop-rock. more ›

The first day of the JZ Festival saw excellent weather, an interesting new venue for a music festival, and a wide range of music styles. It's already made lots of improvements on last year's festival at Fuxing park (except for the being held in a nice park with trees part) like slightly more food and drink selection and a great mass of artists selling cool stuff made themselves, like bags, jewelry, and kitschy animal-shaped gifts. Also the weather being nice is already a massive improvement over last years threatening storm clouds. Opening the festival at 3pm was Lawrence Ku's septet, playing his own compositions and arrangements from the group's recent release "Process". The group has a well-developed modern jazz sound that unfortunately doesn't get featured locally very often, even though all the players are locally based. After Lawrence's band finished on the main stage, Susanna and her magic orchestra played on the second stage. She has a dreamy, floating sort of sound to her music, and her orchestra was a one-man synthesizer orchestra but quite effective all the same. She was the first group of three that were brought into the festival through NOTCH, the festival of Scandinavian music that has merged with the JZ festival this year. She and the group that followed her, Supersilent, both hail from Norway. Supersilent played on the main stage, and made a pretty amazing show that started out with industrial-sounding sample-based free improvisation. Then they moved into some dark realms of free experimental music that was like a continuous segue. Very creative and different from everything else at the festival. The fourth band, the Skull Defects, were also making some quite interesting music with some electronic sampling and improvisation. However, they were a bit more rock-based, using more continuous rhythmic elements and interesting instruments like a big plastic water jug with a mic stuffed in the hole to get a nice deep drum sound. more ›

It is official...the golden week has finally hit Shanghai, and it is hitting us hard, with a multitude of music festivals. So for those of you who are taking the vacation serious and drinking so much you can't think straight, Shanghaiist is here to do the thinking for you. Feel free to print and paste the sample itinerary listed below to that one pair of underwear you plan on wearing for the entire week. more ›

The latest news from the former Fuxing Jazz Festival is that it is going to take place up in Jing'an district at the New Factories on Yuyao Lu (余姚路), and will be called the JZ Festival (爵士同乐 in Chinese). It will feature many of Shanghai's locally-based jazz groups including Coco and his band Possicobilities, Alec Haavik's Friction Five, and the JZ All-star big band. Also featured will be major Chinese rock stars Cui Jian and Xu Wei among others, as well as a number of Northern European groups (jazz and otherwise). The festival, put on by the JZ group, Jing'an government, the Jing'an tourism bureau, and the organizers of the NOTCH music festival, will take place over four full days, October 4-7. more ›

Well, ok, it's his disembodied voice on a conference call, but we still think having the U.S. senator and Democratic presidential hopeful drop the PRC a line is pretty cool. more ›

For any of you who have never heard Queen Sea Big Shark (pictured), shame on you. One of the hottest bands on the Beijing circuit they played the main stage at Midi this year (not a great performance, they are much better in small venues) and are set to release their debut album on Modern Sky in June. Billed as a "dance rock" band, they are definitely more rock and less dance. Check them out at 4Live tonight. more ›

Would you believe the Eager Beaver? Check out the list to the right (paying special attention to the prices) and let us know what you think. They have most of the beers imported by American Craft Beer Partners (they have Brooklyn Lager, but it isn't on the menu), Coopers, Sam Adams and big bottles of Paulaner, which we hadn't seen elsewhere. We suppose they could use some Belgian beers and some Kiwi beers and maybe they should look into these Aussie beers headed to town soon thanks to Mat Ryan, formerly of Senses. But what Eager Beaver has now, already ranks the dive as perhaps the city's best hideout for beer lovers. What other places compare? Moon River Diner at New Factories comes to mind. Any other candidates? more ›

Shanghaiist was browsing around on SHExpat Forums yesterday, and came across a thread discussing the loss of one of Shanghai's renowned cheap eating establishments — Turk's. more ›

Moon River looks like a diner. It feels like a diner. And, most importantly, it tastes like a diner. The people behind this place got the details right -- the black and white tile floors, the red swivel-top stools and even the colorful curly straws. And we love the huge retro neon sign out front -- it's perfect. They've even got a jukebox (the same one they had out in Gubei) but it no longer works, and -- we just learned this -- did you know jukeboxes are technically illegal in China? An old Cultural Revolution law that never came off the books, we were told. more ›

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In Jarrett Wrisley's column in this weeks SH we learned some encouraging news: more ›