Results tagged “onsaturday”

Feeling a little "under the weather" (hah!) from all the snow we're getting? Those rapscallions over at Void have just the answer for you. On Saturday night, they're bringing respected house music veteran Jason Hodges to drop some bombs at The Shelter.

Alcohol companies (especially in Shanghai) are known for their lemming like approach to parties (maybe it is the incestuous nature of their cliques). The latest trend is in throwing expensive "invite only" parties like the Hennessy Artistry series and this weekend’s upcoming Smirnoff party featuring Hard-Fi and DJ Sasha (gag). Just like at the Hennessey party, we loser expats aren't overly welcome (at more than one of these parties we have been told that our extra invite shouldn't be given to a laowai). About the only way in is to be Chinese and register or be part of that trendster socialite clique who relies on being invited to these things to help keep their massive egos inflated. Don't think too much about it though, because this weekend there are plenty of other great shows where everyone is welcome ... and not a bottle of Smirnoff or Hennessy in sight.

With the holiday season in full swing things usually slow down in the music scene. But this weekend there are a few shows that should get us through to the New Year.

We have never actually experienced or even witnessed a person's ears bleeding from a live show, but last night we were pretty damn close. Thursday, the Ex-Models put on an interesting show of sharp, sonic blasts for a small 4Live audience. If you happened to miss it, no worries, the band will be joined by Carsick Cars and Torturing Nurse on Saturday at Yuyintang. Carsick Cars has enjoyed a stellar year, opening for Sonic Youth at 3 shows in Europe and they look to continue their climb with a few major European festival invites for 2008.

Well...after a day of bloating ourselves on turkey and pumpkin pie (sorry Shanghaiist is American and assumes that everyone else wants to be one) the perfect cure is a night of live music. Lucky for us Convenience Store, one of Beijing's longest lasting and most reputable Brit-pop bands, is going to be playing out at Live Bar tonight. Shanghaiist has waited along time to see this band, in the past we were busy or too...

On Saturday, Oct. 27, the same night as our Halloween extravaganza, police raided and shut down Shanghai's popular gay club, Club Deep (commonly called "Deep"). Word on the street is that some Deep patrons were indulging in some not-so-legal substances during Deep's "Decadent Halloween" party, sponsored by i-Candy. According to our sources, between 20-30 police officers (initially mistaken for costumed go-go dancers, it was a Halloween party after all) arrested around 10 people, all suspected...

Well, this weekend there might not be a 1234 Beach Rock Festival, but that is no reason to stay home, curled up with a blankie, crying about what might have been. Live Bar out in Yangpu has shows going every night, showcasing emerging underground acts from Shanghai and Beijing. Friday night, Yuyintang will be hosting big hair, metal band Arch Enemy from Sweden. Apparently this is a pretty well known European metal band, and after listening to a few of their songs, they might make you want to kick some dude (any dude) in the balls. This, in case you didn’t know, is a big thumb’s up for a metal band. For those who don't really like kicking (or possibly being kicked) then check out the Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Quartet at the Melting Pot on Friday or on Sunday at Labella's Cafe. We have heard rumors Lulo Reinhardt is an amazing Jazz guitarist and we are looking forward to seeing him play. Antidote, one of Shanghai's favorite monthly parties is holding an exhibit of party posters and videos from the past 2 years at the Source gallery and will hold a party at the gallery, tonight.

More than a dozen prominent Singapore celebrities have come out in support of a new parliamentary petition to repeal Section 377A in the city-state's Penal Code which outlaws “acts of gross indecency” between men by appearing in a Youtube video uploaded recently.

Never able to keep a secret, Shanghaiist has gotten some fat little morsels of gossip on our plate that we are dying to share...but that will have to wait until next week.....for now you will have to be content with this weekends roundup of live events.

Video of Blind Stereo MV

Slow weekend for music, lucky for us the bands that are playing (Live Earth is the exception) are worth seeing. This is the weekend for concerts dedicated to raising environmental awareness, accomplished by plugging in watt hungry amps and singing about sex and beer. On Friday Recycle a pop punk band, less pop more punk, will be joined by old school punkers Loudspeaker and garage rock favorites Banana Monkey at 4Live. On Saturday PK-14 (Public Kingdom for Teens) an amazing post-punk band from Beijing marks their return to Shanghai for the first time in over 1 1/2 years with two shows. Celebrating their launch of environmentally-inspired tees (proceeds of which will go to charity) the clothing shop ENO gets things rocking at 4pm with July 16th a garage rock band from Nanjing, Boojii the Shanghai Shoegazer band and the cat's meaow....PK-14. For those who can't get enough of them at the afternoon show (that should be everyone!), PK-14 will also be playing Saturday night at the Dream Factory. If great post-punk music isn't your thing then plenty of cheesy pop music will be available at the official Live Earth concert being held under the Oriental Pearl Tower (not exactly the most environmentally friendly of buildings).

Shanghaiist loves launch parties. Who wouldn't? Free beer, free gifts and great music (usually). Last Friday, ENO, in celebration of their new line of clothes hosted DJ V-Nutz, DJ Tsang along with local rappers Redstar and Kensho Kuma. We showed up for the free drinks and products, but stayed for the music. On Saturday, after sleeping off a massive hangover, we made it back to ENO to see Banana Monkey and the Deadly Vibes tear up the joint ... fueled by more of that free beer! A good performance (ENO still needs to invest in suitable amps and a vocal monitor), everyone was excited for the show at the Dream Factory where the Deadly Vibes and Banana Monkey were joined by local foreign favorites Boys Climbing Ropes.

The Honeys and Yuguo, kicked things off at The Dream Factory (new Yuyintang) last Friday night. This was our first time to the venue and it was impressive — bigger, louder and much closer to downtown than the old Yuyintang. Underlounge was also packed Friday with people ready for good old skanking to the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, only one problem: The band never made it from Tokyo. Luckily most people were too drunk to realize the band never showed and the DJs kept the crowd going with plenty of ska tunes. On Saturday, people turned out en masse for the Infadels and Killa Kela show at Absolute House. Killa and the teenage beat boxers from Yanji were impressive, less so was the sound system which could never seem to balance out instruments and vocals. Lucky for us, we were invited to the Lab on Sunday where Killa Kela and crew made a special visit. Being such a small space, and with killer (killa?) equipment, the crowd was treated to a mind blowing performance by local beatboxers and Killa Kela himself.

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?

Shanghaiist needs a massage. On Saturday we took part in the 2007 Great Wall Marathon, a race of 42.195km (26 miles), including two stretches of about 9km each on the Great Wall itself. The rest in the countryside. About 1,300 runners — a lot of Americans, some South Africans, Australians, Mexicans, Dutch, Danish, British, a few French ... and even four goats and an Olympic female mountain biker from New Zealand — took part in the marathon. We all started at 7.30 am ... and seven hours later, Shanghaiist completed the race, with sore legs and sunburned shoulder. But how proud we were!

The suspense is finally over. Shanghai woke up to a new leader today. On Saturday, Beijing appointed Comrade Xi Jinping as the city’s new General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, replacing Mayor Han Zheng, who temporarily held that post when former Secretary Chen Liangyu was investigated last fall for misappropriating public funds. City residents cheered the decision:

Last week, we told you about the the big fire at Shanghai's historic 121-year-old Union Church. On Saturday, we went to the church to check on the damage. We were able to sneak onto the roof of an abandoned building next door to get some bird's eye views — and what we saw wasn't pretty. Workers are busy building scaffolding around the remains of the building, so it looks as though the church's renovation is still going to happen. But they've really got their work cut out for them.

On Saturday, November 11, New York Times Foreign Affairs Columnist Thomas L. Friedman spoke at Three On The Bund as part of the Three Talk Lecture Series which was co-hosted by the Penguin Group, publisher of Friedman's bestseller The World Is Flat (TWIF). When the globe-trotter, Friedman comes to Shanghai, it is clear how much he travels by the fact that he seems to be unsure of exactly where he is, as in one instance, he spoke of Three On The Bund "here in Beijing." In all, Friedman spoke on his book for about 52 minutes and then followed with a 36 minute Q&A session at the conclusion of which he was presented with a bizarre statuette of himself standing atop a flat world with the words "GEO GREEN" affixed to a pink base and surrounded by the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac.

On Saturday night, Shanghaiist was strolling along Changle Road (a long street), when we noticed a number of policemen in vehicles moving in both directions with their lights ablaze. Not that there is anything abnormal about that, but a motorcycled policeman did seem to take special interest in us, stopping for a moment to turn his head for a clear look. Perhaps it was because we had a large rucksack in tow or because he thought us strapping he-men. Whatever the reason, it reminded us that currently, somewhere lodged in a historic Shanghai hotel, 100 investigators from the Central Discipline Inspection Commission (CDIC) are stationed for the ongoing graft investigation that has claimed Shanghai Municipality Mayor, Chen Liangyu, among other elite Shanghai politicos. The last time a sitting Politburo member was purged China was in 1995 with the removal Chen Xitong, the Beijing party chief and a significant rival of Jiang Zemin.

Being a Mandopop star seems like hard work. Endless promoting, little creative control, mediocre output, a demanding fanbase, a music market that is overrun by counterfeiting and short shelf life. It must get tiring. Wang Leehom is the rare pop star that has not only retained, but gained popularity after 10 years in the fickle Chinese pop business. On Saturday night, he brought his show to a capacity crowd of pop fans at the Shanghai Stadium. And he made it look easy.

It’s been a week of uncertainties, at least as far as JZ is concerned. Was JR dropped? Is Coco back? When will we see more of Alec and The All-Stars (pictured above)? Did you all find the bank card we lost there on Wednesday? We’d love answers (especially for that last one -- ICBC wants us to go all the way out to Yangpu to get a new one).

Blame it on the World Cup, but it’s a testament to the steady improvement of the Shanghai music scene that we now consider a weekend with four live shows “slow.” We unfortunately missed the Beijing rockers, Camel, at Live Bar on Friday night, but heard from reliable sources that they put on a fun, up-beat, pop-punk set. On Saturday, Hackbuteer played a wild show worthy of a crowd of 400 people at Yuyintang, except that there were only 40 people there. The highly underrated six-man band from Xi'an experimented with everything from straight-up rock-and-roll to an Incubus-esque combination of guitars and turntables. Best secret of the weekend, they were. And what’s better than drinking warm beer from a can in a dirty warehouse in the middle of nowhere?

The Diner will celebrate its hard opening Grand Opening this weekend, and we thought, What a great excuse for another Shanghaiist Happy Hour ... and to drink alcoholic beverages in the morning! Who says happy hours have to be at night?

That is, because they won't give you any.

Yes, they are cheap. But Shanghai buses are often overcrowded and overhot. They are also slow, and Shanghaiist is already habitually late. Now we have another excuse for not getting on the bus -- they keep bursting into flames. Thursday afternoon, an hour before rush hour, a No. 920 bus caught fire on Huaihai Zhong Lu, one of the city's busiest streets, near Sinan Lu. Flames engulfed the bus, destroying it and stopping traffic for more than 30 minutes. Amazingly, there were no reported injuries. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. This was the second bus fire in Shanghai is less than a week. On Saturday, a No. 715 bus caught fire at the intersection of Xizang Nan Lu and Fangxie Lu in Huangpu District. Again, no injuries were reported.