Ladies and gents, Qingdao is amazing! The beaches? Beautiful. The mountains? Right next to the beaches. The women? Fine. The food? Funky.
Mystic mountains within a few miles of epic beaches, Qingdao’s got what you need. From the hoodest of hoods (seriously: we feel safer in North Charleston) to the most mansionly of mansions.
Sorry, only the hood is pictured here, the rich people weren’t so down with American style paparazzi. But really: ghetto-rigged barbed wire made of broken beer bottles? Awesome, but apalling.
What is also apalling is the driving. It’s a running theme here in China. We’ve got some video to post later… but yeah, we’re on dial-up over here.
Despite the wild automobiling, everything else is amazing. The weather here is superior. Sunny, but not too hot. It’s no California but it’s as close as China’s gonna get. We’ve taken advantage of this weather and gone out and explored the local scenery in search of a place to carry out one of our favorite activities: rock climbing. We were 100% successful.
Last night was another “Beach Boddin’” at Torch Monday. JeffET mixed with me dropping all vinyl all night long and things got a little out of hand, in a very good way, thanks to our killer monday night crowd and some new intelligent lights. I dropped a live version of my latest mix tape, Nice & Noisy, which was intense but well received and free to download HERE (Nice & Noisy)
JeffET and I are also changing things up at NV this Wednesday for our weekly MARMALADE party.
Just $3 cover til 12am,
$2 PBRs!, and
new dress code: be cool
Come dance with us!! To tide you over… Bart Bmore, one of the best up and comers in the electro/dutch house scene. Here’s one of his latest releases for ya.
-CMNDer
We’re trying something new at Tasty: dim lights, cheap drinks, and you have to come in the backdoor to get in. I personally love getting nasty at Tasty.
The Vent Mag team hangin’ out
Finally, got a picture of Jasper worthy of all the bad pictures he has of me!
Top 5 in the EF dance team
Also top 5 in the EF dance team
Party Dad, gettin’ down
Making the rounds
CMNDer
Jess bringing out the jean shirt, yes she did
JeffET and Brad, wearin’ golf hats and asking questions
Electric Friends were at O-Ku last night for an after party/fashion show of the ever talented Anna Lassiter hosted by Charleston After Dark. The place was packed to capacity for most of the night, and it was a pretty standard fashion show until Rainbow Brite showed up with a glowing hula hoop and decided it we should have a rave party. I think that’s encouraged the heavy electro house and miami bass set that followed, which ultimately culminated in a scuffle between an O-Ku patron and the management. There was apparently a disagreement about the acceptable use of chairs. Worry not: at the end of the night, everyone was okay, and the only things harmed were a few broken glasses and some ruffled feathers. Again: well done, Anna.
Congrats to the super modest Ben Ellenberg and his label, Mirror Universe, for yet another mention on a huge music blog and for the forthcoming release of the Yu(c)k cassette (Weakend EP which has already sold out! Kudos again.).
I was casually checking out Gorilla Vs. Bear a moment ago and saw Ben’s label tagged in a post. Ben has released so many amazing cassettes, including tapes for Washed Out and Toro Y Moi. Everyone in Charleston should know his name, and it’s a crime if you haven’t heard of him yet. In my opinion, this guy has done more to help Charleston than Joe Riley.
We got to kick it in Columbia last weekend for our first show at downtown hotspot The Whig. There was a great turn out in the super cool, literally underground venue. Amidst framed bugs, surrounded by taxidermy animals, and with an old bank vault as the green room we dropped a set that brought us back to our Electric Friends roots. Thanks, Columbia!
Here’s what happened….
A special shout out to Amy Long and Brandon Verkaik for bringing us up there and promoting the show. Awesome job. Dino and the Whig were unbelievably excellent to work with, as well, so we hope to get back up soon.
Congratulations are in order for one Party Dad of Electric Friends Records for his first feature write-up! Well done, sir. And an excellent job on the article by our good friend, Paul Pavlich.
Tonight, Party Dad will be performing at the Sale Soiree benefit fundraiser 7PM-10PM. Electric Friends will be spinning the officially after party and fashion show beginning at 10PM at O-Ku, hosted by Charleston After Dark. The party will feature fashion by the lovely Anna Lassiter, one of Charleston’s emerging designers who currently sells her work at Eden Boheme. The show will involve some models actually walking around, mingling with partygoers rather than walking on a runway, which I think is a pretty novel approach to displaying your fashion in its natural habitat. Well done, Anna.
Hey there, EF readers! It’s me, Party Dad, checking in once again to share another one of my favorite bands with whoever wants to listen. This week I kinda felt like taking things out of straight-up dance music mode and delving into my other True Music Love: indie-pop!
There are a lot of ups and downs to being an obsessive music fan. You’ll spend months meticulously researching a particular band or genre, tracking down and paying exorbitant amounts for rare 7-inches and LPs, reading even the most minuscule paragraph-long blog post found ten pages into a Google search on your subject, only to have your interest evaporate almost completely once you find a new obsession to pursue. Then, there are those bands that, for whatever reason, seem to stick with you no matter what. These are the true favorites, and for me no band typifies this type of band/fan relationship quite like cult indie legends Unrest!
“So Sick”
members (l-r): Phil Krauth, Mark Robinson, Bridget Cross
If you like what you hear (and how could you not?), I have plenty more to say about this amazing band, plus more clips to check out, after the jump!
There’s no reason to fake it: I’ve had a crush on Kid Sister since the Control EP. Skin like mocha, voice like honey butter. Kanye gave her some love on her track, Pro Nails (which I felt was underrated by and large). Unfortunately, her full length Album, Ultraviolet, got ripped apart by Pitchfork, but you know what? I still love her. And yes, I still drop this touch up of Control by LA Riots. Don’t judge me. Or fuck it: do.
So, of course when I heard she was playing at Sloppy Seconds in ATL last weekend, I had to tag along with my homie, DJ Salinger, and see how people get down at MJQ.
The venue definitely reminded me of the late 90s/early 00s grimy rave-esque warehouse parties that made me fall in love with electronic music: dim lights, cheap ass drinks, and industrial looking furniture you could just hose off at the end of the night. The main difference was that all those 60″ leg parachute pants were replaced with skinny jeans. Oh, and the glowsticks were replaced with guns, but that’s probably just ATL for you. Either way, I felt at home. Kid Sister was amazing. Great stage presence and execution despite some apparent problems with the stage monitors. Truthfully, I was quite happy just to be in the same room with Kid Sis. A-Trak, how did you mess things up with this girl, by the way? Damn. One thing that really cracked me up was looking around the room during the show and seeing all these tough looking dudes staring up at Kid Sister longingly and mouthing the words to her songs. My heart goes out to you, my dudes.
Huge ups to Caleb with OVERTHROW for delivering the goods. The party was fun, and I didn’t even get shot at. Congrats on 4 years of Sloppy Seconds, homie. DJ Megan Foxxx and Cobra Corps were quite entertaining throughout the night, as well. I <3 ATL.
So for the past week or so we’ve been trekking around the orient smelling the smells and tasting the tastes. We did Shanghai for a few days and it was bananas! Cheap food, hot women, and horrible drivers everywhere. There are some crazy funky eats here, as well as a KFC every half a block. Unfortunately we were too jetlagged to check out the local nightlife, but in future adventures we’ll definitely be hitting the Beijing and Hong Kong club scenes. We did however, manage to enjoy a few of the local attractions, including the famous and perpetually bumping Nanjing Road.
Now we’re in Nanjing for a short stint before we head to Beijing and then Hong Kong. Some amazing historical sights to be seen around here although the city’s not much for nightlife, at least American style. Drivers here are even worse than in Shanghai, it’s pretty miraculous that there’re still so many goddamn people alive over here.
In a few days we’ll be off to Qingdao for a short vacation from our vacation, then back to hitting the hottest spots in Beijing and Hong Kong. We’ll just be missing an Ed Banger show in Hong Kong, but from what the locals say the club scene will be just as fresh any other time. Legal drinking age here is 0 so the kids are looking to party!
