August 20, 2010

Chopsticks is back from China

Filed under: News, Traveling, Trips Abroad — chopsticks @ 6:00 pm

We’ve just recently landed back in the states from our eastern adventure just in time to take part in the premiere party-DJ-music-sweatfest celebration event of the summer, Home Grown. But before we were opening up for the best DJ’s in town, we were back in the orient knocking back tasty critters like scorpions and sea urchins. We were in Beijing and we hit up the Wangfujing snack street, famous for funky food and, well, really funky food. We took part in just about all the place had to offer (except the goat penis, we’re not about that!), take a look at some of the delicacies we sampled.

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Chinese people love to get their street drink on. There’re tons of street vendors with kegs selling beer in plastic bags for literally pennies. Normally we conduct ourselves much more gentlemanly-like, but we just couldn’t help partaking. The equation: Irishmen—along with all manner of other ethnicities, $1 pitchers, no closing time, and locals. The outcome: Chopsticks gets right fucking pissed (Aussie for “wasted” ya’ll), arm wrestle the locals, and pee all over people’s apartments.

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Contrary to popular belief, Chinese people can actually drive well. It’s like this because the rules don’t matter, the weak get weeded out via horrible head-on collisions before they get their cars outta park. So everybody left alive that’s still driving around is certified pro at driving like a mad-man but managing to stay alive at the same time. Take a look at this traffic incident, it’s the norm.

After finally managing to make it to Hong Kong, we immediately saw that the place is amazing! Air so crispy that Snap, Crackle, and Pop all quit their jobs, tropical mountains (what? yeah, really!) popping straight out of crystal clear water, amazing weather, and an amazing amount of international culture. Sadly due to our Beijing train-missing escapades, we were only there for a day and a half and were unable to take advantage of most of what the city had to offer, but we’ll most definitely be going back.

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Now we’re back in town and ready to get back to business, look for us at our regular Friday night and around town supporting other EF Records members and local DJs.

-chopsticks

August 4, 2010

Feeling

Filed under: Traveling — Tags: , — chopsticks @ 8:39 am

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Qingdao is great during the day and all, but what about when the sun goes down?

Chopsticks has dug up a China club so funky fresh it’s like Will Smith circa 1990 met up with pre-kidnapping charges Rick James and parented this baby of a club experience. The spot is called Feeling, and it is nice!

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Stripper poles in the middle of long bars winding through the entire place, alcohol aplenty, a sea of sweating 5 foot tall Chinese people making use of said alcohol, trippy lights, and one of the best club sound systems we’ve ever come across.

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Oh, did we forget to mention the hydraulic dancefloor? Yeah, that’s right folks, this dancefloor physically did not stop bumping. Good thing too, because the DJs were pretty shitty. They played mostly boring bassline driven house and mixed mainly via harsh drops and cuts.

Beijing is coming up in a few days. Chopsticks will be doing the Great Wall as well as the Beijing club scene, which features some crazy shit like 1 RMB beers (that’s like 15, maybe 16 cents, homies, and no cover–get on that shit, Charleston!), some reputable DJs spinning electro house from around the world, and a night of minimal featuring Daniel Bell who’s worked and toured with the king of minimal himself, Richie Hawtin. Get jealous, y’all.

July 31, 2010

I’m at a rave, bitch.

Filed under: Traveling — Tags: , — machete @ 1:40 am

MACHETE is currently in Nicaragua.

I came here to get a little vaca with the lady, but I secretly hoped there would be some electronic music to be found somewhere. The first night we arrived in San Juan we happened upon a Full Moon party promising a “3 DJ Jam” with jello shots and fire dancers. I maybe peed myself a little. I was possibly a little too hopeful…

The party was at a bar right on the beach. Amazing. Two huge subs and two huge cabs plus lots of flashing lights. Amazing. The DJs: le sigh. They were spinning decent enough electro house plus some dutch sounding stuff, and the glow glasses were free! So, Nicole and I made bananas out of plantains and went apeshit, naturally. Note the dope ass Coke crates the DJ is standing on. I got drunk. What do you expect? I’m at a rave, bitch!







Guess we’ll just stick to the surfing here in Nicaragua, which is amazing enough once you get down these third world roads. More on that next post. Also, I have a gig coming up next week in Dominical, Costa Rica. I’m going to try and melt those Costa faces off.

July 28, 2010

Qingdao

Filed under: Traveling — Tags: , — chopsticks @ 6:08 am

Ladies and gents, Qingdao is amazing! The beaches? Beautiful. The mountains? Right next to the beaches. The women? Fine. The food? Funky.

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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.

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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.

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-chopsticks