A seven-year veteran of Shanghai's nightlife community, Michael Ohlsson cracks the whip behind the parties, divines the events at bar, threw darts at a board and came up with a line up for the electronic stage this year's , and, from it all, produces so many events flyers in a week, trees tremble in his presence.
In celebration of Antidote's five-year anniversary this month and in anticipation of this weekend's Shanghai JZ Festival -- and, of course, to be sure, the stellar line-up of talented electronic artisans Ohlsson has corralled onto the electronic stage -- 香港六合彩资料网 talked to Michael Ohlsson about love and hate for electronica.
Shanghai JZ Festival tickets. . And don't miss out on the dance music stage. It shall be lovely.
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SmSh: You're celebrating five years of Antidote this month. For people newer to Shanghai, can you revisit the original concept and dish out the elevator pitch: what is Antidote?
Ohlsson: It's a party.
The vision for Antidote is to have kick ass fun while promoting the local music scene in China -- both bringing local home grown talents to a larger audience, here and globally, but also bringing in talents from around the world to China. It's import / export.
Mostly, we're interested in innovative music -- what's new and fresh, both here and abroad.
SmSh: The name "Antidote" implies that there's a reactionary edge to what goes on -- as in it's an "Antidote" to something. Is that an accurate characterization of your original and current motivations behind the thing?
Ohlsson: Yeah, that's part of what we set out to do... to create an "antidote" to what was available here at the time, in 2005. In the music scene, the nightlife... from the music to the poster design to the promotion gimmicks.
It's a pretty shit name, though. Most Chinese people can't pronounce it easily. But we're more playful with what we set out to do, and it's not meant to be taken too seriously.
SmSh: Maybe you could expand on what Shanghai was like in 2005 then. What was the music landscape in Shanghai like back then and what sorts of things were you putting on as a reaction to that?
Ohlsson: Very limited in choice. It was very rare to go out to a party or a club or bar for the music. You just had to accept what was available -- tired old hip hop, tacky tech-house, or cheesy cover bands.
But I'd met up with some of the local bands and electronic producers here and found that there WAS this critical mass out there, who was curious about real music, they just didn't have faith we could take it out of the bedroom, build a community, create something engaging and you know, put Shanghai on the map.
Frankly, I just wanted to go out and get drunk and hear better music.
SmSh: What were the early Antidotes like then? Where were they and who was booked? What kind of music and all that?
Ohlsson: All of them were at bar for the first year or two. Originally it was a "crew" of producers, and only local producers like and . But some of these original guys moved on, left town, or started to suck, so we started inviting more guests in, and eventually it just became more of a party name, instead of a solid crew. But it's still me and B6 running it. He still designs all the posters.
But I guess some of the key elements are still there to what we do... all kinds of music, even on the same night, we try to keep it eclectic and interesting with a focus on producers as headliners, not just DJs and live electronic music whenever possible. And live bands.
We started a series called "Antidote Live" after our first year, with bands and DJs together the audience here kinda had a hard time accepting that at first, which is exactly why we were driven to do it.
Anyway, Antidote's always been very DIY. We had to be... 'cause there was no structure in place to work with, for what we wanted to do.
SmSh: How did you end up going from the basement at C's to, two years later, being ?
Ohlsson: I guess that's mostly due to my good looks.
I think we got good media because we were being sincere and doing proper press releases. Sure it's a party at a dive bar, but we treated it as something important. Me and B6 approached it as real creative project, something with cultural resonance, not just a toss away night out.
And a real community formed around it, more than we expected.
SmSh: I guess I'm more asking about the massive amounts of exposure that "underground electronic" music and "Chinese underground rock music" in general that's cropped up in a variety of mainstream western media outlets in the last five years or so.
Generally speaking, in your tenure as the go-to cipher for Western media to wrestle with "experimental Chinese music", what is your take on the portrayal of Chinese music in international media outlets?
Generally speaking, in your tenure as the go-to cipher for Western media to wrestle with "experimental Chinese music", what is your take on the portrayal of Chinese music in international media outlets?
Ohlsson: Well, of course it's great to see the media attention, but yeah as an insider it's sometimes painful to see what they come up with, what they choose to cover.
But it's not just foreign media... Chinese media are going gaga over this shit too. What we need is more music publications like Pitchfork et al. looking at the Asian scene.
SmSh: The Time Magazine article came out right at the mid-point of Antidote, citing B6 along with a few others -- Torturing Nurse, Shengy, Sulumi, Yan Jun -- as members of an emerging "avant-garde" creating a movement analogous to "Dada[ism], or the New York City and Berlin avant-garde movements of the 1970s". Looking back at this period, did you share this sense that you were part of a group of people breaking down barriers? Did you see it as a movement?
Ohlsson: Well, yes, but not in the way Time Magazine envisioned it. Experimental scene? Whatever.
I love Torturing Nurse but there's one in every city, right ? It's not much of a movement, except you have a few foreign journalists all excited because it's China...
'Aren't people all riding bicycles there'?
Anyway, yeah that avant garde scene was part of our inspiration, but we've evolved from that a long time ago. Our ultimate goal is to make really good pop music.
SmSh: You mentioned earlier that "more music publications like Pitchfork et al. looking at the Asian scene". Is there anyone for them to actually look at? You've recently been critical of electronic music in China, specifically as argued in your January 2010 . You argue that there is international interest in Chinese music but you write, "looking through my stacks of demos and douban artist pages.... who's ready for it?鈥�
Ohlsson: Well, there's a handful of artists, and that's enough for someone like Pitchfork to cover. But yeah I was pretty disenchanted when I wrote that...
But this year has been really encouraging actually, so things are looking up. We're seeing some real break-throughs. B6 is touring abroad like five times this year. is about to release globally. In regards to proper releases from new producers here --- and come to mind.
And we're doing Antidote in 7 countries next month. So basically we're looking at more than just China. We're looking at all of Asia now, working with producers around the region.
We've been wanting to do this for a while, so finally it's on. There's been this little blossoming of indie promoters around Asia, and so we've got the venues and support. We've found local producers in each of these cities to join, and we're bringing in as a headliner. He's one of our favorite producers now -- real innovative stuff -- and he's eager to work with producers around Asia.
So we're doing Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand... maybe more to be confirmed...
Tell us about the Shanghai JZ Festival.
Ohlsson: Yeah, we're stoked to work with JZ. They've been building this festival for years and doing it really well. It's more of a family / community event, than the mosh pit you get at Midi, but they also program some really good music talent in there -- some cutting edge stuff, it's smart.
For the Antidote, last year in Zhujiajiao was mad fun [ in Zhujiajiao], but we wanted to team up with JZ Festival for this year to interact with a new audience and do something that's inside the city proper.
Of course you have to make some compromises but we think it's a good step forward. We'd like to build a more international line up for next year.
SmSh: Highlights?
Ohlsson: JCC, from Guangzhou, she's been doing these great nights in South China, so she's gonna bring the big bad noise, dubstep and dnb. ConRank's got great new materials that's so forward there's no genre name for it. B6's prime time set is going to be mind blowing鈥� it's going to be real good.
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The Shanghai JZ Festival is this week and weekend. Tickets for the week-long in-door concerts can be purchased . Weekend outdoor festival tickets, . To stay up to date on Antidote stuff, check their .
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