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is an ongoing column on 香港六合彩资料网 in which we profile Shanghai-based promoters and music makers living and putting on events in this city, specifically within the context of the larger cultural, economic, and arts landscape in Shanghai. These are your manufacturers of cultural capital, Shanghai. This is the business of art and music.

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Ben Huang is one of the best known names in China's dance music scene, a home-grown techno and house DJ who's built a successful career over the past 20 years playing everywhere from festivals to huge corporate events while maintaining his credibility. He was here for the start. He's seen it all.

But for the past couple of years he's not been playing so much. He's been taking a little rest, he tells us. But that changes this Friday night when Yellow, for the first time at The Shelter.

Yellow is a collaboration between Ben Huang and a few other who enjoy something close to elder status in this city鈥檚 party world, most notably Hector Nanquette, the French guy who was responsible for throwing the now-legendary Tourist Parties about six years ago 鈥� huge free raves in a warehouse down by the river.

We sat down with Hector, Ben Huang and DJ Thoma Cher, who is also playing this week, and his two MCs, Amine and Ocean Keep Waving, to talk about how the nightlife scene has changed here over the years since those first seminal Tourist Parties, afnd why Huang has decided to return to his Yellow roots after a two-year hiatus.

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Hector Nanquette: In the very beginning, the first time I met Thoma met was at a Yellow party in . Ben and I started them on Wednesday nights. Just to go back a little bit further, before Yellow, LOgO had a Wednesday night party called Freak Club. That was organized by two guys who have left Shanghai now, a Swiss and a German dude, Sebastian and Flavio. They had this party for two years and it was totally rocking, every Wednesday night.


All pics from the tourist parties, courtesy of Hector Nanquette

Ben Huang: Freak Club was the very early Berlin style. It was the first good weekly party in Shanghai. Now they鈥檝e all moved back. Flavio moved back to Zurich. Sebastian lives in Frankfurt now.

HN: It was the first eclectic party, every week, with a DJ, live instruments, and people spinning vinyls or doing live production with Ableton. So when that stopped, Ben came to me and we decided to do something similar -- a mix of live music and DJs -- and that was Yellow.


HN: Yeah, we worked together on the Tourist Parties, but they involved literally everyone in the underground nightlife scene. You had VOID, S.T.D, Uprooted Sunshine, they weren鈥檛 really crews yet, but they went on to become crews. This was at the very beginning, so they were all really small and just starting off. We also had some British guys who have left now, who were called Brown Nylon Suit. They made really cool parties. On the Chinese side we had Ben Huang, also Davide, a friend of Ben鈥檚, B6. I don鈥檛 remember, it was so long ago, but it was really all the people who were into electronic music in Shanghai and didn鈥檛 like .




HN: Blue Ice Club [where is now] came up around this time. No , but Michael [Ohlsson, owner of Dada, promoter behind Antidote] was involved in the Tourist parties, too. He would come and help us. But all you had was LOgO, the old LOgO, and the old , which was called Pirates at that time, run by two French dudes, who鈥檝e also now left. Then you had and Bar Rouge on the Bund, they were the two hotshots there. Nothing else. Just LOgO, which was really rocking, and Pirates, which was cool because it was nearby. That was the start of Xingfu Lu. Before that, Xingfu Lu had DD's, which was in the 鈥�90s. I wasn鈥檛 here for that, but I heard so much about it.

BH: DD鈥檚 was the first club where I saw a DJ really mixing. It was DJ Teng Boon. That was back in the 鈥�90s and at that time in Chinese clubs it was more like a DJ had a mic and stopped the music between records to announce the tracks and talk to the crowd. It was all YMCA and Go West. DD鈥檚 was the first club that had proper DJs. They opened in 鈥�96 in Shanghai. They brought Laurent Garnier that first year. I used to go down and watch them. It鈥檚 what first made me want to be a DJ. That and watching Derrick May at the first time he came here. Then DD鈥檚 closed here but opened up in Bejing, and that鈥檚 the first place I ever played.


BH: Back in 鈥�98. Kenny [owner of YYs] brought him over. YYs was the only other place to have any big international DJs.

HN: YYs is key to the whole scene. That was where we all met and that was where the idea came from to hold the Tourist Parties. This was after DD鈥檚 had closed. We would be at YYs and we had nowhere else to go. We鈥檇 be like, 鈥淔uck, I don鈥檛 want to go to Bar Rouge.鈥� So we decided we鈥檇 do our own parties. And then we acquired this warehouse space. We rented it originally to make artists鈥� workshops, but that didn鈥檛 happen so we just had this empty warehouse and so we started putting on parties.




HN: On Chuanchang Lu. It has a Metro stop now. It鈥檚 down near Longhua Temple. If you take Wulumuqi all the way down you get to the river, it was just there. Now it鈥檚 the .


HN: Five. The first few were smaller but we had way over 1000 people coming to the last couple. It was all just word of mouth. No PR or marketing. It was incredible.


HN: Because it鈥檚 not my job [laughs]. And the scene started to expand very fast. There were clubs opening and using the DJs and they were getting busy so it was suddenly hard to get them all together to play. They were making money and they became busy. All those people, most of them are still in Shanghai and they鈥檙e super busy running clubs and bars, running labels and agencies, they all work now. I really want to emphasize that the Tourist Parties were a collaborative effort. And especially Freak Club, Flavio and Sebastian, I think those people inspired everyone here. And Kenny from YYs. I met Ben in YYs, that鈥檚 where we all met. That was where artists gathered then, and now too.




Thoma Cher: I knew these guys from 2007. I was at the Tourist Party but I didn鈥檛 really know Hector then. Back then I was not a DJ, I was only doing music production, but then I started DJing and we started to make some event together. We organized the Capsule Parties. I鈥檝e brought in the first flier we did for those. [Holds up small baggie with capsule in it.]

BH: Capsule Party always has a very interesting flier. The best flier we ever had was for the party we did together, the Yellow Capsule Party.

TC: We did them in Dada. It was when Dada had just opened. After that I did a lot of things with Hector. We did some soundtracks for a movie together. That鈥檚 the first time we worked together. Then I started doing parties with Ben, Yellow Capsule, the mixture of Ben Huang鈥檚 Yellow parties and our Capsule Parties.

BH: We also did the Yellow 888 party on the Bund, on August 8, 2008. It was the start of the Olympics.

HN: Yeah in some place called . It doesn鈥檛 exist now. We made a big party there until the next morning.



BH: This was when Yellow started to become more interesting, the music became more housey and funky stuff. I very much like Thoma鈥檚 nu disco style.

TC: It鈥檚 true. At first when we started it was all very minimal. There was no nu disco. When I played nu disco at the beginning everyone said, what is nu disco? When I said I liked to play disco everybody looked at me like I was crazy.


TC: The band鈥檚 called B.P.M. It鈥檚 MC Amine and MC Ocean, plus another French guy called Vlad, who plays guitar and keyboards.


Amine: I met Thomas and Hector through YY people.

HN: And the Weihai Lu studio. This is a digression, but you remember , we had a little studio in there. That's a totally different story though.

Amine: Yeah, so I would go by their studio and just start freestyling. Thoma would play tunes, nu disco stuff, things with a little groove in them. Two years later we鈥檇 finally incorporated it into a show for one of the Yellow Capsule Parties. He played music and I did vocals and MCing over the top.



Ocean Keep Waving: That was where I first met Thoma. I was already performing as a duo with Vlad, and just through that and a couple of shows we went to, I had jammed with Amine. He was going to be MCing over Thoma鈥檚 beats at this Yellow Capsule and I was in the crowd, and he pulled me up on stage and we just started freestyling together.

Amine: I said, do you mind if I bring someone else along, and Thoma was all for it, so that鈥檚 how I got Dana up on stage. It was all totally freestyle, we hadn鈥檛 rehearsed anything. And she fucking rocked it. It was perfect.

OCM: It was totally unprepared. I hadn鈥檛 even heard the music before.

TC: I saw her climb on the stage and I didn鈥檛 know what she was doing. It was great.

OCM: We were making something different, you know, live vocals co-existing with electronics. That鈥檚 what we鈥檙e doing this Friday, too.


BH: I just felt like playing music again. In the last year, I took a break from DJing at clubs. I didn鈥檛 take any bookings for afterhours shows. I just hung around at clubs at weekends, rather than playing. It was relaxing. I鈥檝e been a DJ for a long time, I was a little bit tired. I had enough bookings, I didn鈥檛 have to work on doing parties every week. So I took a little break. When I went to a bar I just saw old friends and they always asked when I was doing the next Yellow, when was I doing another party. So after I came back from a break I just wanted to play music with my friends.


BH: Shelter is still my favorite place, and it鈥檚 perfect for my parties. After this, we might look at doing them at a few different venues. There are a few I want to look at next year, but for now Shelter is the best for this kind of party. It鈥檚 the first choice.

Amine: Shelter was the first club I was really drawn to in Shanghai and have been there numerous times and MCed, but I鈥檝e never done a gig there. But I鈥檓 really happy to be playing at Shelter. It鈥檚 different from what we normally do, which is MC with a band so you have verses and songs, but this is what I started with, 10, 12 years ago, MCing and bigging up a DJ. For a show like that, Shelter is the best place.


BH: I hope once a month from now on, at the Shelter. But we鈥檒l see.


TC: If you have a lot of money it鈥檚 feasible. But you can鈥檛 any more do free warehouse parties. It鈥檚 not possible any more.

HN: The dream of warehouse parties is still alive. Totally doable if you have the proper guanxi. It鈥檚 a simple equation: Money + Guanxi = Keyi.



TC: It鈥檚 the gathering, more than the noise. The police are suspicious of this many people gathering in one place, more than they鈥檙e worried about the noise.

HN: That鈥檚 right. Our warehouse was on a dead-end street. Behind it was a coal deposit, then a train line, then the river. We were the last building on the street. I was living there and was very good friends with the neighbors. And the neighborhood cops were really good friends with the bao鈥檃n from the building and would spend literally the whole day sitting with the bao鈥檃n, watching TV and drinking tea and pretending they were on patrol somewhere.

So every time I came and went I said hi and bye to them and so they knew me. Each time we had a party we really filled the street with mess and people, and the cops would come but they knew me and we were kind of friends. We would turn down the music when they came but we were never shut down, we always kept going until morning. People just thought we were crazy laowai.

But that鈥檚 why you need guanxi. Warehouse parties? It鈥檚 a dream that鈥檚 alive. Beijing and Shanghai needs them, it doesn鈥檛 have anywhere like that.

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Yellow is this Friday at The Shelter. Ben Huang DJs with Thoma Cher's band B.P.M., featuring MCs Amine and Ocean Keep Waving, and Vlad on keyboards. Hector Nanquette is doing visuals. See it all for 40rmb. More info .