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Music Preview: Sub-Culture Weekender

Talking with one of Shanghai's oldest, most forward-thinking music crews ahead of their weekend-long party at The Shelter.
Last updated: 2015-11-09
Dam Funk, Kode9, The Bug, Tes La Roc, Addison Groove, Doc Deneeka, Desto – they've all played shows down in that ex-bomb shelter on Yongfu Lu, all thanks to one crew – Sub-Culture Shanghai. Aside from throwing parties, they do a weekly screening of cult films down at Dada Bar, and they’re one of the few crews in Shanghai to press vinyl, release cassette tapes and clothing, and collaborate with serious local artists to do posters that feel like old comic books and horror stories. This looks like a big year for them.

After going strong for over six years, Sub-Culture are stepping up their bookings with events almost every other week in Shanghai over the next few months, including transgender rapper Mykki Blanco and Rinse FM host Scratcha DVA next month, plus much more we can't reveal just yet. Ahead of all that, they’re doing a two-day party at The Shelter this weekend with guests Chimpo, Phoebe Kiddo, DJ Madd, Kuranaka, and a gang of local talent. We caught up with the three main cats in the crew – DJ and promoter Drunk Monk, art director Kim Laughton, and new blood Oliva Xiong, to talk about what’s happening this weekend and what’s next for the crew.


From left to right - Kim Laughton, Olivia Xiong, and Drunk Monk

SmSh: Ok to start out, for people out there who don’t know, what is Sub-Culture?


Drunk Monk: Sub-Culture is an event, which started in 2007 when The Shelter opened. In the beginning, it was basically Uprooted Sunshine, which was our reggae crew, and Sub-Culture was a party where we would play other music. When it first started it was mainly a dubstep party, back when dubstep was good. Over the last six and a half years it’s kind of evolved, and members have come and left, and now we do more different types of music than before, and involve a lot of art into it. Now Kim is the Sub-Culture artist. We’ve got a record label called SVBKVLT, we make clothing… It’s mainly an event, but with a record label and clothing and other bits. Whatever we fancy.


The Sub-Culture crew back in 2009, before years of Shelter air robbed their youth

SmSh: How’s the vibe different at this party than other parties?


Kim: The bookings are perhaps a bit different from everyone else. It’s probably like a bunch of small tweaks, rather than “this is what defines us over the other one.”

Drunk Monk: The artists that we book, there’s nobody else really booking that kind of thing. We obviously pay more attention and more time on the posters and the image behind it, and now with the installation and the visuals – it’s not just a DJ playing some music to a crowd, we’re trying to make it a bit more substantial and memorable. Experimenting with different things.

SmSh: The installation last time, with the cube and the laser, that was dope. Do you do most of the poster design now?




Kim Laughton's laser installation at The Shelter, 2014

Kim: Yeah, all.

SmSh: So it’s not IdleBeats anymore? Why’d you stop doing stuff with them?


Drunk Monk: No other reason than their costs went up because they’ve really upped their quality, which is great, but I cannot justify spending that much money just on the poster. It adds a lot to the budget. And also there’s support DJs and whoever else…however much I spend on the poster is basically coming out of their pocket. We will still work with IdleBeats in the future, but just not every month doing the poster. Also it was time to switch it up a bit, we’d done that for three years.

SmSh: So the posters you’re doing now, that’s all 3D rendering?


Kim: Yeah they’re all like that. It’s all gonna have the same kind of feeling, so that people can recognize from the colors and the look of it that that’s a Sub-Culture party coming up, and then at the end of the year there’ll be a nice collection of similar images.



SmSh: What do you use to model and render?


Kim: Mainly it’s 3D Studio Max, but it just depends on different projects.

SmSh: You did the album cover for Kingdom too right? That’s really cool, how did that work out?


Kim: They just found me online. It’s hard to say where people find you from on the Internet, it’s just random.



SmSh: So it wasn’t any kind of Sub-Culture link?


Drunk: No. Kim has only just officially joined this year.

SmSh: Cool, so you’re officially on, and you’re officially on too. What’s your role?


Olivia: Mainly do translation between English and Chinese, try to push promo online for a Chinese crowd, and try to put more attention on Chinese marketing.

SmSh: How is the Chinese turnout for Sub-Culture?


Drunk Monk: It’s decent. The Shelter is pretty mixed now; locals and expats and different ages. I wouldn’t say we get more Chinese people than another night, I think it’s just the general Shelter crowd. Hopefully with Olivia now with us, that will change. Hopefully we’ll get more.

Olivia: Or just let more people understand what we’re doing.

Kim: I guess part of the thing this year is to try and make the whole thing feel a bit more cohesive and more of a kind of…not quite a brand, but more of a thing that people recognize.

Drunk Monk: A solid image of what we’re doing..

Kim: So it does stand out from the other nights by being a bit different, hopefully a little bit better or more polished, a little more time spent on each night; and then hopefully, if it stands out then that appeals more to locals as well, because it looks a bit different.

SmSh: I think you’re gonna see a lot of that in Shanghai this year. So do you think there is a big audience in China that would be into Sub-Culture but they just don’t know about it yet?


Olivia: Yeah definitely. Young people, young crowds are always looking for something different, something special, something cool. Sub-Culture is kind of right on the spot. I used to live in Shanghai and go to Sub-Culture’s party quite often. Yeah definitely potential.



SmSh: And you’re doing stuff around the world, which is something that a lot of people here aren’t doing. What’s the Sub-Culture Tokyo night like?


Drunk Monk: Last time was pretty quiet [laughs]. It’s tough promoting when you’re not there. But no it’s been great, every time we’ve done it it’s been great. Got a good response. The thing is with doing stuff in Tokyo, what a lot of my friends have told me, is that the scene is very… segregated. You get different, very specialized scenes, so you’ll get a footwork night, or a reggae night, or a dancehall night, and they’ll play that music all night long, and the people that go there will love that music.

But when we go across it’s like a whole mix of music, and a lot of my friends say that doesn’t happen too much over there, and they found it hard to find that angle to promote, aside from the fact that we mainly live in China. Musically it was hard for them to get it out there, because it’s everything from drone to industrial techno to whatever; it wasn’t really hitting a certain market. It’s very separated in Tokyo, whereas in Shanghai everything is kind of mixed together. The scene is not that big, so people tend to go to [nights with] various different styles of music.

SmSh: Is the scene is bigger in Tokyo? I don’t know anything about Tokyo.


Drunk Monk: Yeah, a lot bigger.

Kim: Like a hundred times [bigger]. Tokyo is on the scale of London and New York

Drunk Monk: Shanghai is still tiny. Everyone knows everyone. You could probably list 95% of the DJs right now, whereas Tokyo, you couldn’t even get 5%. There’s a lot of people doing things, a lot of promoters. Shanghai is still very small, even though sometimes it can feel big.

SmSh: Is it more Japanese people doing parties and DJing there?


Drunk Monk: Yeah you very rarely see foreigners running nights or even DJing, and you hardly see any foreigners in the crowd. It’s a Japanese scene, run by the Japanese.


Japanese Crew PART2STYLE rocking at Sub-Culture Shanghai

SmSh: Do you think in the future China will be like that?


Kim: I guess it will have to get that way. I think Korea is going that way now. Korea is much more local events. I think it’s just a case of developing. Foreigners bring it into the city so of course initially it’s going to be mainly foreigners, but then over time it will slowly transition into more local.

DrunkMonk: It’s different in Shanghai and the rest of China. I find that there’s a lot more Chinese promoters, Chinese crews doing their own events. There’s much more around China than there is in Shanghai.

Kim: And of course, the majority of nightlife in Shanghai is still Chinese – it’s Chinese clubs, and I think people very often forget that. This is still a small percent of nightlife, it’s just that’s what we happen to be interested in. But for the rest of nightlife in China, we’re as alien to them as they are to us [laughs].

SmSh: Ok so you did stuff in Tokyo, where else outside of China have you done SubCulture stuff?


Drunk Monk: We’ve traveled a bit, we’ve played around Asia. We’ll do another in Tokyo by the end of the year. I’m supposed to do something in Singapore with the Darker Than Wax guys.


Floyd Cheng beat tape and SVBKVLT slipmats

SmSh: What’s up with the label, you guys have records and clothing…


DrunkMonk: Yeah I’m gonna start the label up again shortly. First release will be an EP in April by SLV; that’ll be digital. And then Phoebe Kiddo, who’s playing on Saturday night, she was at Red Bull Music academy with ChaCha and they actually made an EP at the academy, and while she’s here they’re gonna finish that off and I’ll release that on cassette. And then I’ve still got a Demon Slayer cassette I’m supposed to release. Those are the next three releases.

SmSh: What about AM444 stuff?


Drunk Monk: It’s not on SVBKVLT. They’ll be releasing on another label. That’s gonna blow up quite soon, they’ll be on something big.

SmSh: Ok so tell us a bit about this weekend – what’s the deal, it’s a two-day party…





Drunk Monk: Yep it’s a two-day party, it’s the first time we’ve done this. On Friday night is Chimpo from Manchester. He’s great; amazing DJ and he’s getting big attention from his productions now. And also Friday, Downstate will play a live set, plus the Push & Pull guys, ADO8, and me.

On Saturday, it’s DJ Madd from Hungary. He’s a big dubstep name, he’s been around for years. It’s really kinda reggae influenced dubstep. And with him is a guy called Kuranaka, a dub producer from Kyoto. He’s a big promoter in Japan; a big name in Japan, been doing stuff for years. Dreads down to his ankles He’s produced tracks with DJ Krush; probably not many people know him here but he’s really good. He’s bringing a lot of hardware as well, it’s kind of a semi-live set, a lot of effects units. And also Pheobe Kiddo from Australia, and she plays a full live set, and supporting is ChaCha as Faded Ghost and Siesta. Saturday night will be recorded and broadcasted on Red Bull Music Academy Radio – the first show from Shanghai. And then obviously Kim doing all the visuals and installation.

SmSh: What’s the installation like this time?


Kim: Not sure yet [laughs]. Probably strobes and things..Taobao.

SmSh: You just dig on Taobao for stuff?


Kim: Yeah, you can get a lot of stuff here that you can afford for a night like this because it’s in China, but if you were doing it anywhere else in the world it would just be too expensive. You know, lasers and stuff..

SmSh: Last question – if it’s truly a weekend-long party, why not do it Berlin style and just do the party for 48 hours straight?


Drunk Monk: That sounds horrible.

Kim: I don’t think anyone would stay. It would just be us sitting in a corner crying and that would be it [laughs].

Drunk Monk: I don’t think Shanghai’s quite ready for that. I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that.

***

The Sub-Culture Weekender happens this Friday and Saturday night at The Shelter from 10pm–5am. Friday night has Chimpo, Downstate, Alta, Naaah, ADO8, and Drunk Monk, and Saturday features DJ Madd, Kuranaka, Phoebe Kiddo, Faded Ghost (ChaCha), and Siesta. Both nights feature art installations by Kim Laughton and heavy sub-bass. Cover charge = 60rmb per night.

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