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[My Weekender]: Yvonne Chen

Shanghai supergirl Yvonne takes us through a club-hopping weekend. She knows everyone. You know Yvonne, right? She's great.
Last updated: 2015-11-09
Yvonne Chen moved to Shanghai five years ago from her native Wuhan. She works at Seven Records Management, a tour management agency, and helps promote and run a bunch of parties with Ben Huang, Footprint and more. Here's the weekend what she do.

Hey, I’m Yvonne Chen, an asexual or bisexual (I haven't figured it out yet) weirdo who’s throwing some DJ events in this big city. If you don’t know me, don’t worry, I’m an easy-going person, and I like making new friends. We can meet in person at some parties on weekends, especially those ones which involve me, like this upcoming one which I’ve been busy working on these days. Shout out to Footpring Session Pres Joop Junior LIVE (Minus / Sci Tec) next Saturday at Arkham. So, this weekend and next week, whatever, it’s all about this. This guy Joop Junior is amazing. Go check his stuff. If you don’t believe me, take it from some of his supporters: Minus boss Richie Hawtin, SCI+TEC’s owner Dubfire, Adam Beyer, Umek and John Digweed. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Please forgive me, just got pumped up for this booking.

Well, glad to share my weekend here, it usually starts around Thursday, since I resigned my day job at TNT a couple of months ago. I left there because that’s a Dutch company filled with orange and you can’t get any bombs or explosives from them, despite the name. They only provide professional international express services. Aw, I know, that sounds boring and it was.

So on Thursday nights, if it’s not too cold outside, I might go to Regional, this recently opened lounge bar owned by one of my friends, a DJ called Deep 19. It’s a high-end chill spot with cherry-picked quality both in its sound system and interior decoration. Seriously, they have one of the best sound setups in town. The soft opening in September brought me a fresh acoustic enjoyment that I've never felt before. The music is loud, but with a focus on the higher registers remaining clear and pronounced. I can talk freely while enjoying the music. The overall set-up is slick but with a relaxed atmosphere. It's very cozy.

I do some part-time work for Regional, but I don't only go there because I work with them, it's also a good place to have meetings for some of the other work I do. Like some expats teach English here, I teach Chinese to laowai at a language centre. Let me know if you’re interested, I can offer you our best price. Christian Ohlin from LOgO can prove it. However, the same as most of you, teaching a language is not my passion. The work I love has to be music-related. I work with Oscar at Seven Records Management – an artist and tour management agency. He’s a humble guy who’s always behind the scenes. We arranged Mike Candys at 7th Floor this month. Unfortunately, that's the same night we have Joop Junior at Arkham. I really hate this every time it happens. It’s OK, different crowds, so no need to worry about it too much. Anyways, I’ll take care of the Joop Junior’s gig. I’m really psyched that Raz is a part of the lineup for the first time. My friends and I really enjoy his sets.

Regional is becoming my work place. I meet our designer Borsan Tseng there to talk about promotional artwork, and discuss some project plans with Ben Huang. I also work with Ben a lot, taking care of his Yellow parties and some other stuff; I'm more like his assistant. I would never dare to abandon him since he has taught me many things. He’s the dude who lead me into the music scene, and he's absolutely my mentor. I like working with people who have good mindsets, sincere attitudes, such like Ben and Oscar, different from some short-sighted fake people who’re anxious to achieve quick success and get instant benefits. It’s cool to be open-minded and patient.

Ben’s partner, DDD’s Razor, plays at Regional with his friends every Thursday night. I accidentally discovered that one of his friends named Ludvig mixed all the tracks I liked at our last party, Hot Hot Hot NYE at the old Dragon. Yellow teamed up with DDD for that one — such a wicked night. Since Razor is in Thailand now, I hit up Charp and Thoma Cher’s Holly Sh*t crew presents Nakadia at Lola on Thursday night. They also got Subb-an before. Sick. I had a blast, such a good atmosphere and not as crowded as the weekends. Steven Lorenz’s Bassment on Thursday would also have been a good one. He keeps promoting techno in Shanghai, even he doesn’t live here any more. Good boy!

This Friday’s an easy one. I'll head down to Arkham to drop off Footprint's Joop Junior flyers. Then, I might go to check Alex Flatner, this A&R guy who's at Lola for the third time. He's there almost once a year. Footprint booked him in Beijing last year. In the end, no matter where I go, I will probably end up at Shelter, my second home, to meet some usual suspects. I just got recovered from a heavy cold, so I haven’t met you guys for a while and I miss you all. After that, the best way for me to end it up is to have my breakfast at Bifeng Tang, the Cantonese restaurant near Changle Lu. Shrimp dumplings are one of my favorite dishes. The Shelter tonight has an All Stars party with Drunk Monk, which is cool, but my point is I can imagine what will happen. Every time, I leave Shelter with Shanghai's hip hop people, Cavia, Cezzy, LJ, Ian Heatwolve and his girlfriend Cecilia, it's the same ending — noodles, noodles, noodles. Lanzhou one or Henan one? Two noodle places, both nearby. Hip hop people never get tired of it.

Saturday is the last party day of the weekend. I don’t get up before 3pm, sometimes when I wake up the night has fallen down already. This Saturday night, MHP owes me a Beijing hot-pot dinner. We’re gonna try 兜率宫 (Dou Lv Gong) again. Having hot-pot couldn’t be better during a cold winter. It’s on Panyu Lu, near Xinhua Lu. I remember last time I went there with Ian Heatwolves, Cecilia, Misloop and SIG. It was definitely a nice experience, impressive, good service, yummy food, sugar-coated haws on a stick, mini lamb deep fried jiaozi, awesome! Drooling now!

After dinner, I’d like to grab some drinks somewhere, depending on the parties that night. I'll look into what's happening at Shelter, Arkham, Dada, Lola, 390 or if there is any S.T.D. or TICT parties. This Saturday, I might stop by 390 to meet my friend Ryan and say hi to Sacco and Sophia before I’m off to Arkham to show my love to my friends’ party, another Mad Decent night. David Luce’s 1 Love Shanghai hooks up with Conrank and Misloop’s crew. I’ll do the same thing again as Friday, you know how it is. Also, I need to educate Luce about Techno.

Honestly, I personally prefer house music, I will probably swing by Sam’s party, Yo Banfa presents the Bees Knees featuring Mercury. Why not? I like Sam, Don and Toni. Plus, Lola has the state of the art sound system as well. When the night is over, home and bed. Is that all? No, forgot to mention the last thing, get down to my second home Shelter for my queen — Jane Siesta!

Due to this crazy night, I will 100% sleep in and stay in on Sunday, wake up without sunshine, only the nightfall. I won’t get out of bed until I feel extreme starvation. Winter laziness. Time to make a phone call and order some food. More importantly, Sunday is a chilling night for being lazy and watching American TV show in front of my laptop. Since I got depressed after I finished Homeland Season 3, I need to go check something different, maybe an old but classic one, like 30 Rock.
Knackered, but have to put my chin up, to face the brand new year with a smile. My resolution for 2014 is to get a better day job, earn more money, lose weight. Oh, wait, there’s one more thing someone always reminds me, stop being so weird and get laid, you know, the last one, I was joking again.

One last time, don’t forget to come to Footprint’s Joop Junior next Saturday at Arkham. He's playing live. Cheers, happy new year and a nice weekend to you all!

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