Anyone involved in Shanghai nightlife for some time will hopefully wonder the same questions. First: Why are most of the underground club nights here run by foreigners? Second: This is a city of 20 million plus people, so why do only [at best] 300–500 attend a well-promoted party with a good headlining act? To answer these questions and more, I talked to Bobby Sleepless, Jeremy Guo and Ross Miles, the three guys who run the Chinese music website Wooozy, a sister venture of the music promotion company Split Works. Wooozy has basically two missions. One is covering good new music in Chinese; the online component. That could include anything from Qingdao trip-hop producer SIG and interviews with PAIRS to…Drake. We're talking feature-length journalism — something of a rarity these days, especially in Chinese digital media. The other is the "offline" component, which is club nights and music documentary screenings (they do the Chinese subtitles themselves). So far they've brought out some impressive acts for the club nights, like New York Transit Authority and Bok Bok, the head of the Night Slugs label. These big acts are joined by a crew of all local residents, like Bobby Sleepless, Doggy, Deep19, and Jackie. This Friday night at 390, they're doing a resident-DJs-only night. On the following night they're screening of a documentary about the British band Pulp this Saturday in four cities, then four more on Monday. It's free entry and they're nice guys with good taste in music, so stop in and say what up. On with the interview.

SmSh: Why the name Wooozy?

In Chinese － Wu jie（无解）－ it looks great and sounds great. It has the Chinese meaning “no answer” or “no explanation”.

SmSh:. So it’s been up since 2009. Is it a music blog?

Not like a music blog, more like a music website with offline activities all the time. At first we had Wooozy Session. The main point of Wooozy Session is to bring non-Shanghai bands to Shanghai to play. There are very good bands, young bands, that play music but they don’t really have a big audience to show their talent so Jeremy and Archie came up with this idea to give [non-Shanghai bands] a chance to play in Shanghai to see a wider audience.

SmSh: So originally it’s a bands thing?

No. Wooozy Offline and Wooozy Sessions, they are like separate things but also we have Wooozy Screening, which started two years ago. [There are] music documentaries [that] don’t have Chinese translation/subtitles so we double subtitle them in English and in Chinese.

SmSh: So is most of the focus then on the website itself or the offline stuff that you guys do?

We've been running the website for five years. We’ve gained lots of followers on Weibo, I think now the number is like 16,000+. The website itself is a very good platform for local bands and local artists to showcase themselves....I think this is the best thing about Wooozy. Especially [because] it’s in Chinese. Ross: And I think that’s the problem with offline, it’s that — and this is a bit rich coming from an expat — but the electronic scene is dominated by expats, primarily. I mean there are obviously exceptions, and I think you know, a lot of Chinese kids, especially kids that are already readers of Wooozy, before it had taken a slight directional shift, I think probably weren’t being exposed to this kind of music. Probably wouldn’t feel comfortable… being part of the environment. And I think what we were trying to do was hopefully try to bring people in. [DJ Sleepless selecting some tracks and trading stocks]

SmSh: Bobby, as a DJ growing up in Shanghai, what made you fall in love with the club world?

Shelter. Well I think for me, the first show at Shelter was Pinch. I think I’m a typical example because I started to collect records [and] CDs since I was in high school. First it was tapes and stuff. I start to collect tapes in school but just never go to shows because I was a little bit shy. I don’t really want to like meet people who I don’t know and listen to music and stuff. But one time, I just [made] a plunge because I really, really like Pinch's music so I decided to go there but I didn’t feel… I didn’t find it intimidating. Ross: I think you’re an exception, I think you’re definitely an exception. Bobby: [laughs] Yeah, because then I was really, really impressed because it was just dancing, no drugs and no other stuff. I feel I’m a part of that because I was dancing as well.

SmSh: Many of the electronic nights in Shanghai are like run by foreigners, right? But Shanghai is maybe like 1% foreigner — if that. So why aren’t there more local kids putting on shows, either bands or electronic nights?

I mean, maybe it’s more Chinese culture in a way. Five years or six years ago, even like ten years ago, there were Chinese magazines talking about Warp stuff, talking about all the electronic music already. Like...you know, post-rock and stuff. So there is definitely a scene there. But they don’t know how this kind of music is produced or composed. And the other thing is that they don’t really know about DJ culture and they don’t really know about club culture. But now, with internet and other stuff, people know more about the kind of stuff and want to try a little bit.

SmSh: For every person you see out at a show, do you think there are ten more at home who really like this kind of music and they’re listening to it, they just don’t go to the club?

Yeah. And some of my friends listening to this kind of stuff back in university days or high school days, they got like a proper job and then got married soon after and decided to give up all that kind of stuff. I sometimes invite my friends and say “Hey, tonight the DJ is really good, the music is really good, you wanna have a try?” but they say “Naw, it’s too late for me. I’d still rather listen to CDs.” Jeremy: As a Chinese teenager we don’t really have a club culture. There are no clubs friendly to the Chinese teenager. So it’s like either a very adult kind of club we call "dance club", where they play very shitty disco and the only thing you can do is just...drinking and dancing...but you don’t really know what you are doing. So Chinese teenagers always listen to music at home in [their] own room. So before graduating from university, there is nothing in that field and after that, after graduating, it’s more like you’re gonna start work…you need to also think about building a family... [Night Slugs' DJ Bok Bok cueing up at Dada Beijing for Wooozy Offline #2]

SmSh: I grew up in a small town, and we were always looking for the party in high school. But if you’re a high school kid growing up in Shanghai, you could be 16 years old, go to the store, buy alcohol, and go to the club for free. I mean you could go to Dada on Friday or Saturday night at 16 and you could never do that in America or in the West...

In Chinese peoples’ minds, it’s a bad thing if you start to drink when you are...below 18 or you go to a dance club. [These people are] always categorized as "bad boys"... Ross: It’s weird because...we were always desperate to be bad boys... I can chart my adolescence through my club/going-out experiences... And there was never a fear of sort of being a social pariah, cause I went to go out and listen to music in a club you know. Jeremy: Yeah also it’s kind of the, just the whole like people’s mind/culture [is] different because Chinese people don’t like adventure and we don’t like any new things. Bobby: I don’t think it’s not liking adventure, but definitely it’s a different understanding of the world, like socializing. Socializing in China and socializing in Western countries is different. Socializing [here] is more like building relationships. Like, we can do something together. I can offer you something, you can offer me something. That’s very real.

SmSh: Let's talk about the site a little bit. So it’s a music website, are there any other Chinese music websites that you’re competing with?

Not really, I don’t think so. Jeremy: Yeah not really. We also have some friends who did similar things several years ago but just gradually, one by one, it’s all gone. So they kind of stopped and kind of moved on to other stuff.

SmSh: Do you think there is a market for this?

We can’t really say there is a market for that. For us, it’s like we are doing something which already happened and developed [for] a long time in the West. On the other side, I don’t really need to consider it a job. There are a lot of followers and loyal readers, and some of them become our friends, some of them we still don’t know. But we know they are still keeping an eye on the website... That’s what already makes us very happy and motivates us to keep doing more.

SmSh: Is your goal eventually to be supported by ad revenue on Wooozy?

Wooozy is starting to pay for itself, basically. There was a long time where there was a lot of help, and it was a real long hard slog. It was literally just Jeremy and a few other contributors keeping it going. And, you know, it feels like it’s getting to the point where it’ll be able to support itself, which is great. And the ad stuff, I think if and when the ad stuff wants to happen it’ll be done in a creative way, it wouldn’t be slapping banners left, right, and center. You know, I could say that 100% we’d never go down that route. [DJs Veeeky & Howie Lee repping the Wooozy fam in Beijing]

SmSh: So how is it supporting itself now?

Right now we’re doing a thing for French website that's basically like the French Spotify in a way. So we do playlists for them, like forming a partnership.

SmSh: And they’re paying you for that?

They give us a little bit of money, not that much, but still it’s very healthy. Also, in May I went to Beijing to do a report on Ableton's first official Beijing workshop [at Dada Beijing] and Ableton paid all the fees. That’s a very good sign. And [it was] 95% Chinese people, local people there. Ross: Yeah, I think it’s gotten to the point where people want someone from Wooozy there, which is great. Bobby: Also, I think like two weeks before, I wrote a review of the rapper WOOTACC's new album. And that review was pretty well-received, and after that, lots of Chinese rappers DMed me on Weibo and said, "Hey can you look at my new mix tape?” But I still say, “Yeah you can send me the mix tape but I still need to listen to it. I won’t write about it if it’s really shitty.” But unfortunately, those are really shitty [laughs]. Ross: Yeah, Wooozy don’t take hong bao ["red envelopes," bribes that are frequently given to media people in China in exchange for coverage]. Bobby: No I mean even for Ableton, it’s just like train tickets. They don’t like give me hong bao, they give me like two t shirts but that’s fair [laughs].

SmSh: Do you think most of your readers are rock fans or electronic fans or both?

I think our readers have like a open mindset in a way. They like new music. That’s what I’m talking about. We introduce new music, not just electronic music, not just rock music...

SmSh: What are the three most popular articles on your website?

Definitely the PAIRS interview. Jeremy: Recently, yeah the PAIRS interview. Good features can get more clicks and views because I mean, that’s very exclusive. We did a lot of background research; all this kind of stuff that people can never find in other websites.

SmSh: Here’s the thing though. You put up this PAIRS interview, really well done, well researched, and it gets 1,000 clicks. Somebody puts up that "Dinner In The Sky" thing, an 8888rmb dinner, and that’s all over the fucking internet.

As an editor I don’t really care too much about that. We are not just pursuing clicks. We also believe that good quality content, in the long-term [will] get more views and clicks and can be remembered by the readers more than that kind of short term, one-off content. Websites for us, [are] more like a database...more like history...more like a dictionary. Ross: Yeah, in five years time, we hope someone might actually want to read into PAIRS or a feature in Sig. Hopefully in five years time, no one is going to give a shit about a floating restaurant in the sky... [Wooozy Resident Jackie gettin' down]

SmSh: In your opinion, is a foreign-born DJ like Gaz, who has been here for seven years and has obviously done a lot for the scene here, a Shanghai DJ?

Yeah, in a way. Jeremy: It’s like [the band] PAIRS...There are some ridiculous comments on Xiami about PAIRS. Someone asked, "If it’s a Chinese band, why are they singing in English? You are just a poser." And then I replied "Man, Xiao Zhong is native Australian, of course he wrote English lyrics." And then the guy replied to me saying, "So why do they call themselves a Chinese band?” and I said "They formed in Shanghai so why not? Of course they’re a Shanghai band?”

SmSh: I see Shanghai as a very open place. You can have festivals. There are club nights here. The parties go 'til five or six in the morning all the time. I would say it’s even more open than where I’m from in America. Do you think that’s going to continue or do you think the government might slow things down and say you can’t have all these crazy parties?

I don’t think government really cares about what foreigners are doing in Shanghai. As long as they don’t do really sensitive things. Otherwise, foreigners bring opportunities. I don’t think government would say no to them. Jeremy: Not only for foreigners, it’s like for the whole thing...like rock music, festivals, this kind of all-day party or whatever. I believe the government will be more open to this because yeah, the culture is still something the government is going to be focused on [over the next few years] because once people satisfy their daily life, that’s the next thing they’re going to pursue and also, to build the image of Shanghai, you need it to be more open to all these kind of different cultures. [Wooozy punters having fun and not being afraid of the club]

SmSh: Do you have any complaints about the music scene in Shanghai or in Beijing?

Not enough people contributing their own stuff to us. I hope there will be a lot more people send us saying, "We’re gonna [play] shows next month. Can you do a listing for us?" I hope there will be more...record labels saying, "Hey. We are releasing an album next month, can we do an exclusive play-partnership?’ Yeah, I expect that kind of thing in the future for Wooozy. It’s good for both parties... Jeremy: A lot of bands, they don’t know how to make themselves big, how to really book shows or get the media coverage or all this kind of stuff. Also, a lot of local Shanghai bands, the music they do is still, for me, quite old-fashioned. I mean...if you play something like Guns n' Roses and Led Zeppelin...and after you listen to all these kinds of new music and you’re still into it, okay, you can play it. But a lot of bands never really listen to what’s happening in the West or in the world [right now]. You play Guns n' Roses because you only listen to Guns n' Roses. That’s something that happened a long time ago is still happening now. I hope more and more people can really do [more] sharing. Either you can make your own blog, make your own website, or you can tell your friends "this band is cool, that band is shit." Because we get a lot of emails from bands, like metal bands, or hardcore bands, or some bands actually their music may not be suitable for Wooozy, but we appreciate that they write to us. But sometimes you can write by yourself, you can make a music website. For us, it’s not competition, it’s more like more people involved and more people sharing more stuff, so that’s something I really would like to see.

SmSh: Even in English, I mean Chinese and English, there are not that many.

Yeah, even Andy Best and Jake Newby already stopped [blogging]. But I mean, when something stops, some other thing's gonna come out, so we hope, and we are waiting for that new stuff.

SmSh: It’s true, the problem is that it’s still English language you know? I think what you guys are doing is cool because it is the only like Chinese music website that I know of.

It’s just joining the dots, isn’t it? There’s all this stuff happening in those, lower first and second tier cities, you know, but it’s just not being joined up. It’s happening and it’s just staying incubated, which is good to a point, I think, because it allows the scene to grow and nurture, but it’s got to get to the point where it’s got to become joined up with what is happening nationally. Otherwise it just stays where it is and ends up backfiring and dying out. And I think in order for things to...grow and get up to the next level, you need more healthy competition, and you need that kind of dialogue with what’s happening elsewhere. And I don’t think that [exists] at the moment. [Beijing-based producer Guzz dropping trax at Wooozy Offline]

SmSh: For a city so large, why do you think the attendance at so many of these shows is so relatively low.

Maybe they listen to mp3 on their home system. Maybe that's it. Jeremy: There’s a trend in the last two years. A DJ set by a member of a famous rock band can get more local people. Peter Hook and Peter Murphy from LCD Soundsystem and...Nick Banner, even Andy Rouke’s DJ set. [That was] actually my first DJ set because it’s Andy Rourke. This kind of form maybe stimulates local kids' or Chinese peoples’ interest to try it once [even if the DJ is shit]. Bobby: Also another thing [is the] university areas with most of the Chinese university students. Those parts are really far away from downtown. I think if we had like a college town just near...Yongfu or somewhere, it would be totally different... Jeremy: You need to have some inside people help you spread the news, like a student union or whatever. If they can lead it, if someone they're familiar with tells them, "Okay there’s a bar or club or electronic party, which I think is very fresh," you might follow them, but if it’s just a party which no one really knows or knows what’s going on then students are kind of scared of going there and trying it.

SmSh: So what's planned for the rest of the year for your parties?

Yeah. So September is Nguzunguzu, October is Untold, November is Lone.

SmSh: This thing on Friday that’s at 390. Why’d you guys choose 390 for this?

...Wooozy’s got kind of a long-standing relationship with 390, it’s a place where it’s done all the screenings you know, so, we’ve always had quite success in getting Chinese people there, and they’ve been very supportive and we were talking about the fact that Shelter can be quite an intimidating place for a Chinese crowd and you know, we wanted to do something a little different, we didn’t want to be a Shelter club night, meaning no disrespect at all...The Lone show will probably be at Arkham as well so we just want to make sure we’re covering all the bases and showing that we can operate in sort of different sorts of settings. And it’s a free party and it’s a different kind of vibe, bit more inclusive, hopefully less intimidating...

SmSh: Who’s DJing this Friday?

It’s DJ Sleepless, Jackie, D19 and Doggy. So yeah, you don’t see very many all-Chinese lineups you know, very rarely.

SmSh: There are actually a lot of local Chinese DJs, but they’re all playing in Muse and these kinds of places. Are these guys living in a totally different world?

Well, I think in the West too, you have like…DJ Spenny. Yeah DJ Spenny and Gaz are in totally different worlds. Ross: I think we all live in different worlds...I don’t know what world he lives in, not my world...I just think they’re totally different parts of society, you know, musically speaking, socially speaking. Bobby: But that’s a good thing. Ross: Yeah tell me about it. I’d always rather be on this side that I’m on rather than fucking waiting for the champagne with the sparklers to come out or whatever. You know? *** Wooozy.cn is hosting two events this weekend, the Wooozy Offline Resident's Night at 390 on Friday, and the screening of this documentary about the band Pulp in eight cities on Saturday and Monday. Here's the info on the Shanghai screening.