Dada is closing its Shanghai club this Saturday for good and no one could be happier about that than Michael Ohlsson. The owner, perpetually beset by nightlife randomness and slaughtered by hangovers, needs some rest. Kidding! Just kidding Michael! We’re sad! So ahead of the closing party, Ohlsson pulled out ten MORE behind-the-scenes stories about all the crazy shit that happens when you run a club for 11 years in Shanghai. (He’s done this for us before. These are new stories.) Hit the jump for those!

Dancing Granny

We had a guest, Disasteradio from New Zealand. Really fun one-man-band. So, we'd just finished sound check, and we're sitting on the sofa having beers before opening. These 2 older Chinese ladies came in, probably 60 and 80 years old. They stopped at the bar and the staff pointed towards us. So they came over and asked "which one of you is from New Zealand?" They sat down with us and the mother explained that her 22 year old daughter was a fan of Disasteradio, and didn't have permission to go out late on a Thursday night, so they'd had a fight and the daughter ran away and turned off her phone, and did we know where she was? No idea, lady, sorry. So they stayed, assuming she would turn up. I told them the show would be after midnight so it will be a long wait. They didn't mind -- they stayed and bought beers and chatted with us. They asked the artist all sorts of funny questions, like how much money he makes, does he have a family back home, does he want to have children. They stayed for the show! They loved it! Took videos, danced, talked with strangers, got selfies with us after the show. I feel so bad for the daughter, she misses a show she wants to see, but her mom and grandma got to, and shared beers, chatter, and got selfies with the artist! I'd be mortified.

Tibetan Dog Penis

There used to be a dodgy little sex toy shop down the road. One of my friends found a little box there of "Tibetan Dog Penis" powder that's supposed to work like Viagra. He brought it to the bar and we opened it, and it's just this white powder. We were all pretty drunk, and someone suggested we try and snort it, and see if it works. I'll spare you that detail, but anyway I woke the next morning, er, afternoon, and there's crazy drunk pics on Facebook of us all with powder on our nose, everyone is tagged, and there's concerned comments from our Mom's etc. Embarrassing! What asshole posted those and tagged us! Then I realize... it was me. Do. Not. Social. Media. Drunk. Oh, one of the guys had a kid 9 months later, I did the math, ooops!

Whack-A-Mole

I used to have this big mole above my right eyebrow. It was annoying, like it would hurt if I wore a baseball cap. I'd asked several doctors, including a "famous Beverly Hills plastic surgeon" (friend of a friend), who all told me I shouldn't remove it, I'd just have a hole there. Anyway, one night I was walking home a bit tipsy after DJing all night, and trying to text on the phone as I walked (don't do this). I stepped in a hole and bam! fell flat on my face. I hit the bricks hard, top right side of my face. Sat down to collect myself, and realize I'm bleeding like crazy out of my head. Luckily there's a hospital across the street so I just went in emergency, afraid I'd cracked my skull. Doctor gave me a few small stitches, bandaged me and gave me some ice. Cost 7 RMB. Woke with a big puffy black eye. I read somewhere that collagen helps repair skin, so I bought 2 giant bags of gummy bears and just ate those for a week. Stitches out a week later, and the mole is gone! That little bastard saved my skull, I whacked it right on target.

Accidental Lock-In 2

I've heard this story from other bar owners before, and assumed it was just urban legend... but yeah it happened to us. There's several smaller rooms behind the DJ booth, and the staff might have forgotten to lock it during closing. Somehow a stray customer got left inside, he must have gone in a split second after they checked the room. The guy was alone, locked inside from 5am to 8:30pm when the staff arrive the next night. We have night vision security cameras around the bar, so there's this incredible video recording of this guy's epic day alone inside the bar -- he tries to sleep, he helps himself to drinks at the bar, trying to mix cocktails, pisses in the corner, dances crazy, fake DJs with rock star moves, appears to be talking to imaginary people, does yoga, masturbates, passes out again.

Where's the after party?

Chinese New Year season is always so unpredictable for nightclubs. Should we stay open or not? You have these random big nights, and then these painfully slow nights. It's very random. For several years, it was our biggest month, packed every night of the extended holiday, other years, not at all. But one night, which we were certain would be a big one, we set up a big line up, 12 DJs. No one came. It was rainy out, but still, uncanny. 10pm empty, 12 empty, 3am, still empty. So we gave up, turned off the music, and ordered noodles. Around 3:30am, a group of 10 people came in. I sheepishly explained the party ended early, it's a holiday, maybe everyone went to Thailand this year. They ordered drinks anyway. Then another group came in. The DJs are already deflated but we agreed -- someone's gotta play now. Rock, scissors, paper. I lost, so I step up. I honestly thought it was a lost cause, and just wanted to go home at this point. I tried playing music that would piss people off and make them go home, but that didn't work. They stayed, and more people just kept coming in, randomly. By 4am there were 100 people, by 5am it was absolutely packed. We kept going til 11am. We've never been an after-hours place, we've never had a night like this before or after, it was very odd.

Champagne Brunch

On those rare occasions when I got too drunk at the end of the night, we'd let the staff go home and I'd stay with some friends for a little private session. One friend, a corporate executive visiting from out of town, was bragging about his posh hotel and the brunch there, and how he could put it on his expense account no problem. So we all went, around 7am, and had this ridiculous brunch with oysters, lobsters, and bottles of champagne. The bill was like 10,000 RMB. Executive friend can't find wallet. "No problem, I'll just put it on the room". Waiter: "Sir, this isn't the XXX hotel, you're not staying here." "Oh shit, right! I stayed here last year" ... So we left the others at the hotel, while we went back to the bar to find his wallet. Arrive to find I'd forgotten to lock the door, and there's random people inside just hanging out at 9am, playing with the DJ gear, etc. No wallet.

The Yoga Diva

A lot of people assume famous DJs are divas, demanding all sorts of perks, but in reality most of them are super sweet, happy with a handful of drink tickets, a warm dinner, and a decent bed. One guest DJ we had suddenly insisted on doing a yoga class before the gig. Like he called from the way in from the airport at 6pm, and said "no yoga class first, then I'm not playing, so you gotta find one". We checked all over town -- private teachers or classes, to see what was possible. He arrived at hotel and we showed him the options, and he goes "no no, it's gotta be hot yoga, official Bikram certified teacher only." He gets on the phone and calls Bikram, like THE Bikram guru guy. Bikram tells him where he can do a class. This place is offline, we couldn't have found it. Someone goes with him, it's far out of downtown, and does the class with him. He's back just in time, and plays a fantastic 4 hour set, lots of fun. Get him back to the hotel around 5am, and he says "hey change my flight out to a later time. I need to do a yoga class before I fly". Someone else took him for 8am yoga, after a short nap.

Now??

One thing all club DJs hate is when drunk people come up and make a request. They're not lonely late night radio jocks, they're busy trying to make (most of) the crowd happy (or some other profound emotion). They know the arc of the night, the venue's vibe, and what to play, when. They spent all week mulling over what to play, organizing their records, etc. So when you come up and ask for a song request -- you are annoying, distracting, misguided, and insulting. How would you like it if someone came up to you, while you were on stage mid-performance, and told you how to do your job? Sometimes DJs get people asking weird questions -- "Where is the toilet?" "Can I order a gin and tonic?" "Can I give you a blow job right now?" Probably the weirdest one was this big Dutch tourist, who came up with an urgent look on his face -- I was in the middle of a mix, headphones on, peak party time -- but he looks like it's an emergency, waving his arms... So as soon as I could, I ripped the headphones off and said what's up? He yells at me over the booth, "So, what's it like living in China?"

Kode9 vs. Typhoon

We had Hyperdub boss man Kode9 out to play -- incidentally, he released a song called "Xingfu Lu" -- and that night there was this incredible storm. The power kept going out in our building, off and on several times as the crowd was arriving. We thought we'd finally solved it but then 10 minutes before showtime, it goes off again. People are angry now, asking for ticket money back. So our bar manager figures we can somehow get power from across the street. He grew up in a small village, and has a very DIY "can do!" hack-job approach to fixing things that I would never come up with. So he went up on the roof with an enormous wheel of cable, and had another guy on the roof across the street. They were trying to throw the cable across the road to plug into their power, with the storm -- he looked like he was fly-fishing on a stormy sea. After several attempts, they got it plugged in. But then, how to get it down into our power socket? They used a cleaver to hack off the rubber ends, taped it together, then drilled a hole through the ceiling, and ... it was literally above the dance floor, we pulled the cable down through this hole, pulled it over to the power box... it worked! I made some of the staff stand guard near the power points with fire extinguishers the whole night, just in case. But it worked! The night went on, and was massive fun.

Saturday, January 18, 2020

We closed down Dada Shanghai on Xingfu Lu. Fill in the blanks.