been thinking about BEIJING lately, and how much fun i had living there. i moved to shanghai in april of 2009, and have been back multiple times since, but it doesn’t quite feel the same. i used to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out with friends at D22, and was looking through old photos and thought i’d put together some of my favourites. all the photos were taking in the first few months of getting to beijing, when JOYSIDE were still getting wasted and bombing the stage, when we were still calling QUEEN SEA BIG SHARK by their chinese name (and not to mention that this was way before my company teamed up with CONVERSE and sent them on tour), when the SCOFF were still playing the same 5 songs in their same set, week after awesome week. miss you guys + click here to see a full size image.

ps. this beijing post comes right in time to also talk about how excited i am for the MAYBE MARS LABEL SHOWCASE on friday. not only do i love the bands that are playing, but my beijing buddies are in town and that means reunion time and fun. the show also marks my first forays into taking party snaps for the smart shanghai site. see you on friday, fuckers, i’m stoked!!!

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john & i went to Beijing for a four day weekend to visit with our friend mark, who was visiting from london. ohhhhhh Beijing how i love you! we stayed at the OPPOSITE HOUSE for our first two nights and it was straight up the most professionally managed most amaaaaazing hotel ever. we had a food orgy at BEI and the food was so delicious, and we danced around all night at with one of my favourite lomangs ever. also, drinks at apocathecary and dinner at middle 8 rounded out a perfect two days in my former adopted city. also, bonus! british airways lost mark’s luggage, and thanks to him being insured up the wazoo, he ended up with 1000 pounds cash to spend on clothing. he went buck wild for two days at prada and luis vuitton, and at zero hour when we were supposed to be leaving, he realized he still had 6000rmb to spend. lucky for john and i, mark deems anything non-luxury brand to be beneath him, and so we went to american apparel (the closest shop to the hotel since we were running out of time) and did a grab and go shopping trip in under 20 minutes. not surprisingly though, AA is ridiculously overpriced in china, 6k really only got us one bag of cheaply made little ditties.

after the opposite house, we made our way to the Kempinski managed Commune on the Wall, which was beautiful but employed the most useless, hapless collection of staff who were completely unable to handle even the simplest of requests. hey Kempinski, you’re going to be getting an email from us very soon, 5 star hotel my ass.

back in shanghai now, and it’s very very nearly christmas. happy holidays, everyone! xx

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we had a VERY excellent trip – a bunch of us caught a train on thursday night and ambled into the country’s capital somewheres around 8am. the ride was filled with cigarettes and whiskey and poker and asshole and big two, as well as the obligatory patriotic train music blaring at bright and early stupid o’clock. we crashed hard hotel style and got to the block party right on time, where there was live art, fashion show, bands (including a performance from the skuff & inja show, which was my favourite) and booze booze booze.

big HUGE ups to the SOURCE for bringing me down (and putting me up!) and congrats to JELLYMON for an amaaaazing event.

check out about a zillion photos of the party HERE!!

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my dear friends at THE SOURCE have finally gotten round to opening a beijing store! about 20 of us will be hiring a train carriage and chugging down the rails from shanghai to beijing. very very excited and it’ll probably get ridiculous.

if you’re in town, the party is SEPT 4th and there will be live music from bigger bang and beijing life experience, and dj tooons spun by lomang (beijing zoo/wutang clan), liman and many others. there will also be a streetwear fashion show, exhibition and live art from tim biskup (LA), alister lee (CND), and JELLYMON. come on down and have fun! (check out the FB event page for more)

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the photo above is from beijing — the only vanity plate i’ve ever seen in china. you can also see adrian strutting off to the side. he’s hardcore.

FUN!

i uploaded a ton of photos from the weekend to flickr, so check out my strawberry festival flickr set. i’m gonna need a couple days to recuperate. my body will never be the same. chase the dream, not the paper!! xx.

ps. i forgot to mention, i fake dj’d at c’s bar on thursday night for their indie night party, it was so fun! someone needs to teach me how to mix properly. now that kidplastik is in town, i think that someone is going to have to be him. internets forever yo.

today adrian and i are booking our flights to beijing so we can go to the strawberry music festival during may long weekend. we are stoked. we are more than stoked! deerhoof and xiu xiu are headlining, which is pretty awesome for china.

also very excited to see carsick cars on friday night & hot pot on saturday. haven’t seen my friends at D-22 in ages either. we’re gonna land in beijing, roll into the park, spend the entire weekend in a ridiculous state, and then fly back for work on monday morning. holla.