Music master Rabshakeh gives us the lowdown on Shanhai Livehouse and why we should all be going:

Underground music lovers unite in a squeal of glee. Shanghai has a promising new livehouse on the radar.

What makes it promising you might ask? There are countless venues in the city, most of which I don’t count. They don’t put on shows that rock, bump, grind and move with some grit. We don’t need another opera hall, Beijing style or otherwise. Another jazz club, yawn.

Management is the thing that differentiates a Yuyintang (the heart and soul of the local rock scene) from a Harley’s (they have all the equipment, but who goes there?) Do the managers know local music and have an interest in supporting it?

That is where this new place, known as Shanhai (no ‘g’) has a leg up. On the management team are Yan Lezi and Yang Fu, who are rather ubiquitous in the Chinese rock scene. Together they run the Zhu Lu He Feng recording label which hosts a collective of rock and folk acts.

They are also artists, Lezi being a drummer and Fu a jack of all trades, working with Top Floor Circus, Sonnet and Pinkberry. These bands all have substantial local followings, with Top Floor Circus being the most well known.

Zhu Lu He Feng has done an exceptional job over the last few years of reaching out to Chinese university students, organizing tours of eight of Shanghai’s universities and giving students a chance to listen and pick up CDs at discounted rates. The live music scene desperately needs more support from young Chinese people. It is incredible that in a city of millions, there aren’t more young people who want to be entertained by something that isn’t Bar 88 or RichBaby.

Furthermore many Chinese university students are known for spending a lot of time in their rooms, playing computer games or cards. I salute anybody who wants to broaden the horizons of said students and corrupt these bastions of boredom, showing them a world that exists outside of their campus or parents’ house.

In a stroke of genius, the third person on the management team happens to be half of S.T.D., a well-known party promoter in town among both expats and locals. Thus Boys Noize, the German DJ who sold the place out, was booked there. With S.T.D. regularly bringing in big-name artists that appeal to expats, this place will stay on laowai radars.

Yan Lezi hopes that the size of Shanhai, with a capacity of 400 people, “will give artists more options when booking shows, as the city needs a venue of this size.” While that is certainly true, what is more exciting is the arrival of the venue’s well-connected, musically inclined management.

What do you think of the local live scene? What bands should I check out? Leave your comments here.