S.T.D.'s Reggie Laxatives gets loose with CW writer, Rabshakeh, and tells us what the future has in store.

Have you experienced an S.T.D. in Shanghai? Lots of us have. Well, you can blame Reggie Laxatives (R3) for that.

He’s been spreading infectious grooves all over Shanghai for over four years with his organization, Sonically Transmitted Disease, and was behind such shows as Tricky, Mono, Ratatat, Queen Sea Big Shark and many others, it’s been hard not to catch the bug.

Reggie is a man who doesn’t sleep much, and when we met he was running on three hours. He seemed unfazed. What does he do at night besides parties and DJing? He plays video games, of course.

Which leads to his new project–opening a new bar called Arcade. It’s going to be a cocktail bar featuring a stand-up, old-school arcade machine with custom games made by independent developers. And no need for quarters; the machine will be free.

The drinks will focus on quality, with bar management coming off stints at Constellation and el Cóctel. Beers will tilt toward higher-end options. Dead Guy Ale will be available on tap–a first in China, says Reggie.

Despite his status as a promoter, the focus of Reggie’s bar won’t be big parties. He’s striving to create a place free from pretention–à la LOgO or Dada–but more relaxed. In his words, “It will be a place to get a nice drink and not be surrounded by wankers.”

However, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear about DJs playing there. He already has their phone numbers.

In other news, S.T.D. just launched a website. They’re already heavily present on Facebook, Douban and Weibo, so rather than just being an event listing page, this will focus on articles, links to videos and other such wonderful web activities. Check it out at www.wearestd.com (right now, learn about legal-tender Star Wars coins).

S.T.D. continues to put on events, with two planned for early September. First, Peter Hook, the bass player for New Order and Joy Division, comes to Shelter on September 3 for a DJ set. There’s a lot of love for those two bands, so that’ll get real sweaty.

On September 10, they bring White from Beijing to YYT. They’re an abstract noise group formed by Zhang Shou Wang of Carsick Cars fame. It’s pretty out there; not a lot of choruses. Usually not my thing, but I had their self-titled album (2009) in my rotation for a while about four months ago and enjoyed it quite a bit. It is very spacey, without much of the jarring screeches that make noise music quite hard on the ears. It’ll be interesting to watch them create these dense, textured soundscapes live.