What’s happening with Logo Bar, on Xingfu Lu

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This was once the dive bar I learned to DJ in, on a street called Xingfu Lu. After closing in 2010, its doomed shell shifted between a tea shop, a vegetable shop, and a shop selling some Chinese stuff for banquets, but was usually just a vacant building next door to an adult toys shop where a small, well-tempered dog lives. Though the legendary bar nurtured Shanghai’s underground music scene for years*, none of these half-assed establishments lasted more than a few months.

Old heads like myself romanticize Logo like CCGB, or Love Park for skateboarding. The dark, dingy rooms always felt big and warm, even though it’s empty space seems barely the size of two apartments. The era ended in late 2010 when the owner, Taipei, who lived in Berlin for a decade before returning home to Shanghai and creating the venue, couldn’t grab a new lease despite good connections. The elderly neighbors finally won their long battle against the hordes of drunken souls who lined the sidewalks, streets, and stairs outside their walk-up apartments. Fair enough.

After that, Taipei opened Lune, a venue now established and [sometimes begrudgingly] accepted by promoters, and another “LoGO” near Taikang Lu, which never took off and closed in 2011. Many of us maintain a love-hate relationship with Lune, but sometimes the place comes through in the clutch. Neither Lune nor Logo II (closed) offer the same vibe as the original LoGO, but now Taipei promises us the third version of new LoGO bar. Just have a look at these high-tech 3-D renderings. Looks closer to the original dive than its two spawn. Something like the bar in the opening scene of Akira, without that cool CD hologram jukebox.

Just saw this posted on Taipei’s Weibo (Chinese Twitter). I was supposed to DJ there two weeks ago but they couldn’t open yet due to permit procurement woes, nor did it open for the Alexander Robotnick party last weekend as planned, but let’s see what happens next weekend. I’m supposed to DJ there in March. I hope it’s actually a killer app – an interactive, virtual world and not a real bar.

Does LoGO matter in 2013? Do today’s bros care about yesterday’s Alamo? Can this corner of Shanghai, now home to 390, Dada, Muyu, and Perry’s support another small bar? Will Heatwolves get diabetes from eating too many treats?

I DUN NO.

Lone – Cthulhu (feat. Machinedrum)

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oh, bonus right here – a clip of an unreleased Kode9 track about the street that birthed Dada, LoGO, and many more.

 

 

 

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