Wenfeng is a pioneer in the hairdressing game. A boss, a don; something like Rick Ross x Mao. He has somehow amassed an army of above-average looking women and confusingly-not-gay men* to cut hair at extremely low prices (haircut with wash is like $2.50).

HOW does Wenfang do it? The answer – mind control.

Borrowing from Scientology, Manchurian Candidate brainwashing techniques, and CIA training manuals, Wenfang has perfected techniques to make his army of hairdressers cut, style, and color hair for low wages while wearing faux-navy uniforms.

Every morning between 9:30 – 10AM, a Wenfeng Team Leader (this position takes seven years to achieve, and candidates are carefully screened under the influence of truth serums) drills the other employees on Wenfeng Seven-Thoughts Theory, The Wenfeng Method, and The Consequences For Betraying Wenfeng.

I’ve only had my hair cut at Wenfeng once. A pretty girl washed my hair and rubbed my back, and a man in a sailor uniform did the cutting. I asked the girl where she was from, and she couldn’t remember. She then told me about the Wenfeng VIP Card and all the benefits it entailed. She seemed to have been reprogrammed with only this knowledge.

*here’s the thing…China is still a male-dominated society, and thus most skilled trades are still performed predominately by men. It’s like hairdressers fall into the same category as locksmiths or plumbers – a kind of 师傅, or master – and they’re mostly men. In America, let’s be fair, most male hairdressers are gay (excluding barbers, generally..i will draw a distinction). In China, they’re generally not – they’re just working dudes. But the weird bit is that many of these straight Chinese hairdressers look flaming – flamboyant trash-cat haircuts, tight shirts, sitting on each-others laps…these are extremely confusing cultural differences. Not that any of this matters, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

anyway, i still like to eat a carrot cake from my local yuppie bakery and watch Wenfang’s Gang of Bitches do their morning exercises.

There’s a really good italo disco dude playing at Yuyintang tonight – he’s called College, and he did some original compositions for the Drive soundtrack. He’s doing both a live music and live video set. Very 80s, but in a classy way. I’ll be down there.

Not sure who is promoting this event but I’d heard almost nothing about it until I read a feature with College on Shanghai247.

Here’s one of his tracks I was jamming way back in 2008. Show starts at 9PM, it’s 60RMB.

College –  The Energy Story

Download audio file (140 – The Energy Story – Original Mix.mp3)

Chinese has some really strong insults. Flipping through the pages of the excellent insult/slang-guide “Niubi” by Eveline Chao, one can find useful phrases like “fuck your ancestors to the 18th generation.” But when it comes to yo mama, insults in Mandarin Chinese stop at the standard “fuck your mother.”

I’m trying to change this with my new humanitarian culture project, the #YoMama翻译Project# on Sina Weibo. Back home in America, we have so many ways to talk about yo mama – her teeth, her funky breath, her short little IKEA-stool legs, the fact that everyone has hit dat nasty ass…and you know the bitch is poor. She’s so poor she can’t afford to pay attention, and that ho is so dumb it took her two hours to watch 60 Minutes.

I just wanna give the youth the same tools I had when I was a middle-class white kid in the suburbs. “Life Chances” may be the term preferred by sociologists. Some “humanitarians” wanna give laptops to all the poor kids in the world, but this is dangerous. We’re gonna end up with a bunch of kids walking around the African bush totally absorbed watching Dora The Explorer on a screen, headphones blaring, and BAM – eaten by a lion. Munch..munch…(lion spits out bones of young, technology-distracted Dora The Explorer fan).

The #YoMama翻译Project# does present some interesting sociolinguistic puzzles, though. Take the example above: “Yo Mama so poor, that bitch can’t afford to pay attention.”

Mandarin doesn’t have this phrasal verb “pay attention,” and translating this literally sounds bizarre. Something like “Yo Mama is so ugly she makes blind kids cry when they look at her” or “Yo Mama is so ugly, I took the bitch to the zoo and the guy at the door said ‘thanks for bringing her back!’” translates much better due to the lack of idiomatic English.

So let’s all join hands and come up with new, culturally-relevant ways to talk about yo mama – for the youth, before it’s too late.

The Pharcyde – Yo Mama

Download audio file (01 90 – Ya Mama.mp3)

[translation of this article coming soon]

really random bit about today’s photo – i was walking down yongfu lu with my dad and my chinese sister, talking about yo mama (obviously) and we saw this t-shirt for sale! no joke, ask yo mama.

…and i would say show this post to yo mama, but u know that bitch can’t read! yo mama is 文盲.

My friends are launching their new clothing company Twin Horizon today @ the homie Sacco Vanzetti’s Uptown Records. Really feeling the shirts they did for five local bands. Also pumped that a local designer is making men’s clothing. Here’s some of the shirts, and no this isn’t me modeling.

All five bands – Friend or Foe, Moon Tyrant, Boys Climbing Ropes, Stegosaurus?, and Rainbow Danger Club are playing today at the record shop starting at 4PM. It’s free and there’s free beer so you’ve got no excuse.

and this track, which has nothing to do with Twin Horizon – feelin it. dark.

Caracal – Elements

Download audio file (01-caracal-elements.mp3)

It’s going down. This is the send-off party for our West-China tour, which starts in Chongqing on June 1st. Everybody knows that West-China is filled with vicious polar bears and hungry ghosts, so that’s the theme of this party.

I’ll put up the posters for the West-China dates later this week. We’ve also got Love Bang #18 with DJ Choyce Kutz from Hip Hop coming up on June 15th.

Really feeling this track and almost everything Shlohmo does. Sounds like James Blake mixed with Three 6 Mafia instrumentals (those hi-hats…). The synth line in this is insane too.

Lianne La Havas – Forget (Shlohmo Remix)

Download audio file (Forget (Shlohmo Remix).mp3)

I’m teaching my friend how to DJ a bit tonight so I’m posting one of the records I learned how to DJ with. I bought this at a record store in Chicago, along with “Heartbeat” by Taana Gardner and “Put That Record Back On” by Just-Ice.

While digging that day, I said to my friend “damn, I wish I could find ‘Supersonic’ by JJ Fad” and this geezer goes “JJ Fad! I saw them open for New Kids On The Block in 1990, man. That’s a great record!”

So here it is, the B-side to Whodini’s well-known track “Friends,” most famously sampled on Nas’ “If I Ruled The World.”

Whodini – Five Minutes of Funk

Download audio file (01-Five-Minutes-of-Funk.mp3)

Sub-Culture…again, coming through with the bookings AND the art (big up Idle Beats). Another big name from the world of bass coming through The Shelter this Thursday night. I was only familiar with dude’s production game but Drunk Monk tells me he’s a world-class DJ as well.

2562′s Fever LP dropped last year – it’s a bass/dubstep/house/whatever album made entirely of samples from old disco records. Pretty mindblowing. Here’s previews of all the tracks on that LP. Peep – Enjoy – See you at #5 Yongfu Lu on Thursday. It’s only RMB40 – that’s less than two coffees at Starbucks.

I know I just posted something from the TRI ANGLE label…and I’m gonna do it again. oOoOO’s self-titled EP from 2010 is easily one of my favorite releases of the last five years, possibly ever. It’s ghost-pop, witch-house, death-wave – whatever you wanna call it, the dude has a penchant for crafting dreamy, haunting, fucked-up pop songs. I might even use the word genius to describe this producer from San Francisco.

Almost nothing came out in the interim period between that first EP and now, this – “Our Loving Is Hurting Us” – the followup that does not disappoint.

I listened to this track, “Break Your Heartt” probably thirty times yesterday at work and on the train. Much like “Burnout Eyes” from his first EP, this track gives me the chills in a really good way.

oOoOO – Break Your Heartt

Download audio file (04 Break Yr Heartt.mp3)

go buy this EP!

I was up at Xujiahui Park playing some basketball yesterday when I saw this important sign. hadn’t done any sprinting in a long time. i threw up a bit.

first heard this as a young teen on the “Half Baked” soundtrack. played this at the Roller Disco a few weeks ago, went down huge. RIP to the man, Rick James.

Rick James – Mary Jane

Download audio file (04 93 – Mary Jane.mp3)

just a really quick post, i’m stealing internet from starbucks right now. fuck em. i rep 85 degrees, wut.

big weekend in Shanghai. u may have the chance to cop a Super Ayi Cleaning Team T-shirt tmmr @ DAFF (outdoor fashion and art festival/market – good time).

if you’ve been reading this site for a minute, you know i’m a huge fan of Danny Brown. well…dude just keeps getting better and better. the production on this new track by him and Darq E Freaker is insane.

Darq E Freaker & Danny Brown – Blueberry (Pills & Cocaine)

Download audio file (BLUEBERRY.mp3)

annnnnnnnd this…something by my friend Nichols, bass player in one of Shanghai’s most-hyped indie bands, Rainbow Danger Club, and the experimental math rock group Death To Ponies with the homies Acid Pony Club. this is…Chinese-language lesson samples x dirty south acapellas x some beats he made. feelin it, especially now that it’s mastered.

so i took my dad around shanghai to see some real shit yesterday afternoon. the area a few blocks away from Laoximen metro station (Line 10) gets REAL, ya heard. raw meats in the street, fish flopping around in kiddie pools, feral dogs, 90+ grannies knitting on tha block, feral kids.. [almost] no foreigners.

and this is only two metro stops from “the concession.” btw, please stop calling it “the concession” – that is fucking lame, and almost as bad as people saying “Shangers” – that is the worst. come on white people…

反正, we were at this market that sold everything from free weights to digital scales, power drills, USB keys, GUCCI x LV gear, and DVDs, and this uncle came up like “yo i got dat shit” and busted out a couple vials of DRVGS. The top of the box said “AUSTRALIAN VIAGRA” but the side said “MADE IN AMERICA.” he wouldn’t let me take a good picture cause i wudun’t buyin’ nothin (thas wut he said), but i snapped this shot 4 he left, ya heard.

my dad and i stepped outside and met this lady selling fake gold chains, USBs, and some pipes that looked like they was 4 smokin’ ice. she yelled “hello! sorry…” then pointed a gun-shaped lighter at my cock and said “bang!” and “保护你的东西!! (protect your thing)” then “ooooo, sorry. haha, happy new year! I LOVE YOU! sorry..” think she was smokin dat shit in those pipes she was selling…

anyway, it felt like summer this weekend. this song reminds me of summer. it’s a blend of “Eyes Without A Face” and Cassie’s ” Me & U.”

love this one.

Cassie // Mijimisha // Elash Gorilla – All The Way Down

Download audio file (All The Way Down.mp3)