We had a corking weekend, one of the best since I did my research for the Weekend Hangover Science Diet

We started at a friends apartment on Friday evening for a Thansgiving dinner along with Woai, Swiss James and about a dozen other people. Actually we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK but it was a good do anyway and I started well on a sensible mix of red wine, beer and some weird cocktail Swiss James knocked up from Shoju. Anyway, we left the party at midnight (already half cut) and made our way to The Shelter for Bananas.

Bananas, if you don’t know, is pretty much one of the best nights in Shanghai, it’s a Mash-up and you can expect to hear pretty much anything and everything through the course of the night, from Livin on a Prayer to White Lines to Beat it, all mixed up and mashed together like a school disco doggy bag. Much carnage ensued!

Genuine Banana’s Tattoo (applied with El-Nomo’s personal sponge!)

We were completely wasted and disappointed not to hear “Slowride” by Foghart which El Nomo had mentioned they might play when Swiss James interviewed him for Shanghaiist, mind you at one point everyone cheered when Livin on a Prayer came on and James looked all confused; “why is everyone cheering” “they’re playing Livin on a Prayer”, “are they????” he said, in the end someone had to lead him to the front so he could put his head against the speaker to check, so, anyway, they could well have played Slowride. I wasn’t in a much better state than Swiss though, I only heard this the Bon-Jovi incident next day from someone else, judging from the photos it was a good night though.

Saturday just didn’t happen for me, I crawled out of bed at around 2pm and was back there again by 2:30, where I stayed until about 6. James came round for some food at 7 and brought a load of miniatures with him, deciding which to drink was too difficult so we ended up just pouring them all into a glass and drinking that, the Baileys curdled it but it set us up for the night (lined the stomach if you will). I’m not sure if there’s a name for this cocktail so I’m going to name it “Tramp Sick”, order one immediately at your favourite drinking hole! If they don’t know the recipe it’s – one shot Glenlivet, one shot Drambuie, one shot Gamus brandy, one shot Tia Maria, drop it into a big glass with about six ice cubes, stir regularly to break up the coagulated lumps.

After that it was off to see the Subs at Dream Factory. Swiss James has seen them before and had told me they were a great live band and he wasn’t wrong, they reminded me of Sonic Youth/Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Apparently their singer was really angry about something though and shouted at the top of her voice continuously throughout the whole set, for one song in particular she screamed “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP” continuously (I did a double take, convinced my ex had taken to the stage), maybe she was annoyed about the three hour sound checks of the previous two bands making them about 2 hours late or the ridiculous set up at the bar, anyway, the young folk at the front seemed to come to life after The Molds sent everyone scuttling away to the upstairs bar! Oh, we met Andy Best there too, he seems like a thoroughly good egg but I was disappointed he didn’t put his kung fu skills (he’s a 25th Dan black belt in fistology by all accounts) to use on the annoying photographers and video monopod guy who dominated our view of the band most of the night, Andy, if you’re listening (start disembodied voice) you must use your powers for the forces of good, next time just jab them in the ribs a bit until they bugger off (or fall down)

If all else goes wrong a career in gig photography is more or less in the bag

Anyway, back to the bar, basically three people serving but a strict system, you had to queue to give your order to one guy who would slowly fill in an order form, he would pass this to the cashier who would take your payment and tell the serving guy to give your drink to the order guy (who was busy with someone else by this time), the cashier would get your change ready but refuse to give it to you directly, it had to go through the orders guy, when the orders guy had finished with the next customer you could get your drink and change, this all added up to a queue at the bar for no reason.