Generational Shift
Hong Kong’s nightlife impresarios discuss the future of club culture
Arthur Bray, programme director at FM Belowground and founder of the music collective Yeti Out, had a great idea. He suggested it would be fun to throw a party where he and other music heads “pass the aux cord” to play songs and discuss their significance.
And so, Tatler obliged with Pass the Aux, bringing together members of Hong Kong’s old guard with the new, including three generations of the city’s most influential nightlife figures to discuss the history and future of club culture in Hong Kong on April 16.
The guest of honour was Andrew Bull, better known as DJ El Toro, who was a resident DJ at iconic local venues including Taipan Club and Disco Disco in the 1970s, and founded Canton Disco in 1985. Other guests at the event included Gilbert Yeung, owner of Dragon-i; Benedict Ku, co-founder of Volar; Jason Swamy, founding partner
of Wonderfruit Music Festival; and Jason Cohen, director of Ce La Vi Group.
From the younger generation came Laura Zhang and Vincent Bocquet of Mihn Club, and Tedman Lee, a March
Tatler cover co-star who founded a series of parties called Night of the Living Discoheads, inspired by Kowloon’s disco scene in the 1980s.
It’s rare to see Hong Kong’s nightlife impresarios all in one place—and even more so during the day. But as they’re currently grounded and bound by curfew, there was little left to do but get together and reminisce.
A panel featuring Bray and Bull was moderated by
Tatler’s regional managing director of dining and events, Sean Fitzpatrick, as a colourful slideshow of photos from the archives of our social pages played in the background, showing the likes of Anita Mui, Josie Ho and Sylvester Stallone enjoying nights out on the town.
“There’s your old man, Gilbert,” Bull pointed out, as a photo from 2000 of Albert Yeung playing the bongos at one of his son’s earlier clubs, Pink Mao Mao, flashed across the screen.
The event took place at a recording studio in Cheung Sha Wan, Kowloon. With a full band setup on stage and a table lined with lit-up Dom Pérignon bottles and a large bowl of Nomad Caviar, one would be forgiven for mistaking this for a rock star gathering in LA.
“I can’t remember the last time I was at an event where the blinis ran out before the caviar,” one guest quipped as he licked a dollop from his hand.