What is Beijing nightlife

Beijing music fans have no excuse to sit inside all weekend as two disparate but equally awesome gigs storm the city's nightclubs. On Friday, a quadrifecta of master DJs—British dub guru Steve Barker, Beijing's own Syndicate compadres Dan Stephenson and DJ Blackie, and the infamous Shackleton—turn Yugong Yishan into record-scratch central, while Saturday rides a mellower vibe at CD Jazz Café with the old-fashioned jazz stylings of San Francisco-based chanteuse Kathy Holly, who'll be making a homecoming of sorts after first performing in Beijing in 1979.

"That was a very unique experience," Holly told the Global Times. "I was the only cabaret artist to ever sing at that time. It was an unusual time in China… the door for tourism had just opened."

Holly, who will be performing international jazz standards during her Beijing gig, is certainly not afraid to inject a bit of the theatrical into her sets dolling herself up as, among others, a British matron, a French floozy and a hippie flower child in a recent performance. And she said she loves "glamour and fashion" and will often tailor her outfit to suit the location.

"I'll check the scene out and then dress accordingly," she said, though she didn't offer any hints of what we might see this weekend.

Holly counts among her career highlights performing for Bernadette Chirac, former first lady of France, and hobnobbing with jazz legends Peggy Lee and Al Jarreau ("Before he became famous…") during her time living in Los Angeles. Nevertheless, she remains a San Francisco girl through and through, describing the city as "the Paris of the Western Hemisphere."

"San Francisco is where my heart still remains," she said. "There are so many ethnic groups that live here and appreciate all types of music."

Though Beijing's live music scene may not rival San Francisco's, it's a testament to its increasing variety that on the same weekend as Holly's show, just a few miles away, a wildly different aural experience will be going down for what's likely to be a very different crowd.

"The [underground] scene is quite small still," said Dan Stephenson, one of the founding members of the Syndicate, a Beijing-based crew of DJs focusing on bass-driven music. "If we were to have this same conversation in a year, however, things will probably be very different, which shows the pace at which things move here."

Stephenson hopes to get people into the groove without wearing them down before DJ Blackie, Steve Barker and Shackleton take to the turntables.