Hear the buzz? Ladybug is coming back

Sure, it's very un-rock 'n' roll for a band to break up because the guitarist decides to go study abroad, but maybe that's just Taiwan. In any case, there is absolutely no question that Ladybug, a four-woman group formed in 1995 that has toured America twice, is both one of the founders of Taiwan's rock scene and one of the best bands the island has ever seen.

And now that guitarist Wan-ting (捥婷) has a vacation coming up, Ladybug is set to play the first of three "reunion shows" at Taipei's Underworld (地下社會) on Wednesday, where they'll perform alongside Won Fu. For the second and third concerts they'll team up with Sugar Plum Fairy (甜梅號), a band they helped to name, again at Underworld on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8.

"Ladybug is pure music," said Yoz (佑子), Sugar Plum Fairy's drummer, who views Ladybug as "the most influential band" in Taiwan's rock history.

"They came out and they were all about music and nothing else," he said, "not like LTK (濁水溪) or the Clippers (夾子) that have so much else going on that people also like them for other reasons."

Sitting on a barstool by the DJ booth at Underworld, where Ladybug bass player Xiao Pao (小寶) DJs every Tuesday night, the group's drummer, Ellie (阿利), remembered that the band's four members were all playing in different groups before they formed in July of 1995. But they were all into the same music -- bands like Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo among others -- and from these influences they came up with their own style of post-punk, grrrl band rock. Playing clubs like Scum and B-Side and festivals like Spring Scream, their music passed from strains of the siren song hypnotic to grinding guitars and screamed lyrics like: "May I ask you a question! Do you want to screw me! I'm going crazy and it's stuck in my head!"

"It was all really fast back then," said guitarist and vocalist Mei Mei (妹妹), who now waits tables in a Taiwan University area coffee shop. "The songs were really simple, lots of energy, just zh-zh-zh-zh-zh!"

"Our second CD [both on Crystal Records] was all instrumental and the songs were more musically complicated," she said.

Those early recordings got the band booked at Portland, Oregon's North by Northwest festival in late 1997, which led to a handful of other US west coast gigs in the following month. Then, in 1998, they got in touch with an American booking agent who sent them on the east coast tour circuit, during which they performed alongside Yo La Tengo, Shonen Knife and scores of lesser-known bands they now remember fondly, like Hosemobile and Competitor.

"It was all really fresh back then, so it was really fun," said Ellie. "Even when everybody crammed into the van or whatever, it was such a great experience."

"And that guy from Hosemobile was really cute," added Xiao Pao, while bringing up a Flaming Lips track on the Underworld sound system.

"Next week when we play, we'll play songs from both albums," said Mei Mei, "plus one new song we don't even have a name for yet."

To tell the truth, Ladybug acts more like they're on hiatus than broken up. Since Wan-ting went to Chicago to study how to become a recording engineer more than a year ago, other band members have gone about their business, mostly sticking to music in one way or another.

Ellie recently produced a one-woman CD, playing all the instruments, singing and coming up with a sort of Cibo Matto sound. Xiao Pao, meanwhile, continues to DJ at Underworld while also working as an editor for an on-line music Web site.