Sunday afternoon at @live from 1pm to 5pm, 10 of Taiwan's top DJs will spin, scratch and mix authentic vinyl LPs as they battle for mad props, high-end Vestax sound mixers and a top prize of NT$10,000. That's right. They will be using turntables. They will be using 12-inch records. They will not be using CD players and sound boards. Finally, DJs in Taiwan who do more than hit "play."
The event, a first ever, is called 2001 Taiwan DJ Competition and is sponsored by Multiply Trading (
PHOTO COURTESY OF VESTAX
"We know it's been all CD decks here in the past, but we're trying to change that," said organizer Chang A-yuan (
For inspiration, the competition calls predominantly on hip hop music, which Chang said is the major sourcebook from which the scratch battlers will draw.
Though there are still relatively few DJs in Taiwan with genuine scratching skills, Chang said the contest has attracted the best turntablists on this island, including DJ Guangtou (
The competition program will consist of five- to 10-minute scratch sets per contestant. For gear, organizers will provide top-of-the-line Vestax PDX-2000 turntables hooked into a Vestax PMC-07PROA mixer. There will also be performances by Japanese judges Tashi and Takada and by Taiwan's major purveyor of hip hop, MC Hotdog. Filling up the affair's prelude, postlude and other downtime, organizers will show Vestax videos of turntable techniques from around the world.
Total prizes for the afternoon will amount to NT$27,000 in cash and approximately double that value in five Vestax mixers. In addition, the grand champion master scratcher will be sent on to an international DJ battle in Los Angeles later this year.
Admission for the event is NT$500. Though the price is steep and Sunday afternoon is a strange time for a club-style party, Chang's not concerned.
"We're not doing this to earn money," he said. "We're just doing this for ourselves and the DJs. Even if nobody shows up, we don't care. We'll just party by ourselves."What: 2001 Taiwan DJ Competition (刮片擂台賽)
When & Where: 1pm to 5pm on Sunday at @live, 15 Hoping E. Rd., Sec. 1 (和平東路一段15號)
Tickets: NT$500
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50