Spanking new Bad Daughter

Bad Daughter (壞女兒), one of the Taipei independent music scene's most promising bands, will headline a special concert tomorrow night at The Wall to celebrate the release of their second album, titled Little Sun (小太陽).

A year since their first release -- Hairless Bear (沒有毛的熊) -- the band has had unexpected success all over Taiwan, as well as in Hong Kong and China, where their songs got radio play and a lot of free promotion through the Internet. The success caught the band and their label White Wabbit Records by surprise, because aside from a handful of radio show guest appearances, almost nothing was done to promote the album. But once word got out about Hairless Bear's upbeat, quirky tunes it became difficult to find the album anywhere other than the label's Web site.

Taiwan has seen a trend over the past couple years in putting out co-ed college bands that try to provide some kind of Mandarin alternative to Belle and Sebastian, with humorous yet morbid lyrics sung in the most ironic of tones backed up with jangly guitars. So far, the most commercially successful of these has been Tizzy Bac, but other groups like them, such as Bad Daughter, Mango Runs, Viva la Tuna, Peppermint (薄荷葉) and Won Fu (旺福) have made decent runs at breaking through the pop barrier.

Anticipation has been high for Little Sun, at least among people who heard Hairless Bear, so tonight will be a chance to hear most of the new tunes when the band is fresh out of the studio.

Playing with Bad Daughter tonight will be LTK, Thedaymakers and Taiwan's scratch master DJ J4 ending the night after the live shows. Tickets cost NT$300. The Wall is located at B1, 200, Sec 4, Roosevelt Blvd, Taipei (台北市羅斯福路4段200號B1).