The Vinyl Word

The feng shui expert has set a date and the Ministry of Sound in Taipei is set to open next month. It will be Asia's biggest, most spectacular and best-appointed club, backed up by the largest talent pool of DJs on the planet.

The 2,500-person plus club will have a soft opening for the press on Feb. 19 and a Mazda and MTV show two days later, followed by regular club nights thereafter.

It boasts three floors, two dance areas, three DJ booths, a chill room, eight bars, a McCallan VIP bar -- which has to be seen to be believed -- 10 large private en-suite booths and a fusion restaurant.

That's just for starters. It will also double as a live-music venue, comfortably hosting 1,500, and has so many other features and superlatives the owners are confident anyone interested in a top night out will be making their way to Neihu. They will be assisted in this direction by a scheme that gives punters their cab fare back for the price of entry.

Ministry of Sound Project Director Peter Bowden said he couldn't be more pleased with the club, which is purpose-built and close to a massive new shopping center and ferris wheel, which have nearly finished construction.

"All the ideas we have ever wanted to realize in a club are now all together in one place. What usually happens is that we have all these ideas and go with them to the big chiefs and they get their red pens out and say, `Nah, not this and not that.' But the guys here, the directors, they wanted to build the best club in the world and fair play to them. They've pretty much let it all happen."

Reaction elsewhere to the news of Ministry of Sound's imminent opening has been positive, with Alan Hsia of LUXY and the former 2nd Floor saying that it could widen the market and bring legitimacy to dance music in the city.

"I think it's a good thing they're opening and I hope they have the leverage to make the dance scene more legit," Hsia said. "Their brandname can help make dancing blossom, so its not such a taboo. The phenomenon of such a huge venue and the name should make the market bigger and less threatening [to the authorities]."

Hsia warned, however, that with LUXY and Ministry of Sound catering to the upmarket crowd, attention needed to be paid to the development of underground dance music and clubs.

"The underground scene makes the commercial scene, without the underground the other won't grow. The commercial feeds back to the underground, it's like ying-yang."

Hsia is, of course, right. And that's why the closure of 2nd Floor the week before and TeXound last Saturday was such a shame. It leaves the city center without a main stage for local DJs and alternative music, divorced from the easy hooklines and cheese elsewhere.

TeXound, which led the local underground for over five years, bowed out in style with its "Adieu, I Love TeXound" final night, starring its resident DJs back-to-back and cheek-to-jowl. For once, the police stayed out -- arriving about 12pm and leaving soon after -- and a rollicking night was had by all. It was a dark, roiling mass of confusion inside, with some great music and enough heat on the dancefloor to knock you back.

"TeXound is over but the TeXound spirit will carry on," an emotional DJ Jimmy Chen said. "We'll just have to wait a little while. I can't wait for the next stage."