The Vinyl Word

Away from the sophisticated polish of most other city center nightspots is a small place in Ximending that is attracting a mixed bag of locals with its reasonable prices and no-nonsense attitude to having an all-night party.

Circuit follows in the dance steps of what I call the "traditional Taiwanese yao-toh" (head-shaking) clubs that were mushrooming all over the city a couple of years ago and were either closed due to a lack of interest (no drugs), or were shut down by the police because they were so popular (lots of drugs).

The traditional yao-toh club that preceded Circuit a few years back was an odd affair. You had to track down some shady characters who were hanging around the back of the building to buy tickets and the price seemed pretty steep until you realized that drugs were included. They arrived in lines and in pill-form on a silver platter after you were seated at a private booth.

Another club on Zhongxiao East Road called Face did much the same thing: After you paid your money you were given a ticket for a drink and a pill. If a punter wanted more, he would go back upstairs and "pay to get in again." Other similar clubs would direct you to the lockers where a waiter would ask you what you wanted and even have a cash box for change.

For the average foreigner without connections, or unacquainted local, it was an encouraging system. But it was also pretty stupid as drug taking appeared to be rampant and arrests were inevitable as a crackdown by the Taipei City Government avoided tackling the gangsters who were running the clubs and the drugs, and targeted instead partygoers.

Nowadays it's pretty tame stuff by comparison. Drugs are around, but people take them before going in the club. LUXY, Plush, Party Room, Room 18, Bacchus and the rest avoid police trouble by policing themselves. At the same time the scene has become commercial.

So, finding a dance club in Taipei that is not mainstream has become fairly difficult. To locate Circuit you will have to wander around Ximending for a while and find a road called Wuchang Street. Then look for a neon sign saying "Circuit" above a likely doorway. Before you take the elevator up to the fifth floor, however, veer to the right and follow a passageway that leads outside. Just as you exit the building, on the left, is a cubicle from which you can buy tickets.

Inside, Circuit has the traditional disco setup, modernized a little with exposed ducting and some weirdly fanciful homemade light displays set into the wall. In the week -- Tuesday to Thursday -- it's a kind of jazz bar. But on Friday and Saturday it's open until 6am and 8am, respectively. Ticket entry is NT$350 with NT$250 concession tickets for wearing a hat, being a girl, dressing up with glowsticks, whatever. A stiff whiskey and coke is NT$150.

Mercifully, there was none of the Taiwan-ticky-tacky-techno that gave traditional yao-toh clubs a bad name among electronic music lovers. Instead, a more bass-driven sound is being developed, along the lines of TeXound's Victor Cheng, Jimmy, Eric Huang and Stone, who are all guest-DJing at the club.

Circuit has been open for just over two months now (under new management) and has established itself without much advertising as a mid-sized club a little removed from the city center scene. It has a younger-looking crowd that is nicely mixed: straight, gay, gangster, night-on-the-towners and techno tourists.