At first the Formoz Festival looked like it was going to be the slightly poor Japanese cousin of next week's Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival with the lineup's heavy tilt toward Japanese bands that you wouldn't know unless you were somehow really into Japanese rock. But that was before the organizers -- Taiwan Rock Alliance (TRA) -- finalized their roster and made a surprise confirmation that American folk-rock legend Michelle Shocked will be playing the festival's first night on Friday, July 30.
"Michelle Shocked actually approached us to be part of the Say Yes to Taiwan concerts, but it didn't work out. But we managed to secure the budget and work out the schedules for Formoz," said Freddy Lin (
There have also been additional last-minute confirmations that have filled up the roster considerably, with more local and foreign bands and even DJ Aki, the Japanese drum `n' bass master who will join local electronica artists like DJ Noodle, Lim Kiung
PHOTO COURTESY OF TRA
TRA further announced this week that Mr Funky, one of Korea's most popular pop rock acts, will be playing the festival as well. In total, 20 foreign bands are scheduled to play the festival, most of them from Japan, Korea and Hong Kong.
The addition of Michelle Shocked, though, brings some unprecedented star power to the annual festival that has been held in progressively larger forms for 10 years.
Michelle Shocked surprised even herself when she first appeared on the rock scene in the mid-1980s with her blend of gritty east Texas folk tunes and radical politics nurtured in squatter settlements in the US and western Europe.
She's been a credible voice of left-wing political rock for almost two decades now and thanks to her having bargained to keep the rights to her releases on Mercury Records, a lot of her music is being re-released. Her albums have jumped erratically in style with each release, so it's hard to predict what she'll play in Taiwan, but she'll probably use the occasion for a little poltical commentary, which should be interesting.
Lin said three-day passes for the festival will cost about NT$1,000, which is less than most one-off shows for major international bands that pass through Taipei. The entire lineup of the festival, including the dozens of local bands that will play, can be seen at the festival's Web site: http://www.formoz.com.
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend