Kuta has been opened for a couple of months in the basement of a building across Anhe Road, opposite the Eslite Bookstore. The space has sat empty for the past few years, which is an odd thing considering it has what Donald Trump once succinctly described as "Location. Location. Location."
The space is giant and it's being shared with the Bali Bali spa and restaurant, a lavishly decorated enterprise that's supposed to whisk you on a virtual vacation to the Indonesian island. Sconce lighting, plush couches, an under-lit dance floor and booths draped in nylon mystery are much the same as you'll find at any other lounge.
But it's not the wallpaper that matters so much as the people that go there and two weeks ago Kuta was the site of a bumpin' drum and bass party that brought DJs Adora, Funkstar, Elements and Zion together with MC Beemer for a pretty raucous night. It was the first in a pair of Selective Sessions parties and has created good word-of-mouth for the second party tomorrow night, a breakbeats brouhaha that'll feature DJs P!tt, Kaoru, Edmund and Point. At NT$350 to get in, which includes a drink, it's a good bet for a Saturday night, B2, 29 Anhe Rd,Taipei. (
Pity the same cannot be said of Kuta during the week. They're asking nearly NT$600 from guys for the chance to watch the dance floor blink; the crowds just aren't there yet, and at that price they may not come at all unless Kuta offers something different.
Something different is what's desperately needed in Taipei's lounge and club scene. Luxy and Room 18 do well for offering variety; two venues under one roof. Lab is a cool new addition for its emphasis on experimentation. You can mix your own drinks and roll your own flavored smokes. But many of the others are all lounge and no laughs. Where are the Milks, where you need to know the "secret code" to get in, or the Whisky's, which started as a fictional lounge bar in a Hou Hsiou-hsien (
Moving on, if you're tired of hearing hip-hop everywhere you go on Friday nights, Eden is putting house up for sale. Girls are free, and get to enjoy drink specials throughout the night. Guys pay NT$350 before midnight (which includes one drink) or NT$500 afterward (and get two drink tickets). The DJs are 006, Perry, Tiwi and guests. Perry and Tiwi lay down thick, juicy tracks and attract a lot of fresh, collegiate faces wherever they go. Tomorrow night at Eden is Deep Inside, also with 006, Taichung's Declan and Saucey.
Doc Martin is at Luxy's Lotus Room tomorrow night. He's been around the West Coast dance scene since 1986 and in all that time has managed to avoid being pigeonholed. He plays with Luxy's Reason. Tickets are NT$500 before the witching hour and NT$700 after.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist