Ladies and gentleman, put your hands together please for the world's number one DJ Paul van Dyk, coming to a World Trade Center near you soon. And vote, if you would, for Taiwan's best DJ.
From next week we will be running our annual Taipei Times Top DJ poll. While there were not as many voters last year as for the DJ Magazine's poll of 120,000 votes cast for Van Dyk, it was the most comprehensive popularity poll of the nation's vinyl artists and bedroom DJs. Hacker DJs broke in when the poll opened to place votes for themselves and the results were reset. After some surges from @llen and SL in the early stages of voting, Nina nudged out Edmund and was duly elected. The rest is history.
To nominate DJs for the poll, that will run from next week until the end of the year, forward the name of the artists who you think should be considered to features@taipeitimes.com. All DJs currently playing in Taiwan are eligible. A list will go on the Web site and you will have three votes to cast for your favorite deck technician.
PHOTO: JULES QUARTLY, TAIPEI TIMES
As for Grammy nominee Van Dyk, the seamless and powerful German ends Tiesto's three year reign at the top, while confirming that trance/techno is the most popular form of dance music internationally. Check out what a DJ crown can do for you at the Taiwan World Trade Center, 3, Songlian Rd, Taipei (
Also big this weekend is the ongoing transformation of MoS, with a party to launch monthly sessions from Hed Kandi, featuring a live PA from Peyton and DJ Jack McCord. Also tonight Cash Money will be busting it in the Sunken Lounge. Tomorrow, if anyone can take a crowd from the mighty Van Dyk, it's Mixmag's club of the year Tribal Sessions with Iain Taylor and Yoda. MoS is at 310, Lequn 3rd Rd, Neihu, Taipei (
On a smoother tip, Edmund's Birthday .
Party is at Vogue 90 tonight, 10pm to 1am, 1F, 90, Anhe Rd, Sec 2, Taipei (台北市安和路二 段90號1樓). It is also the opening night for the newest lounge bar in town, so call (02) 2708 6338 for reservations if you're worried about getting in. At Room 18, SL and Victor Cheng will be warming up for Peter Kruder, again tonight.
Last week we took advantage of a relative lull in the dance music calendar to check out a swish party at a boutique hotel on Changan Road. The theme was starfish and that was the name of the bright blue cocktail everyone got at the bar. Gift cameras were also hidden about the studied opulence of the Ambience Hotel (
The Vinyl Word: Please forward your selections for Taiwan's top DJ poll to features@taipeitimes.com.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated