The Vinyl Word

Last year winter love didn't come cheap, this year it was free and came with a hug. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE LOOP

Winter Love/I Love Taipei drew a crowd to CKS Memorial Hall to dance around all afternoon last Saturday to a slew of local hip-hop and electronic talent alongside top-draw Ferry Corsten.

"I think there were maybe 2,000 people there," Luxy promoter Marco Lapka said of the bash, which was free but encouraged charitable donations. "Ironically, over 10,000 people paid NT$1,000 last year. The weather was definitely a factor."

Well, it didn't rain, but by crikey it was a wet and miserable weekend with the weather doing its damnedest to try and persuade us not to love winter. But with an excellent stage set-up and sound system, free tequila to warm the cockles, the crew at the Loop did its very best to kick-start the holiday season. Santa hats off to them, then.

The shops have gone bananas with decorations, and kindergarten teachers everywhere are marshalling small children for pantomime rehearsals. Department stores are putting up effigies of Santa Claus nailed to a cross. What can it all mean? Only one thing, of course: it's Christmas in Taiwan!

If you're looking to push the envelope, have a proper Chrimbo, and skive off work on Monday, 9% present a Retro night on Sunday, Christmas Eve. There'll be R&B upstairs and old-skool hip-hop, rock, and more downstairs with Andrew Ford and Ian H. Sounds good, but the only question is whether the door staff will be in the holiday spirit.

For the deskbound who want to do it up and still keep their jobs, tonight sees hip-hop from Haul and Mason in Luxy's main room, while next door in the Onyx Room, Rithma wraps up his residency. Support comes from Junior and Megan. Elsewhere, the Wall hosts local label Tripper's latest installment of live dance with a bunch of artists including electro duo Kolette and Kay and the purveyor of funktronica Viba. It's a change from the advertised gig, as Viba stands in for Elvis. "I never thought I'd replace Elvis," says Viba. The King will instead be in a burger bar in Delaware, or on the moon.

Tomorrow in the capital, Champagne 3 residents Stone and Vertigo join Sam for their Dark Angel Christmas-themed party, and local live hip-hop groovers Machi are at Luxy. Top tip, however, is VT Art Salon, which hosts Code and Yoshi with a gang of friends for the Deeplay party. Down south it's Swank's Christmas ball at Taichung's Liquid Lounge with Saucey joining Declan, Gareth Jones and Matty D, while Cube in Kaohsiung hosts Snowflake, featuring amongst others, previous Taipei Times DJ Poll Winner, the lovely Nina.

This year's Taipei Times DJ Poll is hotting up, but are some of our southern-based DJ's streaking round the track as those in the north merely rev their engines a bit? As this column goes to press, the southerners are in the lead, with Stan garmering 13.47 percent of votes cast, followed by Glenn on 8.02 percent and Syntaxerror on 7.55 percent.