18 Lover continues to be a wise choice for some housey-housey in an intimate setting on Friday evenings. SL plays a little bit of what he fancies which varies weekly — the last few months have seen him tinkling the ivories with some live keyboard work over stripped-down beats, throwing Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water into the mix and generally larking about before Victor takes to the tables.
Last week we were treated to Crystal Waters' Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless) and, lo and behold, not only did we get to hear her 1991 debut, but crystal of the balls variety must have been broken out as well. The lady herself visits Ministry of Sound tonight for a live PA.
The New Jersey-based songstress is known best for her debut, written with the Basement Boys, a combination of a potent political message and unforgettable vocals, which has been remixed and re-released several times over the last 15 years. It still airs on radio and it's appeared on so many compilation albums that Ms. Waters is probably living very comfortably off the royalties: but not one to rest on her laurels, she aced a second hit single with 100% Pure Love in 1994 and has also put her vocal talents to good use in collaboration with a number of artists. Bravo Friday is the name of the night and the fun kicks off at 10pm. Door damage is NT$700. Victor and Jimmy Chen provide support on the decks.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MOS
Down in Tainan's Fusion Lounge tonight, Luxy/the Loop resident Reason guests at Fasten the Fusion/Restart from Nil Part 2. If there's a lot of Fusions in that sentence, then the line-up should tell you why: nine DJs playing electro and progressive, house and breaks, drum'n'bass and trance mean that there's something for everyone. Tickets are a staggeringly cheap NT$400 for the men folk and NT$200 for the girls.
Hsinchu is not famed for its electronic music scene, but stuck out there in a forgotten corner of farmland, curious things are taking place. Dakar, Ugly, Grant and Poverty go on patrol as the Breakbeat Army storms the Windy City's Club Cammi tomorrow night. Expect breaks both old and nu-school, electro, funk, hip-hop and, erm, brum'n'bass [sic]. Not sure if this is a typo or whether they'll actually be playing drum'n'bass from the UK Midlands ('Brum' being short for Birmingham, non-Brits,) but looks interesting nonetheless.
Also tomorrow, Taichung's Oldies Bar presents A Nickel Bag of Funk, featuring Taipei-based DJs That Guy and Two Hands, Miaoli's Lazy Daze and Kaohsiung's Antihero. As the name implies, funk is the order of the day so dust off those platforms and shake out those Afros, and get down, get down. It's NT$200 for everybody and that includes a beer.
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