Being known as an expat band can be a double-edged sword. Or that's how it seemed to the members of Kaohsiung rock band Tsunami. The novelty landed them gigs at the Kaohsiung City Hall Christmas show and supporting Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) and his band Free 9, they say, but it also limited their development.
So when the band's drummer left the country in 2005, Tsunami split in two and its successors, ElectroCute (電亟愛) and Magpie, added Taiwanese musicians. Both bands started out playing variations of neo post-punk or new New Wave and singing in English, but each is now adding Chinese lyrics and doing other things to incorporate Taiwan into their music.
"Realistically, we believe this is the only way can really make contact with the people in Taiwan," says Magpie's Michael O'Brien, whose band performs tomorrow night with ElectroCute and Rabbit Is Rich (兔子很有錢) at Bliss. "What we hope makes Magpie - and also ElectroCute - different is the attempt to combine two musical worlds and musical scenes. We want to be really part of what is going on in Taiwan, not just a bunch of foreigners standing on the outside of the circle."
PHOTO COURTESY OF MAGPIE
Magpie was formed by O'Brien and guitarist Andrew Storey, both from England. They knew bass player Da Pang Sun (孫惟傑), a sound engineer who played acoustic guitar on Chang Cheng-yue's latest album, from hanging around Kaohsiung record shops. Last year Da Pang saw the two play and asked to join their band. He introduced drummer Yoki Chen (陳昆暉), and the four started to play together last April. Da Pang plays a major role in the arrangement of all the songs and brings in a lot of Taiwanese influences. Chen, meanwhile, brings Japanese rock and fusion music styles to the music.
The band's songs fuse angular guitar-driven music to earnest lyrics, with an emphasis on dynamics that give the music energy without giving up on the melody. Some of their songs, like Tomorrow and Feel, can sound propulsive and choppy, like UK bands Maximo Park or the Editors, which O'Brien cites as influences, but also like Taiwanese bands Fire Extinguisher (滅火器) or Rabbit Is Rich, whose "sense of energy," "pop tune" and "power," he says, is "something we aspire to." Looking, which is about falling in love and wondering if it's real, shows a slight Snow Patrol influence.
ElectroCute is also about mixing and matching across different cultures, but it goes further back in time for some of its influences, which include 1960s Motown and British Northern Soul, 1970s punk and 1980s pop. The band bills itself as "a uniquely Taiwanese blend of glitz, glamor, style and pop" with "a really tight-perfected set of songs" and "a look and a feel that sets us apart from any other band you'll find in the country."
PHOTO COURTESY OF CTROCUTES
"At first we were a punk band," says singer and bass player Frankie Fang (方雨潔). "At the time I wasn't the vocalist. We had a really young girl as the vocalist. She could shout."
Since Fang assumed the role of lead singer the band has moved in a more pop-oriented direction, with a heavy emphasis on glamor, and has added keyboardist Yoyo Chen (陳祐綸) and backup guitarist/singer Erin Chang (張薰芳) to the core lineup of former Tsunami members Imran Durrani, (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Paul Butler (drums).
You can hear the punk songs on MySpace, but if you want to hear the new stuff you have to see them play live.
"I think we have a really unique sound," Fang says. "We have songs that are really slow, we have songs that are really sexy, and we have songs that are poppy."
- Ron Brownlow
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