Last Saturday’s Reggae Beachfest at Cianshui Bay (淺水灣) marked an impressive beginning to the summer outdoor party season. With a turnout exceeding 600, it was a big thumbs-up to Island Jam, a group that’s been striving to make all things reggae-related happen for the last five years. Hopefully there will be more fantastic outdoor events like this to come — especially the ones with venues as sweet as (if not sweeter than) this one.
This weekend, if you are a sunshine-lover who fancies making a splash, be sure to check out this season’s first Oasis Pool Party at Taipei Country Club, a beautiful hillside spot that’s easily accessible from the city. Their spring-water swimming pool is just simply amazing, and the music is going to be more on the hip-hop side of the dance music spectrum.
When: Tomorrow from 1pm to 9pm
Where: Taipei Country Club (台北鄉村俱樂部), 1 Qingyun Rd, Taipei City (台北市青雲街1號).
Admission: NT$350<
Tonight, A State of Sound at Luxy is bringing Manchester’s Tribal Session DJ Iain Taylor for a spin. Taylor is a renowned specialist in break beat, techno, house, hip-hop and funk, and he’s no stranger to the Taipei scene — he played at MoS four years ago on the Tribal Session tour with Yoda. After the success of the last A State of Sound, Hooker, the event’s organizer, says that “the party is more of a cutting-edge take on music and less dependent on sticking to the tried and true classics.”
When: Tonight from 10pm to 4am.
Where: Luxy, 5F, 201 Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段201號5樓).
Admission: Free before 11pm, NT$600 after<
Dance Rock Taipei is celebrating its first anniversary today. Having hosted and co-hosted 10 indie-dance events — including last year’s memorable gig with Steve Aoki and Uffie at The Wall — Spykee says he’s excited that the scene is finally coming together. “The Wall is really a great venue — the decor is minimal with no frills and it definitely has a unique kind of vibe. Most of our following are hipsters who are open to new music but frustrated with the music at the ordinary dance clubs.” Besides residents Spykee and F Dragon, this bash features Clash The Disko Kids (Singapore), as well as Taiwan’s very own veteran indie-dance turntablist Mykal (林哲儀).
When: Tonight from 11:30pm to 4:30am.
Where: The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1).
Admission: NT$800.
Tomorrow evening, there will be a small outdoor party named Sunset at Siam House in Ximending. It’s a free event, but it’ll have all the essentials and even a VJ. The lineup: Shelter, 5on (Revox Records) and A-Tao (Species Records) playing progressive and minimal techno.
When: Tomorrow from 6pm to 11pm.
Where: Siam House (暹邏紅樓), 179 Xining S Rd, Taipei City (台北市西寧南路179號).
Admission: free
And lastly, if you’d like to learn more about Latin music and culture, don’t miss out on the Latin Festival that’s going down at Riverside Live House tomorrow. What exactly is this party about musically? There will be a live Latin band, Mandinga (曼丁家拉丁團), and dance music from Zulu, who says they “will try to offer a different view of Latin music in order to cover a wide spectrum of what ‘Latin music’ really means all over the world.” Expect to hear “Latin-jazz, boogaloo, salsa vieja, nuyorican roots, Afro, Caribbean, Brazilian, Latin hip-hop, Latin house and good fusion.”
When: Tomorrow from 7:30pm.
Where: Riverside Live House (河岸留言西門紅樓展演館), 177 Xining S Rd, Taipei City (台北市西寧南路177號).
Admission: NT$750.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not