Straight Music House’s (直的音樂舍) Music Terminals festival at Taoyuan County Stadium (桃園縣立體育場) started off as a relaxed sunny afternoon on Saturday with people mingling and wandering around the spacious grounds. While some lounged on the grass drinking draft beer, others followed Tricky around as he took photos and was occasionally asked to pose for pictures with fans and sign autographs.
New Pants (新褲子) attracted its audience from across the stadium, with front man Peng Lei (彭磊) dressed in a grey military uniform, executing Devo-like moves on stage. Their sound is reminiscent of a dark Pet Shop Boys with elements of the Talking Heads thrown in for good measure. His erect posture, campy hand-clapping and mock-official gesturing captivated the crowd.
Frente! charmed listeners with very chilled-out, laid-back music. Vocalist Angie Hart’s slightly quirky, warm style of singing is well suited to a sunny day. The band exuded a kind of goofy charm, though guitarist Simon Austin’s attempts at banter — “This song is better after a few pills” — went over the crowd’s head.
Liz Durrett’s soulful, smoky vocals and mournful, dignified facial expressions on one stage were at odds with the sound drifting over from the another stage: that of the Clippers’ (夾子電動大樂隊) KTV influenced kitsch-pop. Their psychedelic videos playing on the big screen looked like they were made using state-of-the-art technology from the 1960s.
Durrett’s sound brings to mind Cat Power, but without the self-indulgent spaced-out rambling that ruins the latter’s live performances. Durrett is focused and though immobile, is suffused with a quiet intensity.
Saturday’s highlight was headliner Placebo. It was eerie to see so many people gather and stand in front of an empty stage while the stages on either side had live bands playing to a smattering of people. The alternative rock group rewarded the audience’s patience with a fantastic show. The crowd’s raised hands glowed in the red stage lights as fans sang along. Front man and singer/guitarist Brian Molko is beautifully androgynous, with smeared black eyeliner and a somewhat coy stage presence, while the band’s new drummer, Steve Forrest, bared his tattooed upper torso and whipped his surfer-boy mop of blond hair around.
The audience went wild, especially the girls.
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
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
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
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located