The DJ booth set-up this year at Spring Scream was pretty spectacular with a sumptuous sound. And it went off. Big time. Edify from Taichung proved his credentials as one of the country’s best with his huge party sound. The raised booth seemed designed to be danced on, and was, meaning the DJ was surrounded by a wall of people. It looked and felt great.
Lazy Habits from the UK threw down a hip-hop set that everyone talked about afterwards, and Bounce Girlz showed off why they always pull in a crowd — it isn’t for the novelty of seeing two cute girls behind the decks.
Electronically, Spring Scream was a great weekend of music that rivaled the live bands all the way. The only bother was the turntables turning up real late on Saturday, which meant Twohands’ (aka Dan Lambert), with a sweet new hip-hop mix out right now called I Got Them Tees, didn’t get to play. So, here’s a link to the mix:
www.mediafire.com/?z1dtkizjorm
Not so long ago 2manydjs and Diplo played on the same night here at different venues. Putting Taipei even more firmly on the map tomorrow are John Selway and Paul van Dyk, who play tomorrow at The Wall (這牆) and Nangang 101 (南港101), respectively.
Techno aficionado Selway returns to Taipei to play Earworm’s second-year anniversary party. The DJ, from Washington originally but now firmly ensconced in New York, has been playing for close to two decades and, if he has to be classified, is at heart a minimal techno man. This is not quite accurate, though, as he has in the past been an innovator of many styles. With a three-hour set to sink his teeth into tomorrow, attendees will be in for a wide variety of sounds, including deep house and classic electro.
Yoshi will be opening and Earworm’s residents DataBass and BB will be going back-to-back after Selway’s set. If you think the Nankang DJ is a bit of a Dyk, then go for something cooler, smaller and with less to live up to.
Earworm 2nd Anniversary with John Selway, tomorrow from midnight until 5am at The Wall, B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Admission
is NT$800 at the door. Tel: (02) 2930-0162. On the Net: www.thewall.com.tw
Paul van Dyk has been a ubiquitous name in the dance music scene for many years now. He’ll be ripping into Nankang 101 for Spring Love at around the same time as Selway plays The Wall. Having been dubbed best deejay in the world twice in the mid 2000s, this night will be packed and apparently only 5,000 punters will be let in. It would be easy to call Berliner Van Dyk a trance DJ, but he prefers to keep his style nameless. Attendees will be taken on a journey, though. A journey that sounds and feels something like trance but without the stigma attached to the moniker. There is one hell of a setup for him too, as Van Dyk plays with two Macbooks and two MIDI keyboards to create unique sets, which are not trance.
It is eyebrow-raising that on a night of mad tunes and kids off their rockers, one of the admission rules is “persons with mental illnesses will not be allowed.” So says the gig’s Facebook invitation message, sent from Luxy’s page.
Paul van Dyk at Spring Love, tomorrow from 11pm until 5am at Nangang 101, 71 Xingnan St, Taipei City (台北市興南街71號). Admission is NT$1,800 at the door. On the Net: www.springlove.com.tw
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