After 30 years of riding high on the party bus, Fatboy Slim (real name Norman Cook) put away the cocktail shaker and has been sober for the past year and a half. Now he’s taking care of his two children and running in half marathons.
Cook shook the Taipei World Trade Center Hall 2 (台北世貿二館) to the ground on Sunday night, awing 7,000 fans with his audio-visual show, as well as his frolicsome antics behind the turntables.
“The worst thing [about sobriety] is if you’re not really up for a gig, a drink would be a real nice way to get going,” Cook said in an interview before his show. “The best thing is that I’m always able to get to the next gig.”
Photo: Steven Vigar
“It’s always such a good feeling from shows. Now, I remember them,” Cook said.
Air horn in hand, barefoot and wearing baggy shorts and his trademark Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned half way, Cook stormed the stage. As soon as the first notes of Praise You blasted from the speakers, the crowd erupted, and there was no let up for the next two hours.
“I’ve learned a bit about stagecraft and presence over the years,” Cook said. “This is a rock show based around a DJ, instead of just a DJ standing there.”
Photo: Steven Vigar
Cook consummately captured the big room sound, mixing in hits of today (Dennis Ferrer, Hey Hey), his classics (Right Here, Right Now), bootlegs of his songs (Ronario’s remix of Cook’s Star 69) and hip-hop staples (DJ Kool’s Let Me Clear My Throat, House of Pain’s Jump Around). He even threw in a capella vocals (Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, Oasis’ Wonderwall) for fun.
It would be hard for any other DJ to play those songs and not be considered cheesy or trashy, but Cook pulled it
off with ease because of his diverse
musical background.
“I take the good bits of everything I hear,” Cook said. “I think I have the pop sensibilities of the Beatles, the punk attitude of the 1970s, and I’ve always enjoyed hip-hop.”
At one point during Weapon of Choice, the visuals remixed Christopher Walken’s already cheeky dancing from the music video and placed him inside of an upside-down pyramid. The stellar laser-LED screen combination and epic breakdowns in the music elicited smiles all around.
As a finale, Cook quickly worked through a slew of hits, including Ludicris’ How Low and his own The Rockafeller Skank, before ending the show with a remix of Praise You, the song he opened with.
“A lot of people still think I play big beat, but I play mostly house, electro and fidget. One promoter even thought I sang on my songs,” Cook said. “When I get on stage, I don’t know what I’m going to play. I only know what song I’m going to start with and what I’m going to end with.”
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
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