Need a crash course on Taiwan’s best indie rock bands? The Megaport Music Festival (大港開唱) has got it covered this weekend.
The annual event, which takes place tomorrow and Sunday at Kaohsiung Harbor’s Pier 2 Art District (高雄駁二藝術特區), has a lineup of 46 bands that features the nation’s cream-of-the-crop indie artists, as well as several acts from Japan.
Organizers say the outdoor festival saw 15,000 visitors last year, and, with a few mainstream pop acts scheduled to appear, this edition should be no different. Sodagreen (蘇打綠) headlines the main stage tomorrow night, and celebrity model and singer Amber An (安心亞) performs a set of techno-pop tomorrow.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
But the festival’s spread of non-mainstream artists with large followings will also attract crowds. Metal heroes Chthonic (閃靈) and beloved nakashi (那卡西) punk rock group Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK) perform tomorrow, while indie-pop veterans Tizzy Bac and Aboriginal reggae rockers Matzka appear on Sunday.
Taipei live music venue The Wall (這牆) started Megaport in 2006 to encourage and develop a live music scene outside of the capital. Beloved pop-punks Fire Ex (滅火器), who play on Sunday, are a hometown favorite, and the festival offers a stage to up-and-coming bands such as the punk outfit The Locals (草地人), also from Kaohsiung, and Taichung hardcore metal band Flesh Juicer (血肉果汁機).
Megaport, which has bands playing on three outdoor stages and one indoor stage, is also putting on activities that are free to the public, including a skateboarding contest and a market selling arts and crafts and food.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
One new addition to this year’s event is the NGO Village, a set of booths run by representatives from organizations that include Greenpeace and Amnesty International. There will also be booths manned by aid groups helping victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last year, the first anniversary of which falls on Sunday.
A full schedule for the festival can be viewed at www.megaport.com.tw.
Megaport 2012 — performers to catch
Omnipotent Youth Society (萬能青年旅店)
Artsy folk/blues rock band from China’s Hebei Province
Tomorrow, 1:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Enno Cheng (鄭宜農)
Indie-folk songstress and film actress with a pristine voice
Tomorrow, 5:50pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥)
Hakka folk singer and highly admired songwriter among many Taiwanese indie musicians for his grassroots ethos
Tomorrow, 7pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
The Novembers
High-energy Japanese alt-rock band that balances heavy guitars and pop smoothness
Tomorrow, 3:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Pay Money to My Pain
Japanese nu-metal/alt-rock band that sings in English
Tomorrow, 6:20pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Sodagreen (蘇打綠)
Intelligent pop from college students-turned-stars
Tomorrow, 8pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK)
Kings of irreverent, satirical rock
Tomorrow, 9:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
The Telephones
Electro/disco punk rockers from Japan
Sunday, 6:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Toe
Math rock/post-rock outfit from Japan
Sunday, 8:30pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Dog-G (大支)
Taiwan’s smoothest rapper in Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese]
Sunday, 6:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Windmill (風籟坊)
Slow-core rock a la Pavement, sung in Hoklo
Sunday, 3:30pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Sugar Plum Ferry (甜梅號)
Post-rock heroes from Taipei
Sunday, 2:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Matzka
Reggae rock, Taiwan Aboriginal style
Sunday, 4:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Tizzy Bac
Enchanting piano rock
Sunday, 7:40pm, Dragon Goddess Stage (女神龍舞台)
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) announced last week a city policy to get businesses to reduce working hours to seven hours per day for employees with children 12 and under at home. The city promised to subsidize 80 percent of the employees’ wage loss. Taipei can do this, since the Celestial Dragon Kingdom (天龍國), as it is sardonically known to the denizens of Taiwan’s less fortunate regions, has an outsize grip on the government budget. Like most subsidies, this will likely have little effect on Taiwan’s catastrophic birth rates, though it may be a relief to the shrinking number of
RSS