Just when you thought electronic dance music had gone mainstream: last week it was reported that authorities have banned this year’s Moonlight party in Kenting.
Moonlight, an annual party that takes place during Tomb Sweeping Weekend and has been going for more than a decade, is not the only event to be affected by the ban.
An official document issued by Kenting National Park Headquarters (墾管處) states that “electronic music” (電音) is to be prohibited at most music events during Tomb Sweeping Weekend, when the southern beachside town is swamped by revelers.
Photo Courtesy of Joe Russo and Leo Shia
A petition has been started on Facebook and Moonlight’s promoters are trying to negotiate with local authorities.
“It’s ridiculous that we are not allowed to listen to a certain kind of music. Is Taiwan becoming North Korea?” wrote one petitioner.
“What’s their definition of electronic music anyway? Let’s get Lady Gaga to play in Kenting and see what they’ll say,” wrote another.
Although some blame the ban on partygoers who use drugs openly at such events, many observers say that discriminating against electronic music is unreasonable.
Fortunately, the rest of Taiwan isn’t experiencing the same problem. Qtro (pronounced “quattro”), a venue in Taichung, has recently popped up on the radar. With soulful house advocate Xuan (aka Shiuan Liu, 劉軒) as the music director, it’s not surprising Qtro is now the hottest nightspot in the city, despite its no-smoking policy and a lack of publicity.
The ultra-chic interior and cozy atmosphere are major draws, too.
Resident DJ Zoltan spins deep/soulful house from 11pm to 2am every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. There’s a special event every second weekend: Bump, a night of French house, Italian disco-funk, Chicago jack, West Coast deep house, and all flavors of bumping music, and Revival, which features soulful house, disco and deep and funky house.
■ Zoltan plays tonight at Qtro, 4F, 1049 Jianxing Rd, Greater Taichung (台中市健行路1049號4F). There’s a cover charge of NT$500 at the weekend.
In Taipei, Marquee has made a name for itself with quality eclectic music on weeknights. A new edition to the roster is Wednesday’s “open format” night with DJ collective The Blast (LEO37, Serpico, Vicar, Oohchild, Poppa Baer and Charles).
“The evening is ‘open format,’ meaning anything goes,” said LEO37 (real name Leo Shia). “Depending on whoever’s playing, you might get hip-hop, funk, soul, reggae, house … they all have a place on Wednesdays. Generally with two of us in tow, we’ll be bringing in special guests every few weeks just to stir things up.”
On March 30, that special guest will be Icy Ice, an original member of the World Famous Beat Junkies.
■ The Blast at Marquee, 16-1 Xinyi Rd, Sec 5 Taipei City (台北市信義路五段16-1), every Wednesday from 10pm to 1am. Admission is free. On the Net: www.theblast-blog.com and theblastmusic.bandcamp.com
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
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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