What would a Chthonic (閃靈) show be without a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) flag burning? After the metal band’s sold-out concert at NeoStudio last Sunday, a few fans in the street put flame to a small KMT flag; burning it is basically an act of support for Taiwanese independence.
The concert itself was not so blatantly political. Too much stumping would have taken away from the headbanging, the blast beats and a cool guest slot by metal god guitarist Marty Friedman, who flew to Taipei for a two-song guest slot. Amidst all the raised devil horns in the crowd, there were also Tibetan flags flying. At the entrance was an info booth for Amnesty International, of which Chthonic’s lead singer Freddy Lim (林昶佐) is the Taiwan chapter head.
On stage, there was a cameo appearance by TV political talk show host Zheng Hong-yi (鄭弘儀). In the crowd, fans shouted obscenities at President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), and VIP guests included a number of well known political types, most notably the 94-year-old Su Beng (史明), a white-maned, wheelchair-bound democracy activist who once plotted to kill Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and is the author of Taiwan’s 400 Years of History (臺灣人四百年史).
Photo Courtesy of Chthonic
As always, Chthonic exhibited an interesting knack for riding the line between art and politics, supporting Taiwanese independence, but never at the expense of the music. As black metal, they unload the proper orgasm of blasting noise, dark atmosphere, face paint and theatrical chord progressions. There were some especially great moments when lead guitarist Jesse Liu (劉笙彙) traded licks with erhu player Su Nong (趙甦農). Behind the band, projected video images mixed heavy metal spectacle and historical violence: wrathful Taiwanese gods; the Wushe Incident (霧社事件), in which Taiwanese Aborigines slaughtered Japanese colonialists; a cockpit view of a kamikaze plane diving into a ship.
Though in a sense the imagery seemed contradictory — first killing Japanese colonialists is cool, then they’re glorifying kamikazes — the common thread was the fighting spirit of the Taiwanese people, who resisted Japanese colonization but were later conscripted into the Japanese army during World War II. And doesn’t every metal band engage in outrageously violent fantasies as a way of engaging with the dark side of reality, but without truly actualizing them? In this way, Chthonic is a master at having its cake and eating it too. According to reports, 1,200 tickets for the show sold out in less than a day when they went on sale in November.
A week earlier on Dec. 9, the UK space rock band Spiritualized gave a performance in the same venue that was awesomely mind blowing, though failed to make ends meet. Around 700 people paid the NT$2,500 ticket price, but the show still lost around NT$500,000.
A couple of year-end music lists have been released. On IndieVox.com, a fan vote for the best album of 2012 went to the boy-girl indie pop duo Katncandix2 (棉花糖) for the album I’m Myself (不被瞭解的怪人). The Mode Mall (新時代購物中心) in Taichung put out a list of Taiwan’s top 100 bands in late November, based on a fan vote. The top five were Mayday (五月天) Sodagreen (蘇打綠), 831 (八 三夭), Katncandix2 and The Chairmen (董事長樂團).
If the government is looking at these lists, they are probably scratching their heads and asking, “Where is our ‘Gangnam Style?’” From 2009 to 2013, the government allotted a budget of NT$26.2 billion to develop cultural creative industries, including NT$2.1 billion for pop music. In 2012, they gave NT$84 million to large record companies to produce more than 25 albums by major artists, including A-mei (張惠妹), Mayday, S.H.E., Jonathan Lee (李宗盛) and the boy band Lollipop F. They handed out recording grants of NT$300,000 to 40 indie bands, among them P!SCO, OCD Girl (強迫女孩), Fire EX (滅火器) and Bowz Tiger (包子虎). They supported tours by at least 22 Taiwanese bands overseas, including the second Taiwan showcase at SXSW, NT$1.5 million to Chthonic for overseas tours, and NT$500,000 to A Moving Sound (聲動樂團).
Alas, there was no “Gangnam Style” in sight! The problem is that the closest thing Taiwan has to Psy is President Ma, an actual “bumbler.” If only reality could sell as well as parody.
Seriously though, at a recent public discussion on Taiwan’s music industry, Underworld shareholder and Fu Jen University professor Ho Tong-hung (何東洪) remarked, “Production costs for albums used to be undertaken by record companies. Now it’s quite clear that the major source of funding is the government.”
This is obviously a big, multi-faceted issue, but as the government considers renewing this cultural budget, they should realize that in addition to showering money on artists, they need to think about their greatest cultural assets, the real communities of musicians and fans. Creating a proper legal framework for live houses should be a no-brainer. Underworld, Legacy and other top Taiwanese music venues continue to operate in legal gray zones.
Allowing music venues to sell alcohol is politically sticky, and Culture Minister Long Ying-tai (龍應台) and Taipei City culture chief Liu Wei-gong (劉維公) have both dodged the issue. That a country can turn a blind eye to widespread prostitution in karaoke parlors but not legally allow young people to drink beer and listen to rock and roll at the same time, what should we call that? How about Ying-jeou Style!
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
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