Welcome to the New Year in one of the most exciting cities in Asia. Taipei’s night scene has come a long way in the last few years. It’s become a weekend clubbing destination for people from throughout the region and a regular stop on the map for international DJs. With so many choices of clubs, especially in the Xinyi District (信義), it’s astounding that they are always full. But there is always room for one more, so once you’ve recovered from New Year’s Eve, prepare yourself for the grand opening of Elektro featuring none other than Diplo (real name: Thomas Wesley Pentz).
Elektro enters Taipei as the successor to Spark, which abruptly shut down last month. The new club has a similar operational strategy: Vegas-style bottle service with Vegas-style presentation. In what is a reflection of how massive Taipei dance music industry has become, the musical direction of the club will join many others in the area and will be centered on EDM, which means you can expect to see regular international bookings to fuel the club’s vibe.
First up is Diplo, who plays his first solo show in Taipei in more than five years. The US DJ, rapper and Mad Decent record label founder has since formed Jack U with fellow dance music bigwig Skrillex (real name: Sonny John Moore). He also championed the twerking movement and has been immensely busy collaborating regularly with artists like Beyonce and Madonna, who credits him on her upcoming album Rebel Heart. It proves that there is a fine line between what’s considered pop music and dance music. But he’s balancing it in a way that is both tactful and admirable to everyone in the industry.
Photo courtesy of the Windish Agency
Diplo is without a doubt one of the biggest names in the industry and a spontaneous stop in Taipei is a great start to what should be a bustling year for our growing city. We can only hope that police in the won’t have an equally as bustling year.
■ Diplo plays tomorrow night 9pm at Elektro, 6F, 12 Songshou Rd, Taipei City (台北市松壽路12號6樓). Admission is NT$1,600 and includes two drinks.
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
The last couple of weeks spectators in Taiwan and abroad have been treated to a remarkable display of infighting in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the supplementary defense budget. The party has split into two camps, one supporting an NT$800 billion special defense budget and one supporting an NT$380 billion budget with additional funding contingent on receiving letters of acceptance (LOA) from the US. Recent media reports have said that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is leaning toward the latter position. President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed NT$1.25 trillion for purchases of US arms and for development of domestic weapons
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
RSS