Some of us missed Jazzy Jeff when he played Taipei last November in the mistaken belief that he was more a media name than a musician. It was a bad call because his gig at Luxy was said to be one of the best ever held at the club since it opened two years ago this weekend.
To help celebrate Luxy's second birthday party Jeff has added a diversion to Taipei to his current world tour and will play two nights, reprising his stellar hip-hop set tonight, with MC Skillz, and introducing his house music tomorrow. Jeff has already esta-blished his dance music credentials with last year's critically and popularly acclaimed album Jazzy Jeff In the House.
Speaking from Bangkok, Jeff said of last year's Taipei gig that, "It was like a surprise to me. We just got off on the energy and had a real party with the crowd. We got the love."
PHOTO COURTESY OF LUXY
Considering Jeff's experience and success -- he started DJing as a 10 year old in the 1970s and met up with Will Smith to produce DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's Rock the House in 1987 -- "The Vinyl Word" wanted to know what variables created a great party.
"There's stuff you control and stuff you can't control. As for a good party, maybe people ain't been out for a long time. I don't deal with un-knowables, I just work at it and try to make it a special occasion by taking the crowd on a journey," Jeff said.
"Enough people go to clubs every week and they get tired of hearing the same stuff. I want it to be the most musically exhausting night they have ever been to. You know, mix in some old ones [songs], some new, a few favorites and hit 'em with the remix live. I got a lot of tricks and tracks. I ain't gonna come 20,000 miles and play the same."
Jeff said his least favorite country to DJ in right now was the US. "It's hard to get them going. It's like people in the US are close-minded, the media is in control and people only want to listen to what they've heard before. I mean, come on, there are a trillion good records out there. I guess the cycle goes round but at the moment the mainstream US hip-hop scene is kinda dry."
Alan Hsia, formerly of 2nd Floor and a founder of Luxy, said the scene in Taipei is at a different stage and it's hip hop that has been bringing excitement over the past two years, rather than house music.
"Musically, it's gone full circle, with hip hop, and now dance music waiting to be re-invented ... Two years ago, hip hop refreshed itself somehow, it broke through with mashups, commercial stars and movie tie-ups, so hip hop began a new cycle. Now dance is waiting to begin again."
To bring back some excitement to the dancefloor Hsia held the Sweet party the previous week and has some big names on the list for next month, including Ken Ishii, Sasha, James Zabiela and Arman Van Buren.
As for the best parties over the past two years at Luxy, Hsia picked out Johnny Fiasco, Naughty by Nature, Darren Emerson, Fresh on Wednesday ("It brought a whole dimension to the scene with a successful midweek night") and Jazzy Jeff -- who gets the last word.
"People like Alan [Hsia] looked after us when we here last, and that's another variable for a good time. It makes you want to come back and party."
Tickets for the show are NT$700 before 11pm, NT$900 after. Luxy is at 5F, 201, Zhongxiao E Rd, Sec 4, Taipei (台北市忠孝東路四段201號5樓). Call (02) 2772 1000, or (0955) 904 600 for reservations (English service available).
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.” Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge. The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
Imagine being able to visit a museum and examine up close thousand-year-old pottery, revel alone in jewelry from centuries past, or peer inside a Versace bag. Now London’s V&A has launched a revolutionary new exhibition space, where visitors can choose from some 250,000 objects, order something they want to spend time looking at and have it delivered to a room for a private viewing. Most museums have thousands of precious and historic items hidden away in their stores, which the public never gets to see or enjoy. But the V&A Storehouse, which opened on May 31 in a converted warehouse, has come up
RSS