Two decades ago, rock 'n' roll was a sound for the young and rebellious, played live at only a few underground bars. A decade later, Taiwan's rock music came out of the closet and spawned big events like Spring Scream (春天吶喊), Formoz Festival (野台開唱) and Hohaiyan Rock Festival (海洋音樂祭).
For the past couple of years, the indie music scene has taken on a more spontaneous vibe at free street music gigs like the Watermelon Rock Festival (搖滾西瓜音樂季). Organized by the guitar club at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU, 國立台灣師範大學), it features 15 bands jamming for eight hours nonstop, tomorrow at Shida Park (師大公園), Taipei.
PHOTO: COUTESY OF WATERMELON ROCK FESTIVAL
The semiannual festival was started five years ago by Bear Boss (熊老大), a member of the band Inferno, which was formed of guitar club members. He decided to change the group's irregular performances into a scheduled event. The best time for the show, the pioneers reckoned, was during the university's anniversary celebrations in June, also the time of the Watermelon Festival, when students traditionally give the fruit to their sweethearts.
The festival's rules are simple: at least one member of each band must be an NTNU student or alumnus and the event itself must remain avowedly independent and anticapitalist. Last December, the festival moved out of the campus to Shida park.
"We'd like to continue the street rock spirit from last year, highlighting music that is untainted by the mainstream," this year's festival coordinator and electric guitarist Hsu Ting-yu (許庭毓) said.
This year's lineup sees the return of Inferno, the members of which are now office workers who transform into heavy-metal bad boys at night. NTNU's musical luminaries include folk rock outfit Who Knows Band (天曉得) and Greenbean starring A-Mai (阿賣), who flunked classes because of jamming sessions.
Another big draw is the all-girl punk rock band Da Mo Wang (大魔王), who have been playing together since high school.
The festival organizers, in true anarchical style, have bent the rules and invited guest bands Clay Pigeon (陶土飛靶), to represent the National Taiwan University (國立台灣大學), and the award-winning Echo (回聲樂團), which consists of National Tsinghua University (清華大學) graduates.
The festival's anticapitalist ethos comes at a cost: limited sponsorship. But despite struggling with a simple sound system, the spirit of rock looks set to live on. "The Watermelon Rock Festival will be back next year, at the same place, and the same time," Hsu said.
Festival notes:
What: The 10th Watermelon Rock Festival
(第十屆搖滾西瓜音樂季)
Where: Shida Park (師大公園), near Shida night market
When: Sunday from 1pm to 9pm
On the Net: blog.roodo.com/ntnu_rocker
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
By far the most jarring of the new appointments for the incoming administration is that of Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) to head the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF). That is a huge demotion for one of the most powerful figures in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Tseng has one of the most impressive resumes in the party. He was very active during the Wild Lily Movement and his generation is now the one taking power. He has served in many of the requisite government, party and elected positions to build out a solid political profile. Elected as mayor of Taoyuan as part of the
Moritz Mieg, 22, lay face down in the rubble, the ground shaking violently beneath him. Boulders crashed down around him, some stones hitting his back. “I just hoped that it would be one big hit and over, because I did not want to be hit nearly to death and then have to slowly die,” the student from Germany tells Taipei Times. MORNING WALK Early on April 3, Mieg set out on a scenic hike through Taroko Gorge in Hualien County (花蓮). It was a fine day for it. Little did he know that the complex intersection of tectonic plates Taiwan sits
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50