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
In Taiwan there are two economies: the shiny high tech export economy epitomized by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and its outsized effect on global supply chains, and the domestic economy, driven by construction and powered by flows of gravel, sand and government contracts. The latter supports the former: we can have an economy without TSMC, but we can’t have one without construction. The labor shortage has heavily impacted public construction in Taiwan. For example, the first phase of the MRT Wanda Line in Taipei, originally slated for next year, has been pushed back to 2027. The government
July 22 to July 28 The Love River’s (愛河) four-decade run as the host of Kaohsiung’s annual dragon boat races came to an abrupt end in 1971 — the once pristine waterway had become too polluted. The 1970 event was infamous for the putrid stench permeating the air, exacerbated by contestants splashing water and sludge onto the shore and even the onlookers. The relocation of the festivities officially marked the “death” of the river, whose condition had rapidly deteriorated during the previous decade. The myriad factories upstream were only partly to blame; as Kaohsiung’s population boomed in the 1960s, all household
Allegations of corruption against three heavyweight politicians from the three major parties are big in the news now. On Wednesday, prosecutors indicted Hsinchu County Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), a judgment is expected this week in the case involving Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and former deputy premier and Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is being held incommunicado in prison. Unlike the other two cases, Cheng’s case has generated considerable speculation, rumors, suspicions and conspiracy theories from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps.
Stepping inside Waley Art (水谷藝術) in Taipei’s historic Wanhua District (萬華區) one leaves the motorcycle growl and air-conditioner purr of the street and enters a very different sonic realm. Speakers hiss, machines whir and objects chime from all five floors of the shophouse-turned- contemporary art gallery (including the basement). “It’s a bit of a metaphor, the stacking of gallery floors is like the layering of sounds,” observes Australian conceptual artist Samuel Beilby, whose audio installation HZ & Machinic Paragenesis occupies the ground floor of the gallery space. He’s not wrong. Put ‘em in a Box (我們把它都裝在一個盒子裡), which runs until Aug. 18, invites