After promising to give the stage over to local acts overlooked by other music events, last weekend's Formoz Festival 2007 (野台開唱) did little to promote fresh local talent. Most media coverage focused on the 30 outfits from Japan.
Japanese songstress/model/actress Anna Tsuchiya and hip-hop act Teriyaki Boyz led by NIGO, the founder of high-profile street clothing brand A Bathing Ape, were among the biggest draws. The lead singer of Ginkgo Boyz (銀杏Boyz) stole the show when he stripped off and exposed his trouser snake to the crowd. The overexcited Japanese lad was arrested and fined NT$9,000 for public indecency last Saturday.
Sunday's performances seemed tame in comparison with the exception of Rize's lead singer Jassie from Japan, who put on an acrobatic show on the stage scaffold that earned a big round of applauds.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
What happens when pretty boys Bang Bang Tang (棒棒堂) meets the popular singing contest finalists now known as the Million Star Gang (星光幫)? A full-scale war between the fans on each side.
The raging battle began shortly after the Gang appeared on the Bang Bang Tang boys' variety show on Channel V and the former insulted the latter.
"Bang Bang Tang can neither sing nor dance. The only thing they do well is to sell their faces," the Million-Dollar camp said.
"Yea, but the Million Star Gang doesn't even have faces to sell," the Bang Bang Tang camp retorted.
Pop Stop has to admit that both camps have a point.
Having long since passed into oblivion, Chin Han (秦漢) rose from the dead when his unlikely romance with Hong Kong actress Nancy Sit (薛家燕) made it into gossip columns this week. What's the big deal? The 61-year-old man was the lover of former Mando-movie star Brigitte Lin (林青霞) for 21 years.
At the time, observers predicted Han and Lin would eventually wed. The diva's knot was tied instead by multi-billionaire Xing Li-yuan (邢李源) in 1994, right after her long relationship with Chin ended.
Over a decade later, the well-preserved Chin caught Sit's eye when the pair were appearing together in a Chinese soap opera. Saying her head got dizzy every time she saw Chin, the veteran actress proudly announced that her Prince Charming liked to call her "sunshine" on set and the feeling was mutual.
"He likes younger women. All the girlfriends he has had in the past are below the age of 40," an anonymous friend is quoted as saying in the Chinese-language press.
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
On a misty evening in August 1990, two men hiking on the moors surrounding Calvine, a pretty hamlet in Perth and Kinross, claimed to have seen a giant diamond-shaped aircraft flying above them. It apparently had no clear means of propulsion and left no smoke plume; it was silent and static, as if frozen in time. Terrified, they hit the ground and scrambled for cover behind a tree. Then a Harrier fighter jet roared into view, circling the diamond as if sizing it up for a scuffle. One of the men snapped a series of photographs just before the bizarre
Power struggles are never pretty. Fortunately, Taiwan is a democracy so there is no blood in the streets, but there are volunteers collecting signatures to recall nearly half of the legislature. With the exceptions of the “September Strife” in 2013 and the Sunflower movement occupation of the Legislative Yuan and the aftermath in 2014, for 16 years the legislative and executive branches of government were relatively at peace because the ruling party also controlled the legislature. Now they are at war. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds the presidency and the Executive Yuan and the pan-blue coalition led by the
China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032. Job ads posted online by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) this week, sought young loyal graduates focused on aerospace engineering, international cooperation and asteroid detection. The recruitment drive comes amid increasing focus on an asteroid with a low — but growing — likelihood of hitting earth in seven years. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is at the top of the European and US space agencies’ risk lists, and last week analysts increased their probability