With a line-up of performers that sounds like a who's who of the local foreign music scene, it's not surprising that the The Money Shot Horns' manager, Patrick Byrne, is touting the band as a "supergroup."
Most of the band's members - Roger Smith (keyboards), William Lloyd (electric guitar), Andy Francis (trombone), Darren Jorde (bass) and Byrne (saxophone) - have variously played with Schlumpy, Milk and Boogie Chillin'. Francis is now also involved in side projects with Public Radio and Johnny Fatstacks.
I've seen Hanro "Jubba" van Wyk, playing or jamming with three different bands in the last month alone, and Wesley James has played with The Sound Clashes and The Anglers.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF HANK WESTHEIM
In an interview on Tuesday, the members of The Money Shot Horns lavished praise on their lead vocalist, relative newcomer Dooley Chandler.
Byrne and Smith first saw Chandler performing with AdHoc at Grooveyard in Taichung. "Dooley did one song, they were maybe two chords in and Roger and I looked at each other simultaneously and said 'he's our vocalist'," Byrne said.
The Horns rehearsed only four times before they started playing shows.
"We're working with guys who have all played with such great bands and are very, very professional, and very experienced. Every one comes in with stuff," Byrne said.
"Someone will come up with a song they want to work on, and will show it to the others and try to get across how they want it to sound. We'll jam on it, and do chord progressions," Francis said. "We wanted to put together the best band in Taiwan."
The Money Shot Horns have been together for only a year, but have already honed a hard-driving, energetic funk sound that gets audiences up and dancing.
"When we play, people are immediately up and on the floor," Byrne said. "I feel like we are on the crest of a wave that hasn't died down yet. Usually things level out, you kind of peak with your fan base, but we are feeling a lot of momentum."
The variety of musicians and instruments in the group, especially such a large horn section, produces a sound that is groovy and which combines funk, rhythm and blues and rock.
Band members collaborate on writing the music, with Chandler, Byrne and James co-writing the lyrics. Chandler also writes lyrics to accompany instrumental songs from a previous band of Byrne's, 'round midnight, which they then bring to the group to jam on.
"Everyone in the community of music here is very open," says Francis. "Music is a great common denominator."
Money Shot Horns play tonight at Bliss, 148, Xinyi Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市信義路四段148號) from 10pm.
Taiwan has next to no political engagement in Myanmar, either with the ruling military junta nor the dozens of armed groups who’ve in the last five years taken over around two-thirds of the nation’s territory in a sprawling, patchwork civil war. But early last month, the leader of one relatively minor Burmese revolutionary faction, General Nerdah Bomya, who is also an alleged war criminal, made a low key visit to Taipei, where he met with a member of President William Lai’s (賴清德) staff, a retired Taiwanese military official and several academics. “I feel like Taiwan is a good example of
Institutions signalling a fresh beginning and new spirit often adopt new slogans, symbols and marketing materials, and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is no exception. Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), soon after taking office as KMT chair, released a new slogan that plays on the party’s acronym: “Kind Mindfulness Team.” The party recently released a graphic prominently featuring the red, white and blue of the flag with a Chinese slogan “establishing peace, blessings and fortune marching forth” (締造和平,幸福前行). One part of the graphic also features two hands in blue and white grasping olive branches in a stylized shape of Taiwan. Bonus points for
“M yeolgong jajangmyeon (anti-communism zhajiangmian, 滅共炸醬麵), let’s all shout together — myeolgong!” a chef at a Chinese restaurant in Dongtan, located about 35km south of Seoul, South Korea, calls out before serving a bowl of Korean-style zhajiangmian —black bean noodles. Diners repeat the phrase before tucking in. This political-themed restaurant, named Myeolgong Banjeom (滅共飯館, “anti-communism restaurant”), is operated by a single person and does not take reservations; therefore long queues form regularly outside, and most customers appear sympathetic to its political theme. Photos of conservative public figures hang on the walls, alongside political slogans and poems written in Chinese characters; South
March 9 to March 15 “This land produced no horses,” Qing Dynasty envoy Yu Yung-ho (郁永河) observed when he visited Taiwan in 1697. He didn’t mean that there were no horses at all; it was just difficult to transport them across the sea and raise them in the hot and humid climate. “Although 10,000 soldiers were stationed here, the camps had fewer than 1,000 horses,” Yu added. Starting from the Dutch in the 1600s, each foreign regime brought horses to Taiwan. But they remained rare animals, typically only owned by the government or
RSS