He loves punk rock and baseball and has written songs about people living inside clocks and a wandering cicada that can’t find its way home. If he had to describe his music to schoolchildren, he would tell them: “These are songs written by your Uncle Ah-Chang.”
Ah-Chang (阿強) is the lead singer and founder of 88 Balaz (八 十 八顆芭樂籽), a rock band that has gained a loyal following over the past 10 years for its energetic and wild performances. The group recently finished its first full-length album, The 44 Stone Lions (肆十肆隻石獅子), which was released today by Taiwan Colors Music (角頭音樂), and goes on sale tomorrow at a CD release party at the Huashan Culture Park (華山文化園區) in Taipei. [See Taipei Times, June 25, Page 14 for the CD review.]
88 Balaz’s sound is blistering rock ’n’ roll with lots of punk attitude: loud, overdriven guitars, head-shaking rhythms and vocals that whine, sneer and scream.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TAIWAN COLORS MUSIC
This description fits many bands, but 88 Balaz stands out. “Ah-Chang has good stage charm and he engages the crowd,” says Wade Davis, co-founder and organizer of Spring Scream, Taiwan’s foremost independent music festival. “The crowd [always] loves it.”
And as a band, they’re getting good. “They’ve tightened up a lot over their years … their sound has really matured,” says Davis.
88 Balaz — whose name was inspired in part by a roadside guava stand — made a name for itself at Spring Scream and performs there every year. Ah-Chang, 27, whose real name is Lee Chi-ming (李奇明), recalls one of his fondest memories of being on stage at the festival more than 10 years ago when he was still in high school. The band had lucked out with an evening time slot, and consequently its largest audience ever.
Ah-Chang got drunk beforehand to celebrate and at the climax of the show he rode a bicycle off the stage into the crowd. “I was so excited,” he says.
The band has since developed a reputation for its on-stage antics. Davis, who contributed liner notes for the band’s new CD, recalls how during another year Ah-Chang left the stage in the middle of a song to climb up a tree.
Not many people tell Ah-Chang what they think of 88 Balaz’s shows, but when they do they describe them as “extremely crazy, and ridiculous,” he says. Fair enough, he says. “I also think [our shows] are ridiculous … I like it this way.”
In addition to AC/DC and Japanese punks Thee Michelle Gun Elephant, A-Chang cites as influences Taiwanese underground rock legends LTK Commune (濁水溪公社) and The Clippers (夾子). 88 Balaz opened for both groups when it was just starting out a decade ago.
At the time Ah-Chang was only playing for fun. He decided to seriously pursue music during his military service four years ago, when there was more time to “discover the things I wanted the most.”
“[I realized] not everybody could have the opportunity to get on stage and play,” he says, so he feels “fortunate” to be making music.
Off stage, Ah-Chang seems mild-mannered and reserved as he talks about songwriting at a Shida Road (師大路) cafe. He describes his lyrics as “dream-like” and based on certain “moods.” He’s attracted to certain “images,” such as the burning of a mosquito in a candle, which reappears as a butterfly in a garden in the song Cicada Vitality B (蟬的活力B).
He consciously avoids writing songs about real events or people, with the exception of the closing track of the new album, Ode to Ballfield Madness(野球狂之詩), which is dedicated Taiwan’s baseball players. The song laments the fact that no one goes to games anymore.
But this hasn’t diminished Ah-Chang’s ultimate dream for the band: “I’ve always wanted to play at a baseball stadium,” he says with a wide grin.
Joining 88 Balaz at tomorrow’s show are the Deadly Vibes and White Eyes (白目).
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