The Indulge party crew has been building a loyal following with a string of six events at smaller Taipei venues including Hook and Revolver. Tonight, they move up to The Wall having imported the underground talents of MC Shing02 (real name Shingo Annen), a Japanese rapper who will be performing a special tribute set to underground jazz rap producer Nujabes, who died a little over a year ago.
Shing02 was born in Tokyo but lived in Tanzania, England and San Francisco during his childhood. While in the Bay Area in the late 1990s, Shing02 was influenced by the local music scene, which included hip-hop heavyweights Del the Funky Homosapien and the Souls of Mischief. Shing02 took that storytelling style back to Japan and has since worked with DJs and full bands, rapping in both English and Japanese. He got to know Nujabes when they worked together on the theme song Battlecry for the anime series Samurai Champloo. For this event, he will be backed onstage by A-1.
■ Indulge! Vol. 7 with Shing02 and DJ A-1 tonight at The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Admission is NT$800 at the door
Photo Courtesy of Indulge
While most DJs spend the week leading up to their big shows listening to new music or mixing tracks to see if they blend together in key, D. Hooker (also known as Dominik Tyliszczak) transforms into a carpenter and visual artist. Birthday boy D. Hooker got a few friends together this week and built an eye-popping video installation that includes video mapping and a pattern of rectangles that he calls Infinity Squared, which will form the backdrop to the DJ action at tonight’s A State of Sound party. In the mix are D. Hooker, Genetically Modified Beats and yours truly, Marcus Aurelius.
■ A State of Sound tonight at Luxy, 5F, 201, Zhongxiao E Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市忠孝東路四段201號5樓). Call (02) 2772-1000 or 0955-904-600 for reservations (English service available). On the Net: www.luxy-taipei.com. Admission is NT$600 with two drinks
At Spring Scream this year, Q-Kraft (real name Dominic O’Brien) played a killer set of breezy Sunday afternoon electro to a receptive audience. Toward the end, Q-Kraft’s girlfriend, Hazel Gould, revved up the crowd by grabbing a microphone and singing over a few dubstep tracks, reminiscent of the recent Katy B and Magnetic Man collaborations. Q-Kraft and Gould will perform some of these tracks tomorrow at Brickyard and will be joined by Robi Roka, Rich and MC Stoppa.
Photo Courtesy of Lorenzo E. Pierucci
■ Tranquility Bass presents Rumble II tomorrow night at Brickyard, B1, 507 Jhongshan 2nd Rd, Cianjin Dist, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市前金區中山二路507號B1). Admission is NT$300 for gents and NT$100 for ladies. Open bar from 10pm to 11pm and two-for-one mixed drinks from 11pm to midnight. Students with a valid ID get in free before 1am
Recently the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and its Mini-Me partner in the legislature, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), have been arguing that construction of chip fabs in the US by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is little more than stripping Taiwan of its assets. For example, KMT Deputy Secretary-General Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) in January said that “This is not ‘reciprocal cooperation’ ... but a substantial hollowing out of our country.” Similarly, former TPP Chair Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) contended it constitutes “selling Taiwan out to the United States.” The two pro-China parties are proposing a bill that would limit semiconductor
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
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
“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
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