Seeing Canadian band Stars play live was definitely one of the shining moments of my music world last week. Their show at Legacy was packed, which caused vocalist Torquil Campbell, who I met up with in Huashan for drinks before the show, to interrupt his non-stop political rant (not impressed with the Harper government in Canada) to exclaim: “This is what we do it for! Look at all these kids. How do they even know who we are, we are half way around the world and here they are coming out on a Wednesday to see us play. That is what it is all about.” Their music was transcendent, mercurial, uplifting, and most of all, entertaining. “In the end,” he said, “I’m no political activist, I’m a fool, an entertainer for the masses.”
More tomfoolery is to be had this week: the Megaport Music Festival (大港開唱) in Kaohsiung this weekend, a mini tour by Roxymoron and Forests, a punk show mid-week with Fucked Up and Gallows, along with the birthdays of Wade Davis and Greggo Russell, two of the founding fathers of Taiwan’s expat music scene.
Davis was too immersed in preparations for Spring Scream to do an interview but you can catch him next weekend at Roxy Rocker (which his Aurora band members were gaga over when they played there last month, in part because of the Led Zeppelin-inspired decor, and in part because of owner Ling Wei’s (凌威) massive vinyl collection available for play by the DJ aftershows). Davis will be playing in Dr Reniculous Lipz and the Skallyunz, with Russell’s experimental post-rock group Collider (a personal favorite of mine), performing in a rare live show in honor of the occasion.
Photo courtesy of Barbara Anastacio
Russell, who has been here for over a decade, plays in a ludicrous number of bands:
“At the moment I am drumming for The Looking Glass, Rough Hausen, Luxury Apartments, Stench Of Lust, Steve Williams & The Alien Residents, Dr Reniculous Lipz and the Skallyunz, Collider and a few other projects that emerge from the dead now and again,” he said in a recent interview.
“I enjoy the different genres of music that I find myself playing. I do not sit around watching HBO or playing Playstation. I like to be productive … music happens to be my number one field of interest. I used to be a keen sportsman, that took a backseat to the drum kit.”
Indie heroin-rock band Luxury Apartments will join them for this free celebration of the births of two of Taiwan’s core live music men.
■ Dr Reniculous Lipz and the Skallyunz, Collider and Luxury Apartments play on Mar. 9 from 8pm to 10:30pm at Roxy Rocker 177, Heping E Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市和平東路一段177號). Admission is free.
Tomorrow you can catch American indie folk rockers Grizzly Bear at Neo Studio — if, that is, you can’t make it down to see them in Kaohsiung at the weekend-long Megaport Music Festival (大港開唱). After Radiohead invited the band to tour in 2008, things took off for them in a big way, driving the band into a hibernation period of creativity after their album Veckatimest reached the top of the global music charts. They have even supported Paul Simon (who plays in Taiwan on Mar. 20), and they were touted as “incredible” by Jay-Z. Their sound is a mix of musical instruments and electronics, with a psychedelic experimental folk-pop vibe. It’s dreamy music with Daniel Rossen and Ed Droste’s vocal harmonies leading the ear.
■ Grizzly Bear plays tonight. Doors open at 7pm and the band takes the stage from 8pm to 10pm at NeoStudio, 5F, 22 Songshou Rd, Taipei (台北市松壽路22號5樓). Tickets are NT$2,000 at the door, NT$1,800 presale.
If you missed Japanese experimental metal psych-rock pop band Boris at the Wall (這牆) yesterday you can catch them with Grizzly Bear as they are also playing Megaport. With 17 studio albums under their belt, they bend genres and define the analog-digital hybrid ethic with an E-bow, a Vibrato bar, a range of pedals and a double-necked bass guitar that vocalist Takeshi uses to avoid having to switch instruments.
Joining the two-day lineup are a long list of bands including Skaraoke, Wonfu, Fire Ex, Manic Sheep, 10-Feet and How to Dress Well. Check the Web site, www.megaport.com.tw, for a full schedule — it’s a good one.
■ Megaport Music Festival tomorrow and Sunday from noon to 10pm at Pier 2 Art District (高雄駁二藝術特區), 1 Dayong Rd, Yancheng Dist, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市鹽埕區大勇路1號). Pre-sale tickets are NT$900 for a one-day pass and NT$1,600 for a two day pass, available through 7-11 iBon; NT$1,100 NT$1,800 at the door.
This weekend might be one of the last times to catch Roxymoron, now on mini-tour, as frontman Ben Smith will be leaving Taiwan shortly. Roxymoron and Forests played Underworld on Wednesday and will hit Taichung tomorrow and Kaoshiung Saturday.
■ Roxymoron and Forests, tonight from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Emerge Live House (浮現藝文展演空間), 12, Ln 55, Sinsing Rd, Longjing Township, Taichung County (台中縣龍井鄉新興路55巷12號). Admission is NT$200, NT$100 with Megaport wrist band. Tomorrow from 10pm at The Mercury (水星酒館), 46 Liwen Rd, Zuoying Dist, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市左營區立文路46號). Cover charge to be announced, check mercurybar.blogspot.com
This coming Wednesday, catch hardcore punk bands Fucked Up (Canada) and Gallows (England) at The Wall. Though Fucked Up are a critically acclaimed, award-winning band (in 2009 they won the Polaris Music Prize) they and their fans are known to fuck things up, with massive damage reported after shows. Just another brick in the proverbial wall.
■ Fucked Up and Gallows from 8pm on Wednesday 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$1,800 at the door, NT$1,600 presale.
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
For decades, Taiwan Railway trains were built and serviced at the Taipei Railway Workshop, originally built on a flat piece of land far from the city center. As the city grew up around it, however, space became limited, flooding became more commonplace and the noise and air pollution from the workshop started to affect more and more people. Between 2011 and 2013, the workshop was moved to Taoyuan and the Taipei location was retired. Work on preserving this cultural asset began immediately and we now have a unique opportunity to see the birth of a museum. The Preparatory Office of National