At tonight’s Back to Spin, there won’t be many people who remember the party’s legendary namesake, Spin. “Most people who will be at the party were in kindergarten when [Spin] was actually open,” said Allen Chen (陳宏愷), or DJ @llen, one of the five DJs in this year’s lineup.
Back in the 1990s, the indie club Spin was at its heyday. Taipei’s music scene was vastly smaller, and those who frequented Spin did so almost religiously, according to Chen.
What drew people to the now-shuttered club was simple: Music that makes people move. Music they couldn’t hear at any of the other clubs in Taipei.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
Tonight, these same reasons will pull fans to Back to Spin, which is now in its eighth year. Chen estimates that last year’s version of the party attracted close to a thousand rock fans, and he expects even more curious fans to walk through Legacy’s vault-like door this year.
Presented by The F-king Place (操場), Back to Spin is an annual tribute to Spin disco and all the danceable rock between 1960 and 2000.
The music isn’t live, but Back to Spin celebrates the bands that have kept some of us alive. If you need a Nirvana fix, you’ll have it. If you want The Clash, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Social Distortion, just lean up against the cool brick walls at Legacy and wait — you’ll have them too.
Back to Spin myths include stories of dancers pounding the floor so hard they cracked the ceiling below and dislodged its tiles.
■ Back to Spin is tonight at 9pm at Legacy Taipei (傳音樂展演空間) 1 Bade Rd, Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段一號華山1914創意文化園區中五館). Admission is NT$800, or $600 in advance at www.ticket.com.tw.
Japan’s Ling Tosite Sigure plays in Taiwan for the first time tomorrow.
Labels are unfair, but here’s a shortcut for curious: The band could be classified as math rock.
One listen to the band’s music and quickly the math is revealed. Staccato vocalizations — at times delivered in screams — blend with rhythmic bass and guitar interplay. And then there are the mid-song time signature changes. All these identifiers position Ling Tosite Sigure at least as dabblers in the nerdy tradition of math rock.
The three-piece group is male guitarist TK (Toru Kitajima), a female bassist who prefers 345 to her actual name (Nakamura Miyoko) and a drummer who reckons himself a doctor (Dr Pierre Nakano, real name Nakano Masatoshi).
Eccentricity doesn’t always create music that attract fans, but in Japan, Ling Tosite Sigure have done very well.
After releasing two full-length albums and an EP on their own label, Nakano Records, they signed with Sony Music Japan in 2008. Since then they have released three more full-length albums, including l’mperfect on April 10. The single, Abnormalize, from l’mperfect charted at number 13 on the Japan Hot 100 — a notable achievement for a band that, despite pop overtones, still seems quite comfortable with its geeky experimentation.
What should you expect? Japanese bands that tour outside of Japan seem to feel a necessity to develop stage antics that rival their actual music. So, for those that haven’t experienced live Japanese pop music, on the menu is something that will both please the eye and send the inner geek thrashing into math-y dance moves.
■ Ling Tosite Sigure plays tomorrow at 7pm 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$1800, or $1600 in advance via www.thewall.com.tw
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