In the distant days before the Internet and YouTube, the only kind of music sharing that kids were doing was copying cassettes with a double tape deck. Even then, you still needed some kind of exposure to media to learn about music and to know what it was you were listening to. For DJ Spykee, real name Chin Hung-chieh (金弘杰), it was the incessant hours he spent in search of books and magazines about music and cramming generations of musical knowledge into his head that he is now able to plays sets that are hours on end. He would impress both your parents and your kids. That’s precisely the plan for his set tomorrow night at Revolver.
Spykee has long been known for his diversity in music and his ability to run the gamut of genres, but it’s his ability to put it all together seamlessly that’s most impressive. Unfortunately for all his fans, fatherhood and an overall disdain for nightlife sent him and his much-loved Dance Rock Taipei parties on a brief hiatus. He told the Taipei Times that too many promoters operating at once and audiences that clubbed less for the music than the scene led him to reconsider his future. So he took a step back.
Since then, Taiwan’s EDM-fueled dance music industry has evolved into the beastly bastardized spawn of the movement that Spykee, together with Dance Rock Taipei and his former DJ duo Tomadachi, arguably began in Taipei. While to some, it’s a shame that Spykee has been hibernating, he finds that doing parties more randomly works better for him.
Photo courtesy of spykee
“You have to save your bullets for the right battlefield,” Spykee said. “This way you can gather the right people for the right parties.”
The break has also let him explore music that he previously couldn’t because he was always more concerned with what he was going to play to please people on the dance floor. He’s also spending time teaching his daughter to listen to music and to not feel pressured into liking something.
“Too many young people just obey their heart in trying to be trendy, and I think it hurts some cultures and scenes very badly.”
Spykee thinks the EDM trend will eventually pass and he is prepared to wait it out. He’s well aware how much the market has grown without him, but he also knows that at the core of it there aren’t any real dance music fans and they’re not the people who really get into it for the music.
“When they leave the scene or fall in love with other kinds of music, things will change. We’re just on a rotation here and we should relax and take our time.”
In the meantime, Spykee’s got a new plan for Dance Rock Taipei this year — one DJ play per night. He’s doing this for a number of reasons. First, it’s a personal challenge for him to play by himself the entire night. It also gives him a platform to really get deep into his music collection and play music that might not otherwise ever be played in a one or two-hour set. But most importantly, if he is the only DJ then he doesn’t have to pay anyone and he can donate his proceeds to the St Francis Xavier Home for Children and Juveniles in Hsinchu County.
“Nowadays paying for music is quite an important thing that people have almost forgotten about. So if you hardly pay to buy music now, then I hope you can pay for a party at least, especially if it will all be donated. We won’t have any free entrance or guest list and I think Dance Rock Taipei will keep on doing it this way.”
■ Spykee plays from 11:30pm until close at Revolver, 1-2, Roosevelt Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路一段1-2號). Admission is NT$300, which includes a drink.
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