Buckman Coe is a Vancouver-based singer and band leader, with a very rootsy, island vibe reminiscent of Jack Johnson or Ben Harper. His music is based in backporch guitar picking, dancey rhythms and vocals that soar straight up into the realm of feel-good, folksy joy. He’s played major showcases in the Pacific Northwest, including the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, the Oregon County Fair and others, as well as extensive touring throughout Canada. Coe plays tomorrow night at Bobwundaye with his trio, marking his second visit and first proper tour of Taiwan.
Coe’s family connections brought him here a year ago. His grandfather, Shoki Coe (黃彰輝), who was born in Taiwan in 1914, was an influential theologian in the international presbyterian church and active participant in the Self-Determination Movement of the 1960s.
The elder Coe was educated at Imperial University in Tokyo and later in the UK, where he studied theology at Westminster College in Cambridge. He returned to Taiwan after World War II and served as principal of the Tainan Theological College until the Chinese Nationalist government, pressuring him for his political views, forced him to return to England.
Photo Courtesy of Buckman Coe
Coe was born in England, although his family moved to Alberta, Canada, and he grew up in most respects as a Canadian. For the most part, being a quarter Taiwanese was a part of his heritage Coe knew little about. When he was invited to Tainan last year for an event commemorating his grandfather, he found it a chance to “meet a branch of the family I’d never met before.”
“I ended up touring all over Taiwan and fell in love with [it],” Coe tells the Taipei Times.
Like many singer-songwriters, Coe’s career has been a winding one. “I’ve had a couple careers actually,” he says.
With regular gigging and recording opportunities flowing in, music has only recently become a main focus for Coe, who is now 38. He will release his fourth album in June — the album title, Malama Ka Aina is Hawaiian for “respect the land.”
Coe describes his own music as upbeat soul and reggae. “Some of our best dancing songs are American songs more related to bluegrass footstompers,” he says. “I started out by writing songs and doing the singer-songwriter thing, but then I noticed that people were dancing during some of the songs, so I started to move things in that direction.”
The music is a little bit reggae, but certainly not in any purist sense of the genre.
“I have long dreads, but I wouldn’t consider myself a rasta,” Coe says.
There’s nothing else that Coe would prefer to dance to than reggae, probably because the musical genre breeds social consciousness and carries along with it ideas of justice, spirituality and other types of positive messages.
“That’s what I would consider to be the inspiration I’ve taken from it,” he adds.
Currently, his writing is moving in the direction of soul and R&B, especially Motown and Stax.
In Canada, Coe usually plays with a four or five-piece band, and sometimes with as many as eight players. In Taiwan, he’s brought a “very tight trio” consiting of himself on vocals and guitar, a keyboard player who also keys in the bass lines and a drummer.
Tonight’s show in Taipei will be Coe’s final performance in Taiwan. Based on rave reviews from last weekend’s shows in Tainan, it will be a positive energy barnburner. Music-goers can expect the crowd at Bobwundaye to be spilling out onto the sidewalk (with desperate bartenders trying to stuff everyone back inside to stave off the inevitable noise complaints).
■ Buckman Coe plays with local reggae trio Red Cliff tonight 10pm at Bobwundaye (嘸問題), 77, Heping E Rd Sec 3, Taipei City (台北市和平東路三段77號). Tickets are NT$300 at the door and includes a drink.
LO SIRONG AND GOMOTEU
Lo Sirong is a female Hakka singer known for lilting melodies that ride the edge between tradition and contemporaneity. She is also now a regular collaborator with a couple of old-timey Americana musicians, namely David Chen and Connor Prunty from the Muddy Basin Ramblers. Old Taiwan Hakka songs and early American blues make for a fascinating mix of musical traditions, and the latest body of work will be unveiled for Taipei audiences tomorrow night.
Sirong’s debut album The Flowers Beckon won three Golden Melody Awards in 2012. Since then, the singer, now in her mid-50s, has been a regular collaborator with Chen, Prunty, guitarist Huang Yu-can (黃宇燦) and cellist Io Chen (陳主惠). Together, these players form the group Gomoteau, her current backing band. The publicity notes describe the current performance as featuring folk and acoustic instruments, but with the “one difference of adding cello and electric guitar.” In other words, expect Hakka mountain songs meets the Velvet Underground. Okay — maybe it won’t be that psychedelic, but it will certainly be funkier than your average traditional recital.
■ Lo Sirong and Gomoteau perform tomorrow 7:30pm at Thinkers’ Theater (思劇場), 3F, 1, Ln 32, Dihua St Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市迪化街一段32巷1號3樓). Tickets are NT$400.
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