THIS IS DELICIOUS!!

IN KOREA

WE DINE IN- heck.

This is my last week of internship, so much laziness

See. I can't even be bothered to complete that sentence properly.

Here are a few thoughts:
1. It sucks to be consistently mistaken for a high schooler

Dentist: "You studying at Taipei American School?"
Me: "Yeah I used to. Is it my accent?"
Dentist: "It's your accent. Are you nervous about the States?"
Me: "The States? Nah it's alr... wait what?"
Dentist: "You know, moving there. College. First year."
Me: "Whoa. Whoa there, man. I've... I mean how do I- listen, I'm not-."
[At this point he prods a little mirror behind my molars]
Dentist: "It must be scary moving from your parents' home to a foreign land."
Me: [Froths at the mouth and gurgles helplessly]
Dentist: "Remember to do your laundry."
Me: [Starts bleeding at the gums in pure rage]
Dentist: "And brush your teeth. Like a good boy."
...And this is when I slaughtered him.

2. I gained 10 pounds. I'm as heavy as I've ever been. Hooray!

3. Shit, I forgot what I was gonna say, but 3 was gonna be the highlight of this post. Oh well. Later.

[Edit] Oh yeah, 3. A category 5 "super typhoon" is headed our way and estimated to make landfall on Friday, the night of a concert. Balls.

Wanhua Crossing

Weeks of hair-tugging toil and all I have to show for it is this airless piece of travel writing: enter Kevin's laughably ineffectual attempt at being a valuable intern! At least it got published, though. I also got to take my own photos. And the article gets (ever so slightly) more readable towards the middle. Honestly.

I just finished the final draft of my next article and it looks to be way cooler than this one. But for now, enjoy. Or suffer. Whatever floats your boat, really.

Above photo is Lungshan Temple (龍山寺), and below is a random Qing Dynasty street and the Red Theater at Ximending.

Cold Turkey

Yo guess who cold-called the manager of The Wall (Taipei's largest live-music bar) and coordinator of this year's Formoz Festival and wound up with an amazing interview??

He offered some interesting perspective on Taiwan's music scene -- how something as basic as narrow living spaces (i.e. the lack of garages and basements in most people's homes) hinders Taipei's band culture, how indie music has been the domain of students of elite colleges despite its classless aspirations, how bohemianism in its true pre-yupster form doesn't exist in Taiwan, how the recent institution of the 2-day weekend (it used to be just Sundays in Taiwan) allows young professionals to pursue their own hobbies on a new level, etc.

As the manager of Formoz, he was also so busy behind the scenes that he didn't get to see Mercury Rev perform. What a shame. I told him it was the best ever and he wanted to cry black tears of regret and emo and self-loathing.

He was a really chill dude too and said to call and share a few beers when I go over to catch the next band.

Also, I've been toying with the idea of writing a senior thesis on the politics of popular music.

Dispatch from Formoz Day III - I Think I'm Goodkind

So it ends. I don't know how to write about the last day of Formoz, but I'll just say that it's been the best 30 hours of performance I've ever experienced, hands down. I'm thoroughly spent.

Again, there are plenty of 3-day music festivals around the world, but I think the laid-back crowd, the classy venue and the honesty of the local bands is what made it so awesome. Not too many teenyboppers, very low-key corporate sponsorship by Taiwan Beer, a full moon, a lot of small places to just hang out and sip beer. I don't think I'd enjoy a music fest that's just one huge packed and standing stadium. I'd just get annoyed and tired.

I finally tore off my Formoz wristband yesterday. It took a strong pair of scissors to cut that thing. Now it feels a little weird without it, like my wrist is missing something.

Continued from Day II: piano rock trio Tizzy Bac decided mid-concert that, hey, wouldn't it be cool to bounce 50 huge balloons among the audience?? "Giving you guys something to play with while our PA fixes things up," the lead singer said. What the fuck?? Then she rolled a bunch of them downstage and one bounced off my head. The people behind me snickered since I finally paid a price for my height (I've been blocking people's views all weekend. Sorry!). But we were a very ADD crowd so -- OOH HEY, BALLOON!! -- everyone started drunkenly waving their arms when a balloon came their way.

Afterwards, Japan's techno whizzes Buffalo Daughter offered up some of the strangest noises ever. I want to see a collaboration between them and Mercury Rev, because they would totally tear Jon Donahue's dreamy melodies into shit.

My knowledge of electronica doesn't cover much beyond Aphex Twin's 'Windowlicker' or the occasional Frou Frou. From what I hear, Buffalo Daughter counts the Beastie Boys among their fans. They have a perversely catchy noise. I've been listening to them at work and they're thoroughly disruptive, but I can't seem to stop. It's like licking a sore at the roof of your mouth.

------------------------------------

Day III: went to see Quruli first thing in the afternoon, as per my sister's recommendation. Their first words on stage were: "[Taiwanese]大擱好, we are Quruli. Chou tofu at nightmarket last night -- so fa-kingu tastey yeah!!!" They win huge points from me for speaking Taiwanese.

Some Kyoto indie-pop was a chill way to start the last night. Then we slipped out of the stadium in the middle of their set to catch Taipei's cafe-rock staple 八厘米天空 (8mm Sky). I've been listening to them for a while, was gonna catch them over Christmas but they got too expensive. Now I finally got to see them! They were okay live. Not as impressive as Sugar Plum, though certainly more chatty.



It was a full moon again.

RIZE was the headbang act of the night. Their energy reminds me of a rock version of Far East Movement, though their sound's too nu-metal and power chordy. At the end the lead singer climbed the stage's scaffolding, then dived down to run with the fans.

I missed OK GO, but apparently they spoke a few lines of Taiwanese fluently. The lead singer was a linguistics major at Brown.

On my way to Yo La Tengo, I spotted 張懸, 蘇打綠 and Mayday's drummer 瑪沙 in the audience. Dean & Britta were also having a Q&A thing after the screening for Tell Me Do You Miss Me, a documentary on Luna's last tour.

Audience: "What's your suggestion to aspiring artists?"
Dean: "Go to law school."
Britta: [kicks Dean under the table] "I'd say just stay true and be honest to yourself."
[Applause]
Audience: "Which other bands have you seen at Formoz and who's your favorite?"
Dean: "Testament, definitely."
[Audience cracks up]

Smartass.

Their translator was absolutely atrocious. He wanted to pose a few questions of his own, but communicated them in such a way as to be slightly offensive. There were long silences where D&B didn't know how to answer. I reflexively blurted "UHHHH... AWK.WERRRDD..." louder than I thought, my face more contorted than I'd realized. Then Dean turned around and stared at me with one of those bitch-you-wanna-take-this-outside?? faces in as ghetto a fashion as a gaunt graying Harvard-educated man is capable of, so I ran away!!

Never say "awkwerrdddd" out loud during long silences.



Yo La performing "Sugarcube." My recording quality is horrible since I was close-ish to the stage and my cam can't handle such loud distortions.

Yo La Tengo on the breezy mountaintop was a good way to end the weekend. They looked like the scruffy nerds that they are and Ira Kaplan was melting sweat the whole way through his shipwrecked guitar solo in the 10-minute "Pass the Hatchet, I think I'm Goodkind" . Listening to the reverb ring for 5 minutes at the end was sort of a religious experience. He also played "Speeding Motorcycle" on account of the dozen or so vintage-tee-wearing fans who raised banners for song requests (not a regular song on their setlist, if dead fictional record store clerks from The Onion are to be trusted).

So their set ended on a 20-minute noisefest that had Ira smashing his guitar, rolling on the floor and generally being possessed. I did not peg him as a guitar smasher. Wicked sick. They signed autographs and answered questions afterwards, but seeing as how Ira and Georgia looked like they were about to pass out, I didn't bother.

So ends Formoz. Next time I'm back for the summer, I'm going again!

Kindama Boyz?

"'After the concert, we took him to the police bureau,' police officer Tang Se-huai said. 'He appeared scared and nervous, saying he did not know he was not supposed to do this in Taiwan.'

Chartered ROFLcopter right there. Thanks to bobosa for bringing this IHT article to my attention.

-"Japanese rock band singer caught dropping shorts in Taiwan concert," International Herald Tribune.

I noticed that within hours of uploading my short video clip of the Ging Nang Boyz's performance onto YouTube, the view count spiked to the thousands, for a short time earning honors as the #50th most viewed video of the day. Whoa what?? Fortunately, my video wasn't too incriminating for the band. Apparently some tabloid reporters were looking to create news where it really shouldn't be a big deal. There were rumors of people who sighted a woman in a trucker hat and sunglasses cellphoning immediately after the show and whispering, "Yep, I got the footage." The police don't care to waste four hours on this 'case' either, unless people filed complaint about how traumatized they were.

Booo. Taiwan's media continues to suck.

That said, eat up the scandal! Here is another short clip of Ging Nang being generally intense onstage:

Dispatch from Formoz Day II: "Are You a Hologram?"

Sweet Jesus on rollerblades!! Day II has been so phenomenal that I'm beginning to feel a little guilty, like I've glutted my ears beyond my reasonable right to such aural awesome.

Seriously stop it guys. Just please disappoint me a little. You're creeping me out.

I'm too tired to write too much, and I still have a climactic Day III to rev up for (the schedule is so packed and solid that I don't know how I'm gonna grab dinner/drinks in between shows), so here's a quick summary:



I had absinthe, with flaming sugar cubes and absinthe spoons and all. I'm told the absinthe in Taipei, while legal, is rather low on the wormwood content. It made a cool drink anyway, and it still had a special kick that set the mood for the concert.

蘇打綠 (SodaGreen) was the pitch-perfect, saccharine folk outfit that they're supposed to be. The keyboardist was also flamingly homosexual.

We went to watch 絲襪小姐 (Ms. Stockings), whose drummer is Sonny's guitar instructor (!). It was a chill stage where everyone sat on the pavilion's red tile ground and around trees, sipping beer. They had a girl violinist and I've never seen the violin rock so hard. Also, Sugar Plum Ferry's guitarist was in their formation and it was his birthday! They gave him presents onstage. It was a d'awwww moment.

Mercury Rev: I was expecting them to be modestly, blandly good. Some low energy dream pop. Folded armed head-nodders floating into the night. Flaming Lips without the flaming.

Mother of god, absinthe shots before Mercury Rev was definitely a good call. They were the highlight of the night.



"Are you a hologram?" was one of the many weird things they had displayed on the screen behind them.



I would so inundate you with a lot more videos. It's so hard to choose between the clips.

Japan's punk pranksters 銀杏Boys literally rocked their hearts out, putting FLCL's finale to shame. I picked a clip from their last song, post-rockout: the lead vocalist is left with his boxers only, having smashed a number of things and kicked himself over. He has an absurdly huge mascara bank smeared under his eyes so he could sweat and scream and have his black tears running all over his face by the end of his gig, laughing hysterically, spent and naked, his heart offered to you in outstretched platters, what Dave Eggers claims to be by the end of his book -- the sheer mad joy of Beats. The cheers tore apart everyone's throats. This is what a reckless party at the end of the world would sound like.