Randolph the Grey still moves slowly, but the vapes flitting between the table and his fingers give him a less solemn air. It’s an afternoon of pouring rain in September, owing to a hurricane passing north of Taipei. rgry wave-introduces his wife and points out his two infant sons before pulling me into his production cave for some peace and quiet.
Reaper – rgry’s DAW of choice – is open on an expensive custom rig, along with a simple microphone and keyboard setup. But the award-winning producer tells me he only needs to make use of tools in Reaper to make chords and beats now, which he proceeds to do with startling speed.
“One radio show said we [rgry and his collaborators] must really like music, if we were so deep into the industry. But I told him, I don’t like music, I was never into music, you know, like other people who were trained in it, grew up in it.”
The host was pretty taken aback by that. But it’s not about the enjoyment for rgry, it’s about the act – other people send him music or artists, he listens and mostly finds them to be garbage.
“But not like garbage, garbage, just that the rap scene is not all that good here. I have to stay involved in the pop stuff,” by adding lighter riffs here and there to survive and working with more pop-focused artists. rgry thinks Mainland rap is better, more competitive, and, like its audiences, more open to new ideas.
It sounds like an act, because Taiwan just doesn’t have as big a market or as many artists to generate a critical mass of content and experimentation. Plus, you can tell how dedicated rgry is to the rappers he mentors. But he says it’s more than that: “No one wants to experiment or go out of line to get creative. I was only lucky to have gotten along with the right people who were breaking out with material at the right time.”
He now serves as creative director for NXWV (pronounced Nextwave), a rap combine of sorts that also sells designer clothing. It’s true that a lot of rap I’ve heard in Taiwan sounds the same, and much the same as its counterparts in the US, which is why I was fascinated by rgry’s FINX-182 and NXWV Ciphers. This time, there was no turning away from the experiment.
“We were sitting in the studio and started throwing hooks around, things that popped into our head. Pretty soon we had a clip of entirely hooks, and we made those into songs.” rgry played the original studio recording that started everything with hooks like “Street Fighter 2,” “Tom Hanks out the Plane” and “I ain’t even play chess” auto-tuned in time with an echoing backdrop.
“The first time we went up to do it, we did the songs the whole way through. You could see a few people wildin’ out but most people were just like what…the fuck.”
“我们第一次上去就唱整首歌。观众里有些人反应不错，其他人都在想。。。这什么鬼。”
Experimental rap is not exactly the mainstay of Taiwan’s musical output, but hooks like “shipment on the deep” are catchy and very millennial-friendly (hint: it’s a Castaway reference). So how do you branch out from the mainstream? Like rgry, you have to assume everything is garbage. Only the freshest beat and illest vibe will suffice in a sea of imposters, posers and haters.
“I wanted to let my passion show through, and D.A.I is a big part of this,” Phil said, “I’m connecting with independent music after leaving the stage for ten years, feeling confident about the songwriting and the overall need for music with this message.”
Sunday Night, The Molds took on a Full House at Maoooooo, proving that you can break past factory default settings to get that sweet, sweet musical resin injection. Let’s have a look.
– Philip Hsu, Contributing Writer
Beijing-origin The Molds have been around since 2006, so it would be expected that their music has crossed a number of genres since then. The resulting Psychedelic-Honky Tonk-Alt-Rock is an oddly specific but strangely pleasing genre, kind of like if Ambien existed during Johnny Cash’s touring days. A number of songs follow the Rolling Stones, others surf guitar a la Dick Dale, but in most work on display tonight The Molds have developed an impressive and unique sound of entirely their own making and creative impulse.
From the start of the performance, The Molds demonstrate advanced understanding of their sound and synchronization, with well-placed notes and melodies exacting well-formed songs. Catchy bass-drum rhythm features lead well into the often-groundbreaking “meat” of songs , with precision playing from all pieces. In Blue Moon, bells and chimes form a distinct sound, carving out attention and space of their own from an otherwise thick roast of a piece sung in the style of werewolf.
The Molds demonstrate deep study of music and instruments, and at times even go into Weezer territory, and not in a bad way – it lightens up the mood and sound in an otherwise generally heavy performance. With all this interesting material and a deep bench of ideas which continue to re-visit and re-define genres, The Molds are definitely worth a gander whenever they next visit your factory town or agricultural commune. You may not have heard anything like this before, and it won’t just be because you are so hardworking.
Friday night kicked off Bob is Tired’s Yuyingtang doubleheader, two sold-out shows over one weekend to draw their successful China touring of the past months to a close.
– Philip Hsu, Contributing Writer
Bob is Tired opens with a tightness not often seen in live acts, immediately proving that while this pop-punk style of music is not necessarily my cup of tea, there’s something else in the water that is propelling this band to its current success. What starts out with very 五月天 and Jay Chou-inspired numbers devolves deliciously into something I last heard with the Brian Jonestown Mass., which is sort of shoegaze but with kick, and undoubtedly sinister.
On the 3rd song rhythms plummet through guitar and chords, setting up psychedelic smoke plunging into null beats: The beat you think is there, but isn’t, setting up excellent dissonance and pulling the audience into the sound. Be it uptempo or a mellow, underwater pop mood, Bob is Tired puts forth a classic 迷魂/銷魂 sound which takes influences from EDM also.
Bob is Tired’s compositions and technical skill are in many ways a cut above its competition, and the band’s musicality is strong, i.e. the composition of the notes and rhythms to produce a musical nature. However, some themes could be better defined – clear experimentation by the artists produces music which is counterintuitive, but at times too subtle. The band’s range is described as a box of chocolates a la Forrest Gump, but that movie’s most quotable characters and lines are from Jenn-ay and Liutenant Dann (you have to say it with a Southern accent), not from the titular protagonist.
We can see the fruits of in-depth musical exploration and investment from the clear themes and ideas in the band’s song after the chocolate monologue, striking direction and vocalizations which punctuate rhythms closely and distinctly.
With this amount of creative output and technical skill, Bob is Tired does not lack direction or ability, but could develop more concepts in its work. We’re looking forward to seeing them again and hoping they’ll extend their stay in the moment, and in the scene.
The Messy 梅西合唱团, Annaki 安娜其, Purple Jam 酱紫, Neotea Store 新茶士多
– THE BOXX
2021.08.01
Pinkie Hello! Pinkie Roar! – The Boxx Rises
Sunday night saw The Boxx’s first live show at its monumental new location on “Laowai Street.” The performance as a whole was impressive at a quality venue, reminiscent of a skillful watercolor exhibition at a fine gallery. However, as is sometimes the case with watercolors, using too much water when mixing colors can result in blurry results, and live music is no exception. Let’s have a look.
Pre-show, we are treated to videos of Japanese artists Kei Hayashi and YMB, the former channeling Usher and Chris Brown in an empty stadium for J-inspired R&B and Soul, the latter sitting in Tatami environments jamming out home recordings in a more Pop Rock style. This seems to please the crowd at the venue, which is mostly comprised of young women dressed like they are going to a picnic.
Unfortunately, since I can’t speak Japanese, all I hear is ahh ahh yayoo oishi desu ga. Those sunny days sitting by the window in swanky Tokyo apartments as your purebred cat saunters by lush bonsai were to me but so many uncut trips past the sake bar Decibel and the eternal silence of St. Mark’s Square.
Enough, the performance begins. Purple Jam which I guess is like Pearl Jam but Purple, says they are the first band to ever perform at this new space, which is nice because it’s a nice space. At this point there’s like 20 people in the audience but Purple Jam are Purple Pros and rock away with an unreleased song featuring nimble xylophonics overlaid on a J-Jazz base. This deserves credit for originality and gusto, and when the sound system miscooperates in the next song, I actually like the resulting sound better than the somewhat canned but better-known number that they end up going with.
I think I am supposed to be happy listening to these songs. They are slightly shorter than, well, the length with which songs are usually played with, but this is not a bad approach to condense songs in a live setting to maintain intensity. By their 3rd song Purple Jam show signs of life as a strong rhythm section pulls the piece through with solid vocals supporting. You can really start to hear the warmth and intensity of the song, even though it’s “soft.” We hear depth and meaning in songwriting: Lyrics with a message, to sink into you, to be content just spending time and life with one’s partner, reveal Purple Jam’s range and depth, which convert well between individual songs in their performance.
Most of the time only the bassist is looking at the lead singer or anyone else in the band to keep tempo, which may be helped if the performers walk around the stage more, to generate space in the body which follows into the voice and the overall musicality. The lead singer even remarks that one of his songs makes him want to move around like a rapper, which is the correct instinct here.
An obligatory funk number occurs; the sound is well-blended and enjoyable but doesn’t hold the syncopated descension that traditional funk usually evokes. As the lights come on to shine on the gaudy sheen of cosplay outfits present in the audience, I have to say that Purple Jam did a much better job (Jam?) than people maybe realize. Cohesive playing and surprising, subtle depth coalesce into a warmly charismatic performance which could be potentially elevated in any number of ways – but no rush. We’ll hear more of them yet.
The eyes deceive when I hear the disco balls spinning and Neo Tea Shop takes the stage. “Deceive,” for I have never been to Miami, let alone during the 1980s, yet for the second time now it appears as though the tenor of that time, with Funk, have Resurfaced in Retro. I am not so Hong Kong either, but I only surmise that certain styles have spent themselves across the coursing paths of uninterrupted time to deliver unto us such Siren Songs.
Neo Tea lead singer describes the band’s music as sleepwalking, evoking and reflecting the night, which would be much better served if the band’s rhythms didn’t become plodding at times. Mishaps with sound and smoke unrelated to performers reveal that the technical nature of music is a practiced art, and unfortunately nearly every act experienced such an inspired learning tonight.
After the smoke comes a “Weiweian” slow dance measure, which was very stylish: I distinctly had a vision of prom night, although maybe more middle school dance for this one, those terrible pink dresses and how they just did not have my size tux, but at the end of the day, it’s not about what you were wearing, but who was wearing you on their sleeve. The chaperones may enforce the arm’s-length slow dance, but you can still look quite lightly into your partner’s eyes, then longer, then deeper and longer still until a smile crosses both of your lips and you laugh like the teenagers you are and run to your giggling and similarly awkward friends in the corner. Lovely.
I’m starting to get a feel for this style of music, which seems to be DEPAPEPE influenced by J-Rock; a light air but not sure if Final Fantasy 8 or the sound the Asahi machine makes when you need to replace the keg. By that, I mean FF7 is considered the classic and Kirin is the superior beer, but all games and beer have merit, as long as you are invested enough in your choices. So it is probably not a great look to pull an iconic theme out of a very well-known Coldplay song as your hit song, as subsequently the light air has a chance of becoming just air. Then again, I come from the country that is proud of making Budweiser, so maybe I should just shut up. Overall, I thought this was a good act, and I will remember that Weiweian song for quite some time.
Now it’s always a good sign when you’re just minding your own business and whoops, wave of sound just sweeps off you a bit like those unwanted children of riptides off the Jersey Shore. Songwriting becomes key to stringing vocals and rhythm together and My Word, Annaki are moving, moving onstage, onSTAGE! It’s Alive, Alive!
See, this is the nice part where the drums and guitar both go crazy. Vocals not pushing or shouty but keep intensity, unfortunately a rather unique vocal quality is a bit lost in motion here and would definitely deserve to be brought out more. This drummer is a monster and everyone is working hard to keep up – Nothing a few cardio sessions at your friendly neighborhood Super-Z-Orange-ropes flying-circuit-Circuit-stretchy-stretch-stretch-yogalates can’t improve!
Distortion in the music marks the part where the UFO saucers start flying and death rays beam onto those people waving the signs on the rooftop of Capitol Records. I’m loving it but there’s still only 2 people dancing (well 3 if you include me) and the reason is because some folks in the band – not gonna name any names – are not keeping time.
Will Smith has perfect timing, which is why we buy his reaction to (fake CGI) aliens coming out of spaceships he shot down all by himself in an F/A-18 that can’t even fly at those altitudes at that speed for more than 20 minutes, let alone traverse the entire Grand Canyon after suffering a brutal defeat in LA which is in California, not Nevada; they are 800 km apart.
Just go with it and say if you had perfect timing, you, too, could save the world from bad music while somehow still acting surprised about Area 51, even though we know the aliens came for the cattle and not us. Ok, what I mean is, timing allows the audience to suspend their (dis)beliefs, and in complex acts especially this is a pretty hard line that needs to be walked. With Annaki’s massive energy, talented sound, strong songwriting, a female lead singer bringing this amount of spunk and overall quite well-put-together package and image, now comes the work to “draw the eyes on the dragon,” to channel chaos further into being.
Something about adult games which I guess is like 50 Shades of Grey follows, but I do like the darker vibes, which diverge into grrrrlrock. Sorry, I do not know what the correct spelling of this word is. I’m seeing twenty one pilots now; I also want to see The Black Keys. Shoegaze influences blend into pop rock a la FIR, but the musical Stratosphere consists of both firmament and pluckering it with greater decision and crispness, the feeling of a single silver jetliner crossing an endless blue sky; I already see the chemtrails, now please also provide the 747.
Experimentation with electronic sound and synth new wave directs towards new directions in Annaki’s repertoire, a real festival crowd-pleaser which to me shows a band very much in sync with itself and understanding the essence of what makes a good song. Now it remains to be a matter of maturing this essence, allowing it to pervade throughout the rest of the band’s work, and throughout a single performance.
Rounding out the four-band set is The Messy, which has one of the best “Spines” – in this instance, driving and tight rhythm between 3-piece guitar, bass, drums, and dual vocalists – I’ve heard in a while. The drummer is also on point although makes me wonder what additional directions this band could find with less restraint.Catchy funk bass lines and guitar riffs draw the audience in and Messy’s Spine keeps it, but after Yelang Disco, everything now sounds like Yelang Disco. Standing mics might be a limitation here, you can see both moving and rhythm freed up when the two lead vocalists walk around the stage with their instruments jamming, which can’t happen with a stationary mic setup. Overall Messy are tight but not constrained, adding cool new wave synth when warranted, which could be improved by developing better focus and themes in the musical notes employed. The vocal sound mix also needed some attention, at least to get it up to the level of KKBox when your uncle starts belting out Deng Li Jun and Auntie lah, just want to go home lah.
Messy play well together and sound awesome, I just have a hard time finding where a style of music traditionally played in smoky bars where mature ladies with deep voices down tequila shots now enters the Chinese mainstream. Franz Ferdinand influences appear with a vengeance, but I think where Penicillin captured quite well the angst of Britpop or post-punk, lyrically and musically songs describing common themes could stand with breaking up or playing a little with emotions, tones, timbre, levels.
To expand on my watercolors metaphor, tonight’s performance was like attending a very enjoyable art gallery exhibition of talented watercolor paintings, but at times so much water was used in mixing the paints such that the individual pieces and paintings became blurry. Not that the blurriness necessarily reduced the enjoyment, but that I became someone who wanted to see the objects or subjects of the paintings more clearly, and yet could not distinctly do so, and then started to wonder why many of the paintings looked quite similar. At times I could indeed see that a piece represented a portrait of a woman, for example, or a landscape or an emotion, but I could not determine from the piece or its introduction alone who that woman is, or what they or those emotions or landscapes mean to the artists who painted them
As a jam or complete piece, and definitely in an entire performance, the audience needs to be challenged aurally to stay engaged, and at times despite real technical skill and quite impeccable teamwork put on play with Messy, I was becoming a bit lost as to which song was which. A re-watch of Saturday Night Fever may be in the cards here, with particular attention to the exact arrangement of John Travolta’s chest hair and the part where the Bee Gees sing, and I quote: “Ahh-Ahh-Ahh-ahh Stayin’ Aliveeee~iveeee~ivvvveeee.”
Having listened to all of the bands featured tonight on the streaming before coming to the show, I had a good feeling about the performance, and it turned out to be as much as I had hoped for, and even better. The venue is actually quite nice as size and surrounding amenities – it seems especially suited to a major rap or hip-hop act – and the staff are professional and involved. Hopefully, more people will be dancing next time around and I am not now banned from the premises for having one too many watermelon juices. Stayin’ Aliveeee~
Good Passage of Nerves at Yuyintang Park with Nerve Passenger(edited for clarity and wording from LiveCNMusic version originally published 9/14/2021 at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BXbJCeBzY2Lrl_fI93v0wQ)
Saturday night packed a crowded Yuyintang Park in with Nerve Passenger to kick off their China tour: Let’s get to it.
The name Nerve Passenger is deliciously neurotic. Coupled with their new album name Before I Become You and the whole teenage nightmare watercolor thing going on and I already had high hopes going into the show. And the good news is that NP has taken a lot of ideas out of their Nervous sleeve and are running with them nicely, bubble machine behind the back and all.
Talking about performance ethos, Nerve Passenger has stage presence, controls the crowd well with audience interaction, and drives through with sound and power in the right places in the right songs. What starts with Baroque guitar riffs pull into dreamy lamentations about love and loss and shouty bangers that the crowd already knew how to sing yesterday. The three-piece band shows tightness, but not overly; it’s relaxed and loose playing with precise attention to detail. Nerve Passenger have built a BMW and are content to have it sit in a parking lot during a thunderstorm with the windows half down, as the driver tokes on an e-cig and their passenger sits in the backseat listening to the alternating roar and whimper of humanity.
Rain imagery pervades Nerve’s songs, and in Clown and other works we see the flower that blooms by a riverbank on a gloomy day, bright but none will pluck it, as the one who they would have wanted to give the flower to is gone. The fist closes around the flower’s stem. Nerve are writing from the heart, in the “drenched in wine” style of ancient Song poets and Norah Jones alike, but with more attention to the feeling of a desolate city street in the dark hours of AM, where the wind has cried in its fury and rhythm a name, although it is not Mary.* Warmth could come through more, as could lightness.
Nerve Passenger has command of their act, and it’s great to see them fill spaces with throngs of their own fans and multiple highly recognizable songs. It’s a well-deserved and exciting start to their touring season, and while it will take these Captains of Crania just a little bit more work to get to “breakthrough” energy and music levels, it won’t take that much more time from what was on display tonight. Anyone who wants to get in on this Solitary Boat, best not to wait long.
Anthology “Antho I” includes two sci-fi short stories and one novella, all completed between September 2019 and June 2021. An Afterword is provided to provide background and commentary on the pieces.
Probably most people do not know about how or why I first started Philbert’s Phables. In May of 2019 I had just suffered the loss of my grandfather, broken up with an ex, had to undergo surgery. For a moment there, I was in a bad place.
However, I am fortunate to have friends and family who support me, and the resources with which to support myself. And as part of getting better, I decided to start writing and posting my writing again, posting to the blog, as a form of creative self-expression in the face of despair. And you can see the bars below, of the people who came to visit the site and read, in the ensuing months, of my work.
(The numbers matching these columns are small, but the recovery was substantial)
Shortly after moving to China, COVID hit, and this site suddenly seemed rather quaint, to be chatting about Starbucks menus and work and temple processions after a global pandemic, which is, unfortunately, still in progress.
So, truthfully, I found another direction for this blog:
City
Date
Venue
Lineup
Genre
Shanghai
Date 时间: SOLD OUT
Venue 地点: YuYinTang Park 育音堂音乐公园
Lineup 演出名单: Kirin Trio 麒麟三重奏, Peach Illusion 桃子假象
No, I don’t think anyone outside of China will be coming to Shanghai for these shows anytime soon. And these shows happened last week, so nobody can actually go to them anymore. But for now, let’s keep the mystery of what is happening a bit, so as to allow nature to take its rightful course.
Hey everyone! The same night of the lantern festival, I went to a temple parade at another location in Hualien. It featured worshippers, performers and idols from different temples around the area:
Here a procession is followed by tall gods (they are called 七爺八爺):
Close-up of an idol (五府千歲）:
Floats lit up in neon accompanied by a band and a dancing idol:
Presenting offerings to the idol:
People crawling under the god of wealth to accrue his blessings for the new year:
Assorted other gods (sorry, I’m not very knowledgable about them)
（八家將）Performers from a local temple:
Pimped out ride playing a techno remix of Tokyo Drift:
Lanterns from a display:
Stuck behind the slow-moving idol carrier on the way back!
“We are completely sold out of surgical masks and [sanitizing] alcohol”
Sign for foot massages
Food Panda, which along with UberEats has taken Taiwan by storm just as other services have done in China
Daily garbage truck rounds – the trucks play Fur Elise and you have to run behind them to dispose of your trash
All along the watchtower – a watchtower for a Japanese colonial era prison which has been turned into a park
The other surviving watchtower in the prison
Taiwanese Starbucks food menu – they have flatbread pizza and pasta!
Temple night on Lantern Festival – Year of the Rat
“Gold paper” to burn for your ancestors for them to receive the blessings of wealth
Temple shots
This is a 結緣 bookshelf/library in the temple, with a lot of free literature on Buddhist/Daoist teachings and other religious texts relevant to worship. I got some of my own:
Incense – I didn’t take pictures of the deities directly, at least not this time
For next time, I have some videos of a lantern festival parade…various deities and their holy entourages
