The cliche that sex sells wasn’t true for Taipei’s last chance for romance, Roxy Vibe, which is closing this weekend to the dismay of singles and late-night revelers. Vibe will end with a bang as it has for many lucky patrons over the years. A drum ’n’ bass party tonight is followed by The Last Stand tomorrow: a rocking lineup of bands, a burlesque show, and music to bump and grind to with DJ Marcus Aurelius.
“There’s nothing wrong with sex,” responded owner Ling Wei (凌威) to the idea that Vibe is a meat market. He said the real problem is Vibe’s image as an after-hours place: “For many people it had some meaning — you have a party, you want a place to after party, but for us we open at 9pm and people don’t come until 3 [am] or 4am ... only Fridays and Saturdays, that’s eight nights a month, three hours of business ... that’s only 24 hours a month!”
Ling said it wasn’t always this way, and that “for us Vibe had a different meaning” as a place that was “very important for local bands” prior to a change of location nine years ago. Unfortunately, the current location wasn’t allowed to have live bands until recently. “People got used to coming after 12 [am],” he said. “Ten years ago people came at 8 [pm].” He had attempted to revive the venue by making it into a live house again last summer, but it was “hard to change the image.”
That is all in the past though, as this weekend also marks the grand (re)opening of Roxy Rocker, a dream-come-true for Ling. Though he opened Roxy Rocker last year, personal issues and the location saw it shut down within six months. Now, with a new location on Heping East Road (和平東路), “we’re going back to our roots,”said Ling.
“At Roxy 99 and Vibe we have to play more and more music we don’t really love,” he said, noting that he’s not as fond of the more contemporary hip-hop and rap that his newer clientele demands. “They don’t know the history, they will think Roxy is not fashionable because they don’t recognize the background — we believe we have the best music collection in Taiwan.”
In Rocker there is a separate room with soft lighting, turntables and low couches. The walls are lined floor-to-ceiling with more than 10,000 vinyl albums, all of which they also have original CD versions of at the DJ booth in the main bar.
Ling bought vinyl until 1997 and he still loves it. “It’s something real, you can touch it, that feeling,” he said. “Lots of bands insist there is something different with vinyl, the sound, the touch, the culture.”
Another wall is lined with music magazines and books, from the 1990s through to the most current issues. “This place is dedicated to rock and roll,” Wei said.
The main bar makes this clear as well, with a huge mural of the album cover of Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy; the orange sky and rocky landscape with little blond children crawling across it stretches across an entire wall. Lighting streams down from the ceiling to showcase the art and other murals that decorate the venue and to create an ambient amber glow around the central bar. Though Rocker is spacious and comfortable, with couches around its tables, there is not a lot of room to dance.
“Here we don’t have to be responsible for your dancing beat,” said Ling, laughing gleefully. “We’ll play Bob Dylan if we want. People can realize how good of a collection we have.”
He is opening two additional bars: Roxy Roots, on July 8 in the Neo 19 building next to Vie Show in the Xinyi District, is dedicated to reggae lovers and is the only venue in Taipei, Wei said, with a performance stage “for live ska bands, 2-tone, African beats ... and some rock and roll.” Near the end of next month, The Other Side will open, with more alternative rock, ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Linkin Park, that “will blow your mind” said Ling. “Rock and roll is the best dance music.” This bar will also be located in the Xinyi District. Roxy 99, meanwhile, will continue to play “more popular music and hip-hop.”
Of his love for rock, Ling said: “I grew up with The Beatles in the ’60s, with Santana, Led Zeppelin.” When asked what he thinks of more modern rock like The Killers he scoffs, “Modern? That’s over five years old. I was the first one to play it in Taiwan. After a while it became a hit.”
Ling was a radio DJ for 20 years at the Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC,中廣), and “got a lot of listeners calling me and writing letters asking many questions,” so he decided to open his first club in 1982, which was called AC/DC. “I had a place to share music with them,” he said.
Now he has that again, with Rocker. Just “don’t come here and ask me to play some dance track, please,” he said. “But if you are into real rock and roll you’ll be satisfied.”
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