Need a crash course on Taiwan’s best indie rock bands? The Megaport Music Festival (大港開唱) has got it covered this weekend.
The annual event, which takes place tomorrow and Sunday at Kaohsiung Harbor’s Pier 2 Art District (高雄駁二藝術特區), has a lineup of 46 bands that features the nation’s cream-of-the-crop indie artists, as well as several acts from Japan.
Organizers say the outdoor festival saw 15,000 visitors last year, and, with a few mainstream pop acts scheduled to appear, this edition should be no different. Sodagreen (蘇打綠) headlines the main stage tomorrow night, and celebrity model and singer Amber An (安心亞) performs a set of techno-pop tomorrow.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
But the festival’s spread of non-mainstream artists with large followings will also attract crowds. Metal heroes Chthonic (閃靈) and beloved nakashi (那卡西) punk rock group Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK) perform tomorrow, while indie-pop veterans Tizzy Bac and Aboriginal reggae rockers Matzka appear on Sunday.
Taipei live music venue The Wall (這牆) started Megaport in 2006 to encourage and develop a live music scene outside of the capital. Beloved pop-punks Fire Ex (滅火器), who play on Sunday, are a hometown favorite, and the festival offers a stage to up-and-coming bands such as the punk outfit The Locals (草地人), also from Kaohsiung, and Taichung hardcore metal band Flesh Juicer (血肉果汁機).
Megaport, which has bands playing on three outdoor stages and one indoor stage, is also putting on activities that are free to the public, including a skateboarding contest and a market selling arts and crafts and food.
Photo Courtesy of The Wall
One new addition to this year’s event is the NGO Village, a set of booths run by representatives from organizations that include Greenpeace and Amnesty International. There will also be booths manned by aid groups helping victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan last year, the first anniversary of which falls on Sunday.
A full schedule for the festival can be viewed at www.megaport.com.tw.
Megaport 2012 — performers to catch
Omnipotent Youth Society (萬能青年旅店)
Artsy folk/blues rock band from China’s Hebei Province
Tomorrow, 1:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Enno Cheng (鄭宜農)
Indie-folk songstress and film actress with a pristine voice
Tomorrow, 5:50pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Lin Sheng-xiang (林生祥)
Hakka folk singer and highly admired songwriter among many Taiwanese indie musicians for his grassroots ethos
Tomorrow, 7pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
The Novembers
High-energy Japanese alt-rock band that balances heavy guitars and pop smoothness
Tomorrow, 3:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Pay Money to My Pain
Japanese nu-metal/alt-rock band that sings in English
Tomorrow, 6:20pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Sodagreen (蘇打綠)
Intelligent pop from college students-turned-stars
Tomorrow, 8pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Loh Tsui Kweh Commune (濁水溪公社, LTK)
Kings of irreverent, satirical rock
Tomorrow, 9:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
The Telephones
Electro/disco punk rockers from Japan
Sunday, 6:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Toe
Math rock/post-rock outfit from Japan
Sunday, 8:30pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Dog-G (大支)
Taiwan’s smoothest rapper in Hoklo [commonly known as Taiwanese]
Sunday, 6:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Windmill (風籟坊)
Slow-core rock a la Pavement, sung in Hoklo
Sunday, 3:30pm, Kamomai Stage (卡魔麥舞台)
Sugar Plum Ferry (甜梅號)
Post-rock heroes from Taipei
Sunday, 2:50pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Matzka
Reggae rock, Taiwan Aboriginal style
Sunday, 4:10pm, Sea Dragon King Stage (海龍王舞台)
Tizzy Bac
Enchanting piano rock
Sunday, 7:40pm, Dragon Goddess Stage (女神龍舞台)
Nov. 11 to Nov. 17 People may call Taipei a “living hell for pedestrians,” but back in the 1960s and 1970s, citizens were even discouraged from crossing major roads on foot. And there weren’t crosswalks or pedestrian signals at busy intersections. A 1978 editorial in the China Times (中國時報) reflected the government’s car-centric attitude: “Pedestrians too often risk their lives to compete with vehicles over road use instead of using an overpass. If they get hit by a car, who can they blame?” Taipei’s car traffic was growing exponentially during the 1960s, and along with it the frequency of accidents. The policy
Hourglass-shaped sex toys casually glide along a conveyor belt through an airy new store in Tokyo, the latest attempt by Japanese manufacturer Tenga to sell adult products without the shame that is often attached. At first glance it’s not even obvious that the sleek, colorful products on display are Japan’s favorite sex toys for men, but the store has drawn a stream of couples and tourists since opening this year. “Its openness surprised me,” said customer Masafumi Kawasaki, 45, “and made me a bit embarrassed that I’d had a ‘naughty’ image” of the company. I might have thought this was some kind
What first caught my eye when I entered the 921 Earthquake Museum was a yellow band running at an angle across the floor toward a pile of exposed soil. This marks the line where, in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 1999, a massive magnitude 7.3 earthquake raised the earth over two meters along one side of the Chelungpu Fault (車籠埔斷層). The museum’s first gallery, named after this fault, takes visitors on a journey along its length, from the spot right in front of them, where the uplift is visible in the exposed soil, all the way to the farthest
The room glows vibrant pink, the floor flooded with hundreds of tiny pink marbles. As I approach the two chairs and a plush baroque sofa of matching fuchsia, what at first appears to be a scene of domestic bliss reveals itself to be anything but as gnarled metal nails and sharp spikes protrude from the cushions. An eerie cutout of a woman recoils into the armrest. This mixed-media installation captures generations of female anguish in Yun Suknam’s native South Korea, reflecting her observations and lived experience of the subjugated and serviceable housewife. The marbles are the mother’s sweat and tears,
RSS