This summer week has it all when it comes to live music, from a festival called Flower Power to a one-man band named Mudd.
But we start with a mention of Taiwan’s best known world music troupe, A Moving Sound (聲動劇場). The group appears tonight at Legacy Taipei for a show titled Urban Tribe Dance Party. The group will focus on a drum-heavy, more danceable version of its unique mix of Western, Middle Eastern and Eastern European sounds, intertwined with traditional Taiwanese, Aboriginal, and Chinese melodies played on instruments such as the erhu (二胡) and zhongruan (中阮).
Vocalist Mia Hsieh (謝韻雅) and husband and bandmate Scott Prairie have been developing their act with an array of musicians, producing a mix of original and borrowed music over the last decade. The troupe has raised their international profile in recent years, having played in over 15 countries to date, and are gearing up for an appearance at the BBC Radio 3 stage at WOMAD Festival in the UK next month.
Photo Courtesy of Shen Lin
■ 8pm, Friday at Legacy Taipei, Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914), Center Five Hall (中五館), 1, Bade Rd, Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段1號). Admission is NT$600 at the door or NT$500 presale at 7-11 iBon or FamiPort.
Saturday late afternoon is Flower Power Volume 2, at Treellage Life Cafe (樹樂集), a coffeehouse, artist gallery and live performance space wrapped up in one. Flower Power is an all you can eat, all you can drink event with a fun line-up that includes slick hipsters New Sunglasses, a band with two synth players, two vocalists, a guitarist, drummer and bassist. The band’s solid, tight sound has attracted enough attention to keep them busy. They’ve been playing up to five gigs a month at different universities and venues such as Pipe and The Wall (這牆).
One highlight of the festival will surely be 88 Balaz (88顆芭樂籽), known for its fun and energetic bluesy-garage rock and punk sound. Expect an entertaining show from this confident band, whether in the form of playful on-stage antics or simply a display of its ability to rouse an audience. Sorry Youth plays shoegazer rock, but like 88 Balaz, it’s also known for high-energy shows, complete with props and costumes.
Photo: Alita Rickards
Danceable indie-disco-emo that’s catchy and dark — this isn’t an oxymoron, but rather, ahem, Roxymoron, who round out the lineup and have added female singer Pia Hsieh (謝詩平) to contribute dreamy-sounding vocals.
■ 5pm to 9:30pm, Saturday at Treellage Life Cafe; (樹樂集), 33 Minzu W Rd,Taipei City (台北市民族西路33號). Admission is NT$399 at the door or NT$450 presale. Presale tickets can be purchased at 7-Eleven or online at www.walkieticket.com
Saturday night is the 7th Tequila Face, a spirit-swilling event at Revolver where photographer Johan Vosloo captures the look on people’s faces after participants engage in the tequila cruda: a lick-shoot-suck of salt, liquor and lime. Dr. Reniculous Lipz and the Scallyunz might not be able to give medical attention to over-imbibers but are sure to keep the crowd on its toes dancing to homemade hip hop and funk. DJs Charles, sublime scratcher Subtle, and the soon-to-be-departing Colour Wolf will be spinning tunes to keep the body rocking while the tequila is talking. See full story on Colour Wolf in today’s Vinyl Word.
■ 10pm Saturday at Revolver, 1-2, Roosevelt Rd, Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路一段1-2號). Admission is NT$300 at the door.
For those who crave a little midweek live music fix, there are two shows this Wednesday. New Sunglasses play again to launch the release of a new EP at The Wall. My Skin Against Your Skin joins in with its brand of garage and psychedelic rock led vocalist Andrea Huang (黃盈誼), who brings a dark and dreamy energy to the stage.
■ 8pm Wednesday at The Wall (這牆), B1, 200, Roosevelt Rd Sec 4, Taipei City (台北市羅斯福路四段200號B1). Admission is NT$400 at the door or NT$300 in advance.
Also on Wednesday is a free show at Revolver featuring the Funky Brothers, which play live soul, funk and reggae, and Mike Mudd, a down and dirty one-man band who plays folk rock on guitar, harmonica, and a tambourine attached to his foot. Not only is the event free, but it also takes place during the venue’s happy “hours” from 8pm to 10pm, with pints of Taiwan beer, vodka-cokes, and glasses of red wine for NT$50. Get down, but make sure you can still get up, too. It’s summer, not fall.
■ 9:30pm at Revolver, Admission is free
Taiwanese chip-making giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) plans to invest a whopping US$100 billion in the US, after US President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on overseas-made chips. TSMC is the world’s biggest maker of the critical technology that has become the lifeblood of the global economy. This week’s announcement takes the total amount TSMC has pledged to invest in the US to US$165 billion, which the company says is the “largest single foreign direct investment in US history.” It follows Trump’s accusations that Taiwan stole the US chip industry and his threats to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent
On a hillside overlooking Taichung are the remains of a village that never was. Half-formed houses abandoned by investors are slowly succumbing to the elements. Empty, save for the occasional explorer. Taiwan is full of these places. Factories, malls, hospitals, amusement parks, breweries, housing — all facing an unplanned but inevitable obsolescence. Urbex, short for urban exploration, is the practice of exploring and often photographing abandoned and derelict buildings. Many urban explorers choose not to disclose the locations of the sites, as a way of preserving the structures and preventing vandalism or looting. For artist and professor at NTNU and Taipei
In the run-up to World War II, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of Abwehr, Nazi Germany’s military intelligence service, began to fear that Hitler would launch a war Germany could not win. Deeply disappointed by the sell-out of the Munich Agreement in 1938, Canaris conducted several clandestine operations that were aimed at getting the UK to wake up, invest in defense and actively support the nations Hitler planned to invade. For example, the “Dutch war scare” of January 1939 saw fake intelligence leaked to the British that suggested that Germany was planning to invade the Netherlands in February and acquire airfields
The launch of DeepSeek-R1 AI by Hangzhou-based High-Flyer and subsequent impact reveals a lot about the state of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) today, both good and bad. It touches on the state of Chinese technology, innovation, intellectual property theft, sanctions busting smuggling, propaganda, geopolitics and as with everything in China, the power politics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). PLEASING XI JINPING DeepSeek’s creation is almost certainly no accident. In 2015 CCP Secretary General Xi Jinping (習近平) launched his Made in China 2025 program intended to move China away from low-end manufacturing into an innovative technological powerhouse, with Artificial Intelligence
RSS