Welcome to the New Year in one of the most exciting cities in Asia. Taipei’s night scene has come a long way in the last few years. It’s become a weekend clubbing destination for people from throughout the region and a regular stop on the map for international DJs. With so many choices of clubs, especially in the Xinyi District (信義), it’s astounding that they are always full. But there is always room for one more, so once you’ve recovered from New Year’s Eve, prepare yourself for the grand opening of Elektro featuring none other than Diplo (real name: Thomas Wesley Pentz).
Elektro enters Taipei as the successor to Spark, which abruptly shut down last month. The new club has a similar operational strategy: Vegas-style bottle service with Vegas-style presentation. In what is a reflection of how massive Taipei dance music industry has become, the musical direction of the club will join many others in the area and will be centered on EDM, which means you can expect to see regular international bookings to fuel the club’s vibe.
First up is Diplo, who plays his first solo show in Taipei in more than five years. The US DJ, rapper and Mad Decent record label founder has since formed Jack U with fellow dance music bigwig Skrillex (real name: Sonny John Moore). He also championed the twerking movement and has been immensely busy collaborating regularly with artists like Beyonce and Madonna, who credits him on her upcoming album Rebel Heart. It proves that there is a fine line between what’s considered pop music and dance music. But he’s balancing it in a way that is both tactful and admirable to everyone in the industry.
Photo courtesy of the Windish Agency
Diplo is without a doubt one of the biggest names in the industry and a spontaneous stop in Taipei is a great start to what should be a bustling year for our growing city. We can only hope that police in the won’t have an equally as bustling year.
■ Diplo plays tomorrow night 9pm at Elektro, 6F, 12 Songshou Rd, Taipei City (台北市松壽路12號6樓). Admission is NT$1,600 and includes two drinks.
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
Burnt-out love-seekers are shunning dating apps in their millions, but the apps are trying to woo them back with a counter offer: If you don’t want a lover, perhaps you just need a friend? The giants of the industry — Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder — have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone. Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Bumble has also acquired the
RSS