American Taiwanese Mochipet (birth name David Wang), who played at Spring Scream for the first time this year, will perform at Brickyard tonight and the Urban Nomad 2012 Grand Opening party tomorrow.
“This is my first time playing music in Taiwan and I’ve had a great time. I had some computer glitches during my set, but Spring Scream was a blast and I saw a lot of awesome bands I have never even heard of before from Taiwan and the rest of Asia. I had no idea this kind of festival even happened in Taiwan,” he said in an e-mail interview with the Taipei Times.
While he may have never played music here before, Mochipet’s Taiwanese roots run deep. “My father worked for the Taiwan Air Force,” Mochipet said. “He had to support his three brothers and my grandmother when he was only 16 because my grandfather passed away early.”
Photo courtesy of Urban Nomad
Over the years, Mochipet’s father instilled in him the values of being logical and pragmatic. “He had to be a very persistent and hard worker,” Mochipet said. “My mother, on the other hand, is more of a free-spirited risk-taker and she instilled this in me. These are both very different but important qualities. I think this is what gives me the balance in my music and my life.”
When he was a youngster, Mochipet’s grandmother would make small animals out of mochi (麻糬), pounded sticky rice snacks. She called these animals mochi-pets because they were fun to play with and could be eaten. Although he didn’t think mochi-pets were very interesting at the time, Mochipet eventually started using the name.
“Mochipet is the alias I use for all my electronic music production,” he said. “I adopted it as my moniker when I started making electronic music because of how malleable and changeable I wanted my music to be.”
Since he began producing his own tracks, Mochipet’s sound has evolved.
“I started out making IDM and experimental sounds and moved on to hardcore and breakcore,” he said. “I learned techno from Berlin’s Ellen Allien and Modeselektor and hip-hop from collaborations with Hieroglyphics and Myka9 of Freestyle Fellowship and Prefuse73. Recently I have been heading in the dance music direction mainly producing [US] west coast bass music and dubstep. I have also been working quite a bit lately on mash-ups with collaborations with artists such as DJ Z-Trip.”
Mochipet has had a song covered by a 20-piece orchestra, which played it in Carnegie Hall, as well as a song featured in the video game NBA 2K9.
“I am currently trying to take Mochipet beyond just electronic dance music into more of a full-on production stage show with live instrumentation,” he said. “My first priority after returning to the States is to finish my full-length record, Rawr Means I Love You.”
What can people expect from the two Mochipet shows this weekend?
“Nonstop good times I hope,” he said.
■ Mochipet will play tonight at Brickyard, B1, 507 Jhongshan 2nd Rd, Cianjin Dist, Greater Kaohsiung (高雄市前金區中山二路507號B1). Admission is NT$300 for gents and NT$150 for ladies. There’s an open bar from 10pm to 11pm and two-for-one mixed drinks from 11pm to midnight. Students with a valid ID get in for NT$50 before midnight.
■ Mochipet plays tomorrow at the Urban Nomad 2012 Grand Opening party tomorrow from 8pm to 3am at Building 3 East A (3東A), Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914), 1, Bade Rd Sec 1, Taipei City (台北市八德路一段1號3東A). Admission is NT$700 at the door. Advance tickets, which cost NT$600, can be purchased through Indievox at www.indievox.com/urbannomadfilmfest/event-post/7952.
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
On Friday last week, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency very excitedly proclaimed “a set of judicial guidelines targeting die-hard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists” had been issued “as a refinement and supplement to the country’s ‘Anti-Secession’ law” from 2005, with sentencing guidelines that included the death penalty as an option. At the same time, 77 People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft were flown into Taiwan’s air defense identification zones (ADIZ) in just 48 hours, a high enough number to indicate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was peeved about something and wanted it known. What was puzzling is that the CCP always
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
David is a psychologist and has been taking part in drug-fueled gay orgies for the past 15 years. “The sex is crazy — utterly unbridled — which of course is partly down to the drugs but also because you can act out all your fantasies,” said the 54-year-old, who has been in a relationship for two years. Chemsex — taking drugs to enhance sexual pleasure and performance — “has opened a whole world of possibilities to me,” David added. “Sex doesn’t have to be limited to two people... There is a whole fantasy and transgressive side to it that turns me on. It