Over a few beers before a recent rehearsal, bandmates joked that front man Shaun Armstrong of The ShapeMaster, might break a string on stage at this weekend’s Compass Taichung International Food and Music Festival.
“You get really pumped up,” said drummer Tim Tucker of ShapeMaster, a hard driving four-piece indie rock band from Taichung. “You get to unleash.”
ShapeMaster is scheduled to close out Saturday’s festivities with an hour-long set starting at 8pm.
Photo courtesy of Compass Magazine
The two-day bash, now in its 20th year, is expected to attract thousands to Civic Square, the city’s premier outdoor concert venue.
In addition to plenty of food and drink options, there’s a diverse musical lineup of about 20 bands, with genres ranging from jazz and hip-hop to country and modern rock.
Armstrong described Tucker as a technically gifted and animated drummer.
Photo courtesy of Kyle Merriman
“He’s known for stripping down and playing in his boxers,” he added.
What’s exciting, the band members say, is the rare opportunity to crank up the amps and play loudly in front of a lively crowd. Taichung, which used to enjoy a healthy live music scene, has had many of its large music venues close over the years.
“It’s one of my favorite shows of the year for that reason,” said Brahm Gawdan, who shares rhythm and lead guitar with Armstrong.
An earlier version of ShapeMaster, The Ever So Friendlies, first played the Compass festival back in 2009.
With Craig Sigmundson on bass, ShapeMaster has been part of the Taichung music scene for about a decade, releasing their single album “All the Shapes” last year.
“They’re very powerful,” said Courtney Donovan Smith, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, which organizes the annual festival. “Their music is rhythmic and danceable.” (Smith is also a columnist for the Taipei Times.)
And Saturday night’s crowd will certainly be grooving to one of ShapeMaster’s most popular songs, Fatal Dose. It’s all about having the devil on your shoulder and the temptations that ensue.
“It’s a pure rock ‘n’ roll song. Simple, slow and bluesy,” said Armstrong, who’s the band’s lead singer. The tight-knit group writes their music collectively with Armstrong usually adding the lyrics later on.
Known for liking a good metaphor, Armstrong turned a childhood memory of regret after running away from a confrontation into the fast-moving song Recordion.
“I’m generally not good at expressing myself unless I’m writing lyrics,” Armstrong said with a touch of humility.
And if the hard-strumming Englishman does break a string during the set, the band is ready, as it has been before.
“It’s called the Broken String Cavalry,” Armstrong said. “They have a couple songs ready and I’m their biggest fan. I get to hear them as I change my strings.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS