[外電] At CMJ, Taiwan Rocks the East Village
http://tinyurl.com/663wp43
October 20, 2011, 11:00 AM
At CMJ, Taiwan Rocks the East Village
By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.
Three celebrated rock bands from Taiwan played in New York City for the first
time on Wednesday night as part of the CMJ Music Marathon. Rock music, which
was almost unheard of in Taiwan before 1987, has gained in popularity in the
last 15 years as a generation of musicians who came of age under a more
democratic government have looked to British and American bands, from
Metallica to Radiohead, for inspiration.
The scene in Taiwan is beginning to produce interesting music
On the CMJ bill were 1976, Bearbabes and Echo, three well-established bands
that are helping define the Taiwanese indie rock sound. They played at
Dominion NY on Lafayette Street in the East Village and the crowd was filled
with young Taiwanese expatriates and immigrants, most of whom were excited to
see their home country’s rock stars play on the same New York stage. “It’s
so hard to hear the three of them together,” said Julia Hsu, a 28 year-old
from Taiwan.
1976 is a traditional four-piece outfit that plays smooth, tight rock with a
minimum of onstage antics, inspired, they say, by British new-wave bands like
the Smiths and the Cure. Their lyrics sometimes contain double entendres,
touching on issues like the yearning for peace with mainland China. “Our
songs are about the society we live in in Taiwan,” said the lead singer, Kai
Chen, who wore a Smiths T-shirt. “We speak about politics in our love songs.
”
Mr. Chen, who is 35, said he and the other members of his band felt like
pilgrims to one of the holy cities in the history of rock. He wandered the
East Village Wednesday afternoon and bought a Ramones T-shirt. He said he was
hoping to meet members of the Strokes , and perhaps go to some concerts and
see the city’s more storied performance spots. “For me, it’s a lot of
sightseeing,” he said. “So much history here.”
Bearbabes, one of the young up-and-coming groups in Taiwan , played a more
rough-edged set, adding some folk touches and the ethereal sound of a cello
to the mix of bass, guitar and drums. Echo finished the concert with a solid
set of psychedelic rock. The group’s frontman, Po Chang Wu, a 33-year-old
former N.Y.U. student, said rock was a growing genre in Taiwan, where the
mainstream pop music continues to be dominated by saccharine easy-listening
music. “This last 10 years, our indie bands and our creative song writers
are becoming more and more numerous,” he said. “It’s a time for us like
the 1990s in the United States, when grunge hit.”
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可邦的報導好少。
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