I’ll be doing a two hour show at the Coke Pavilion in SL as part of the Virtual Thirst concert series from 5-7 PM (PDT), tomorrow May 15th. Blowing for two hours straight would leave me a bit winded, so I’ll preview the upcoming Asian Variations album in the first hour and do my set in the second. Come on over for the first public airing of my latest remix: André van Rensburg – You And Me (Under The Speaker Tree Mix).
Em. and I made a day last Sunday of attending the T.K. Rock Festival here in Taichung. This 2 day festival showcases some of the best of Taiwan’s rock and hiphop acts on five stages. The T.K. of the title refers to the term “TaiKe” – it used to be a derogatory term for Taiwanese locals, but it has since been rehabilitated and is now used with pride to mean the same.
Jui-Chuan Chang performed on Saturday, but unfortunately I couldn’t attend – maybe just as well, since we had the first heavy rain of the year on Saturday and it poured for most of the afternoon and evening. According to friends who did go on Saturday, the rain did little to dampen spirits though – apparently A-Mei, who headlined Saturday’s proceedings, was amazing.
On Sunday, though, I managed to catch Kou Chou Ching. They did my remix version of Tiu Tiu Ssu Hsiang Chi – how cool to see it performed live and on a kick-ass sound system to boot. My favorite performers of the evening were F.I.R. and Wu Bai. I saw Wu Bai for the first time at last year’s TK Rock – to my mind, he more than deserves his title as Taiwan’s Emperor of Rock. He’s a Class A showman with some awesome tunes!
Here’s a vid. of Kou Chou Ching performing my remix:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibbCzQ9v7v0&rel=1]
So, that would be next weekend and I’m on from 12am to 1am (PDT) on Sunday morning.
Here’s the SLURL for URBANE.
I mentioned in the previous post that I worked quickly on this track. It is intended for a remix contest DJ Doubledown Tandino (Brad Reason) is hosting in Second Life, and with the deadline a mere two days away I had no choice but to work fast. If you do SL at all, or know anyone who does, please head on over to Menorca this coming Sunday (April 22nd) at 12pm PDT to vote for my Do Re Mix.
Your help is sorely needed, since the time of the voting party translates to 4am on Monday morning here in Taiwan – I guess I shouldn’t count on too much support from the home crowd ;^)
Whatever the outcome of the contest, I’ve had fun doing the track and have more material for a full-length MoShang remix album due out in a couple of months and tentatively entitled Asian Variations… more info to follow.
Have a listen to the Do Re Mix in the MoShang Radio sidebar player (now Track 1).
Apparently some remixes are harder to do than others; or at least take me longer. My last remix for Jui-chuan took upwards of three weeks to complete, as did this one – my second for Kou Chou Ching. Actually, if I’m to include the three weeks I spent on vacation and didn’t work on the track, this remix took close on two months! I’d be tempted to think I just work slowly, if it weren’t for the fact that I can apparently also do a remix in two days if needs be (see the post above).
The Little DingDong Mix of Tiu Tiu Ssu Hsiang Chi is currently Track 2 in the MoShang Radio sidebar player (that’s on moshang.net if you happen to be reading this blog elsewhere). Little DingDong is the Chinese name for the Japanese cartoon character Doraemon, by the way… Kou Chou Ching’s original is from their album FuKe and here are their liner notes for the song:
Do you still remember? Do you remember your life when you were a kid? Do you remember when you were a kid how you used to wait for each day’s new installment of comics and eat junk food, back when your favorite superheroes still battled against their arch nemeses?
Time flies and people cannot avoid change. The stresses of life and the influence of the workaday world settle upon us like dust. We can no longer return to our youthful innocence, nor can we reclaim that feeling of satisfaction we had when we were young. Thinking about how this story plays itself out again and again in the city, we decided to start from our childhood experiences to write this song.
As its name suggests, this song takes two Taiwanese folk tunes as its central structure. The first, “Tiu Tiu Tang,” comes from Ilan County in Taiwan’s northeast corner; while the second, “Su Siang Khi,” is from Hengchun, a town in the far south of the island. Together, the two tunes make this song a complete mix of north and south. We have also brought into the tune upbeat funk styles. Finally, to give the tune a relaxed and lively feel, we have inserted sounds from very familiar video games of our youth. Bringing together the old, the new, domestic, and foreign is this tune’s most important mission.