Fujirockers: The official fansite of the Fuji Rock Festival

CHTHONIC SCREAMING BACK TO FUJI ROCK

Freddy Lim has a powerful on-stage presence, throwing back his shoulders to deliver vocals somewhere between a scream and a  screech.  Lim admits he may sound like a vampire. Or more precisely, a vampire melting in the sun.

Chthonic (pronounced Th-onic) is Taiwan’s most successful musical export, an metal band that toured with Ozzfest, played fests like Wacken & Download, major label distribution (Universal), and production by Anthrax guitarist, Rob Caggiano.

Formed in 1995, Chthonic quickly adopted black metal’s uniform of corpse paint and goth vampire gear,  toiling between DIY gigs and underground clubs before receiving their first big break in 2000 with an  invitation to play Fuji Rock’s Red Marquee.

“It was our first overseas concert, and looking back on it, I was shocked, but we’ve gone on to play in Japan 7 times, and our last album has sold thousands of copies and is still on the Oricon Chart,” said Chthonic front-man, Freddy Lim.

Lim is a quick learner, and was able to learn as much backstage as onstage. As the first Taiwanese performer at Fuji Rock, he would become a key player in a newly emerging musical market. The following year, Lim would organize the Formoz Festival, featuring top draws such as Megadeath, Biohazard, and Yo La Tengo as well as Japanese acts, Garlic Boys and Yellow Machine Gun.

And as his on-stage exploits grew and his music promotion flourished, Lim took on a number of social causes, becoming a sort of “Bono” of Taiwan.

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NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL A BAND PHOTO!

Japanese fans may have heard of Taiwan’s Sugar Plum Ferry for accompanying Mono on a tour through mainland China in 2009, and any associations with Japan’s top name in post-rock will surely not be mislaid. Both bands helped usher in the genre to their respective countries, both have become more or less the definitive post-rock groups for their national scene, and both started around the same time – Mono in 1999 and Sugar Plum Ferry in 1997. Being in Taiwan, SPF’s avenues for international exposure have been relatively limited, but their home scene in Taipei always knew they were something of a powerhouse waiting to happen. In the last couple years they’ve played New York’s CMJ festival and Canadian Music Week in Toronto, and now they’re making their Japan debut at Fuji Rock!

The lineup has shifted just slightly over the last dozen years, but Fujirockers was happy enough to do an email interview with two members. Xiao-bai, who goes by the stage name Insecteens, is a guitarist and founding member who is responsible in a big way for not just the sound of Sugar Plum Ferry, but also of Taiwanese post-rock, as his side projects have constantly been in the fore of Taipei’s instrumental music scene. Guitarist and synth player Su is a later addition to the band, but no less a key member of the current lineup. The ensemble is rounded out by bass player Leaf Lee and drummer John Wu. Here’s what they had to say about the history of post-rock in Taiwan and what Japanese fans can look forward to in late-July and early August.

Q: I heard your first CD, Lack of Something, sells for a lot of money in online auctions. I have a copy and it is signed by the drummer at that time, Yoz. How much do you think I can I sell it for? Continue Reading…

LIN USUALLY PLAYS GUITAR, BUT HERE HE STRUMS THE SOUTH-TAIWAN BANJO, OR YUEQIN

Fuji Rock has always been friendly to activists, but it has tended to shy from outright politics. The Fukushima nuclear meltdown however could provide a real rallying cause for Fujirockers, and if a movement is to be had, Taiwanese folk singer Lin Sheng-xiang will most certainly be lending his voice. Lin, who’ll play Gypsy Avalon as “Sheng Xiang & the Band,” is a multiple award-winning musician who has played folk festivals around the world, but he is also a pro-labor, anti-globalization activist who raises pigs in a farming community in southern Taiwan when he’s not off gigging somewhere. Long before Fukushima, he was protesting the construction of Taiwan’s fourth nuclear power plant (which is by some accounts scheduled to go online by the end of 2011), and he has recently been chanting down nuclear power with Japanese guitarist Ken Ohtake (大竹研), with whom he’s been playing since at least 2006 and will likely be part of “the band.”

Hopefully Ohtake will help interpret a bit. Though Lin speaks passable English, he mostly sings in Hakka, a Chinese dialect of a minority ethnic group of southern China. While the melodies are beautiful, the music unique and the songs often rousing, a few timely introductions will certainly make the tunes more poignant. Continue Reading…

MORE SKA?!?! KING COLUMBIA WILL DUKE IT OUT WITH OTHER YOUNGBLOODS @ ROOKIE-A-GO-GO

A few days ago while eating a late night sandwich, I was assured by the guitarist in a Taiwanese post-rock band, Su, who was DJing at the time, that the “Taiwanese bands” at Fuji Rock would be announced on July 1. So I stayed up late, thinking “Taiwanese bands?” Is there really a plural there? There’s never been more than one Taiwanese group at Fuji Rock before, and now, on the freshly released web page of the Japanese site, there are three: Sheng Xiang & the Band, Sugar Plum Ferry and Silverbus. All are playing at Gypsy Avalon, where post-rock at noontime will definitely be an experiment.

The bigger news is that band lists for Fuji Rock’s seven smaller stages are now out and more or less finalized. These are the lineups for the little hippie field (Gypsy Avalon), the competition stage for young bands (Rookie-A-Go-Go), the little performance area in the middle of the woods on the boardwalk between the White Stage and Orange Court (Boardwalk Stage), the food court area stage (Naeba Shudoku), a daytime cabaret in a cleverly converted shed (Cabaret de Paris – last year it was called Cabaret Fiesta), and the Pyramid Garden (a rather mysterious stage that, like the evil fortress in Krull, disappears at sunset and appears in a new location each dawn). There are also a few additions to Daydreaming, which is a late morning/early afternoon DJ stage at the top of a mountain a 20-minute gondola ride from the rest of Fuji Rock (and there is definitely a pretty good reason for why it’s so far away).

Check the additions here: http://www.fujirockfestival.com/artist/

Taiwan Fuji Rock Facebook Group

We’ve  heard a lot about the artists  and now it’s time to hear from some of the fans!

Yesterday, the Taiwan Fuji Rock Facebook group help a meeting a the Le Beau Lieu, a trendy, French-themed coffee shop which offers little aside from US$5  lattes  and tiny platters of ginger snaps.

A dozen people were seated at tables that had been pulled together in one long line. Some clutched swatches of weather-resistant material (silver on one side, black on the other) which one member bought in bulk and was freely sharing with others.

While similar in age, the group was divergent in terms of profession and work experience. There was the owner of a popular downtown music store that specialized in Korean pop, a Warner Music executive, a bank employee, and a pony-tailed dude whose previous festival experience included going to  Japan’s Loud Park on two occasions.

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Go Chic, a band of three Taipei girls and one guy in their early 20s, this year becomes the first ever non-Japanese band to compete successfully against 1,500+ applicants and make the FRF Rookie a-Go-Go stage. Mostly former high school classmates, they blast out electro dance songs with riot grrrl energy, and the stage shows kick into full on party mode. It’s no wonder that at this moment, they can boast one of the biggest followings in Taiwan’s indie scene, but lately they’ve been pushing that envelop as well, earlier this year playing SXSW, getting ready for gigs in China, and now they are also no doubt busy shopping for neon rubber boots for FRF 2010. This all comes with the released of Go Chic’s debut album this spring, I Am Confused! (2010), which got a thumbs up from the Taipei Times for its “catchy beats, punk verve and a sassy, irreverent wit.” The members are Sonia Lai (Guitar/Synth), Sarah Wen (Bass), Winston Li (Drums) and Ariel Zheng (Vocals). Ariel recently answered some of our questions by email. Continue Reading…