國立臺灣大學文學學院人類學研究所 碩士論文
College of Liberal Arts Department of Anthropology
National Taiwan University Master Thesis
培養另類存在方式：台北獨立搖滾樂手的音樂活動與生 活民族誌
Cultivating an Alternative Mode of Existence:
an Ethnography of the Musical Activities and Lives of Taipei’s Veteran Indie Rockers
許馬談 Martin Chouinard
指導教授：顏學誠 博士 Advisor: Hsueh-cheng Yen, Ph.D.
中華民國 102 年 2 月
February 2013
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Xiaoqiang, Tanfei and Georgy. Thank you for welcoming me so generously into your heart and life. It is to you more than anyone else that I owe these wonderful years of friendship, discovery, and beauty.
To Anthony, Pierre, Thomas. Thank you for having been such perfect friends day after day, and for proving yourselves to be such invaluable allies in the exploration and making sense of the otherness that inhabits and surrounds us.
To Kalis, Kit, Xiaojun, S.D., Xiaoheng, Punk, Jingang, A-Xin, Chamake, Yukan, TC, Zhongge, Wenlong, Xiaosi, Peipei, A-Qiang, Jimi, KK, Wen, Yinong, William, Vincent (Lin), Jack, Keith, Shuzhen, A-Feng, Moon, Changlei, Code, Kaitong, Jimi, Steve, Ho Tung Hung, Morris, Allen, Rulin, Thomas, Wednesday, Grace, Taka, Dashu, Jo. My dear friends that I admire and love with all my heart. Thank you for having brightened my universe with so many moments of happiness, friendship and music. For you are all – each one of you in his or her own particular way – glorious and brilliant stars.
To Fabien, Tayang, Kate, Claire, Kevin, Yurii, Mike, Vincent (Wang), Manon, Arthur, Gemma, Yves, Marco, Juan, Angel, Hongjun, Kristian, Hervé, Chema, Damien, Taylor, Ben, John, Lingling, Alyson, Josh, Yeah, Panyun, Xinghui, Taka, Claudia. My friends that I adore and who have been an important part of my life over the past seven years. Thank you for your precious friendship, for your smiles and your support.
But above all, thank you to my parents, whose love, values and devotion have made me the luckiest boy on earth. I love you more than anything else in this world, and despite the distance that separates us, in my thoughts you are always by my side.
iii 致謝詞
首先，感謝小強、譚肥、維華，你們毫不保留地對我敞開心門、交換生命經驗。在 這充滿無數美妙邂逅、發現和繽紛色彩的這些年，很大一部分都得歸功於你們。
還有 Anthony, Pierre, Thomas，你們是我日常生活中不可少的最佳盟友，伴我探索和 理解在我們身邊與我們自己時而迷人時而令人惶惶不安的差異性。
Kalis、Kit、小君、小亨、小恐龍、龐克、金剛、Cemelesai、查馬克、Yukan、 TC、
忠哥、文龍、小肆、JJ、阿強、 KK、 Wen、 宜農、 William、文森、Keith、淑楨、
Faye、阿峰、小龜、常磊、Code、凱同、Jimi、何東洪、Mo、儒霖、Thomas、
Wednesday、Grace、大樹、佩儒。你們是我心中最珍愛與敬重的朋友。謝謝你們用 歡樂、友誼與音樂照亮了我的世界。因為對我來說，你們 — 用各自的法子 — 是 最令人引以為傲、耀眼的明星。
Fabien、Tayang、Kate、Kevin、Claire、Yurii、Mike、Jo、Vincent、Manon、Arthur、
Gemma、Marco、Yves、Juan、Angel、Hongjun、Kristian、Hervé、Steve、Chema、
Taylor、John、 Lingling、Alyson、雅捷、Josh、Yeah、盼雲、Eva、Taka。你們是我 後來這幾年生活裡重要的朋友。謝謝你們真摯的友情、笑容與支持。
最後，我尤其要感謝我的父母和他們給予的愛、價值觀和奉獻，讓我成為有史以來 最幸運的男孩。我愛你們勝過世上一切，即便我在異地，和你們遙遙相隔，我對你 們的思念之情盤纏在腦海中。
iv REMERCIEMENTS
À Xiaoqiang, Tanfei et Georgy. Merci de m’avoir si généreusement ouvert les portes de vos cœurs et de vos vies. Ces années de découverte, de couleurs et de rencontres
formidables, c’est en grande partie à vous que je les dois.
À Anthony, Pierre, Thomas. Merci d’avoir été de si parfaits amis au quotidien, et d’inestimables alliés dans l’exploration et le faire sens de l’altérité qui nous entoure et nous habite.
À Kalis, Kit, Xiaojun, S.D., Xiaoheng, Punk, Jingang, A-Xin, Chamake, Yukan, TC, Zhongge, Wenlong, Xiaosi, Peipei, A-Qiang, Jimi, KK, Wen, Yinong, William, Vincent (Lin), Jack, Keith, Shuzhen, A-Feng, Moon, Changlei, Code, Kaitong, Jimi, Ho Tung Hung, Morris, Allen, Rulin, Thomas, Wednesday, Grace, Taka, Dashu, Jo. Mes très chers amis que j’admire et aime de tout mon cœur. Merci d’avoir illuminé mon univers de tant de moments de joie, de camaraderie et de musique. Car pour moi, vous êtes tous – chacun à votre propre façon – de fières et brillantes étoiles.
À Fabien, Tayang, Kate, Claire, Yurii, Mike, Vincent (Wang), Manon, Arthur, Gemma, Yves, Marco, Juan, Angel, Hongjun, Kristian, Hervé, Steve, Chema, Damien, Taylor, Ben, John, Lingling, Alyson, Josh, Yeah, Panyun, Xinghui, Taka, Claudia. Mes amis que j’adore et qui avez été des acteurs essentiels de ma vie au cours des dernières années.
Merci pour votre précieuse amitié, pour vos sourires et votre soutien.
Mais surtout, merci à mes parents, dont l’amour, les valeurs et le dévouement font de moi le garçon le plus chanceux qui soit. Je vous aime plus que tout au monde, et malgré la distance qui nous sépare, vous m’accompagnez en pensée à chaque instant
v 摘要
本論文是一個關係台北獨立搖滾音樂老將的音樂活動的人類學記事。在他們所屬的 歷史與都市背景下去做描述，筆者首先說明本地老牌的獨立搖滾樂隊如何進入困境 重重的音樂世界，其主要動機並非在於獲得主流的成功、名望或是財富。筆者接著 處理本地獨立搖滾樂隊所處的社會文化背景與其生活軌跡，以便更好地去理解這些 音樂經驗和感覺在他們生活中的作用。憑藉著這幾年的參與和觀察本地獨立搖滾音 樂現場與一系列的正式訪談及表演裡，筆者提出，台北的獨立搖滾樂手尋求培養另 類的存在模式，讓他們，在台北，得以脫離做為普通高校學生或白領上班族苛刻的 日常現實。該詮釋表明本地獨立搖滾音樂及其樂手的獻身，能正面地被理解為是某 種形式的社會文化抵抗。不順從、非循規蹈矩去生活的獨立搖滾樂手，也凸顯了極 其重要的作用，他們致力於在地現場，為他們提供了手段和社會軌跡，尋找靈活的 收入來源和強大的感官體驗，享受社會聯繫感和自我認同。
vi ABSTRACT
This thesis is an ethnographic account of the musical activities of Taipei’s veteran indie rock musicians. Following a description of these activities in their historical and urban context, I first show how the involvement of local veteran rockers in the difficult world of music is not primarily motivated by aspirations to mainstream success, fame and wealth. I then move on to look into the socio-cultural backgrounds and life trajectories of local veteran rockers so as to better understand the sense of these musical experiences and the role of music in their lives. Relying on several years of participant observation in the local indie rock scene and a series of formal interviews with performers, I propose that Taipei’s veteran indie rockers seek to cultivate an alternative mode of existence that enables them to disengage from the harsh daily realities of ordinary high school students and white-collar workers (shangban zu) in Taipei. This interpretation suggests that the commitment of local rockers to music and their bands can positively be understood as a form of socio-cultural resistance. It also highlights the paramount role of the musical activities in the non-conformist approach to life of veteran indie rockers, as their involvement in the local scene offers them means and social loci to find flexible sources of revenue and enjoy powerful sensory experiences, social connectedness, and a sense of self-identity.
vii Table of contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction _____ 1
1.1 - About the author and this research project _____ 1 1.2 - Motivations, objectives and literature review _____ 3 1.3 - Research area and methods ____ _ 13
Chapter 2 - A short history of Taipei’s indie rock music scene ____ 23
2.1 - Introduction ____ _ 23
2.2 - Taipei’s soundscape from the 1960s to the 1980s _ 27 2.3 - The emergence of Taipei’s indie rock scene in the 1980s and 90s _ 31 2.4 - The evolution of Taipei’s indie rock scene since 2000 _ 41
2.5 - Concluding remarks _ 48
Chapter 3 - Overview of the careers, features and musical activities of some veteran
bands and musicians of Taipei’s indie rock scene __ __ 50
3.1 - Introduction ____ _ 50
3.2 - Portrait of two representative bands of the local indie scene _ 52 3.2.1 - Black Summer Days – general presentation _ 52
3.2.2 - Black Summer Days – short history _ 55
3.2.3 - OverDose – general presentation _ 58
3.2.4 - OverDose – short history 60
3.2.5 - How these bands are representative of Taipei’s indie rock scene 66
3.3 General overview of the musical activities of local indie rock bands 72
3.3.1 - Practice sessions and practice rooms in Taipei’s indie rock scene 72
3.3.2 - Songwriting and creative approaches of local indie rock bands 80
3.3.3 - Local indie rock recordings 89
viii
3.3.4 - Live houses and indie rock performances in Taipei 99
3.4 - Are the activities of Taipei’s indie rock bands about achieving mainstream popularity and success? 120
3.5 - Concluding remarks 130
Chapter 4 - Musical activities of local indie rock musicians as the cornerstone of an alternative mode of existence 132
4.1 - Introduction 132
4.2 - About the traditional Taiwanese family and the life of middle-class students and shangban zu in Taipei 134
4.3 - Indie rock activities as an access to a unique set of sensory experiences, emotions and enjoyment and an alternative to the perceived monotony of high school, university and full-time work 141
4.4 - Indie rock activities as a means to acquire the skills and opportunities to generate income and find alternatives to the shangban way of life 154
4.5 - Indie rock activities as an access to means and environments that enable one to experience social connectedness 161
4.6 - Indie rock activities as a means of establishing and strengthening a distinctive and adult self-identity as rock musicians and cultural elite 171
4.7 - Concluding remarks 186
Chapter 5 - Conclusion 191
References 197
Annex 1 - Timeline of Taipei’s indie rock scene – from the 1980s to 2000 203
Annex 2 - Timeline of Taipei’s indie rock scene – from 2000 to 2012 204
Annex 3 - The inherent technicality of music recording and the different types of recordings found in Taipei’s indie rock music scene 205
1 Chapter 1 - Introduction
1.1 - About the author and this research project
I was 15 years old when I bought my first rock record. A month before, an American band from Chicago with the odd name of The Smashing Pumpkins had just released a double album entitled Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I remember I hated it the first time I listened to it, but the second time around, it hit me. Not only could I not stop listening to the album, but I began to believe this band was the greatest thing in the world. From that moment on, I knew rock music would always be part of my life.
It was November 1995, and the type of music called alternative rock was already well into its golden age, with bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and my idols at the time, the Smashing Pumpkins, topping the charts and reaching out to massive audiences across the globe, including my French-speaking hometown of Quebec. As I would soon realize, the story of my conversion to rock music was not different from that of millions of people of my generation.
Over the next 15 years, my fascination with rock music and the rich musical tradition in which it is rooted was one of the few consistent vectors shaping the very fabric of my existence, in ways I could never have foreseen as a teenager. Following extended stays in Europe and undergraduate studies in French literature, I arrived in Taipei at the end of 2006 with the simple ambition of teaching French while exploring the social landscapes of this part of Asia. It was here that my love of rock music would take all of its sense, notably by serving as a key socio-cultural bridge to facilitate my
2 integration in the country. Indeed, I rapidly discovered that Taiwan, too, had more than its share of local rock lovers who spent most of their time playing, listening to, and talking about rock music. Out of curiosity, I began frequenting a few live venues in Taipei that presented concerts by local rock bands who played their own songs and acted independently from major record labels. Those were my first encounters with Taipei’s independent – or indie – rock scene, of which I have been a close follower ever since. In these small but lively circles, I had the chance to meet great friends, and I must admit that, to this day, Taipei’s indie music scene still feels more like home to me than any other social environment in Taiwan, Europe, or Canada.
However, my interest in the local music scene reached a completely different level at the beginning of 2008, a year and a half after I quit my job as a language teacher to enter the anthropology department of National Taiwan University. It is around that time that my good friend Georgy Yang, leader of an indie rock band called Black Summer Days, asked me to join his group as a guitarist; an offer that, as a music lover and amateur musician, I simply could not refuse. For a period of approximately 18 months, I had the immense privilege and pleasure to be an integral part of the band’s musical activities1, from rehearsals and songwriting to live performances, while learning the craft of rock music with my accomplished bandmates Georgy, Punk, and Jingang; himself a veteran drummer and highly respected figure among Taiwanese musicians. More than being just an amazing time, this experience changed my life, and totally transformed my perspective on music, on Taipei’s indie scene, and on the very nature and meaning of the musical
1 I consider becoming a member of Black Summer Days all the more so unique a privilege that there are only a handful of foreigners who play with bands mainly composed of Taiwanese musicians. The lineups of the vast majority of indie rock bands in Taipei tend to include exclusively members of Taiwanese or foreign origin.
3 activities of the bands that participate in it.
But being part of a Taiwanese indie rock band was first and foremost a deeply human and anthropological adventure. It gave me the chance to perform with a certain number of Taipei’s indie rock bands, and allowed me get to know personally hundreds of other local musicians. Several of them became good friends, and, in the process, I became one of the few privileged witnesses of their life stories. It also enabled me to observe the activities of some local groups from an insider’s point of view, which made me fully realize how playing in an indie band in modern Taiwan and living the way these people do is not merely some form of entertainment, as is commonly believed by the bulk of Taiwanese society. These activities most often imply a strong commitment to a series of distinctive experiences and perspectives on life and the surrounding socio-cultural environment.
Halfway into my involvement with Black Summer Days, I decided to use the opportunity of my thesis project to try to offer some insights on these people’s stories—
the stories of my musician friends and acquaintances, whose activities and life trajectories largely bear the marks of a general lack of public understanding and support.
Therefore, I sincerely hope that readers who are unfamiliar with the local indie music scene will find in this dissertation a useful introduction to the world of Taipei’s indie rock musicians, and that it will contribute to creating more awareness and recognition of these people’s meaningful endeavors and overall contribution to modern Taiwanese society.
1.2 - Motivations, objectives and literature review
In early 2008, I became a rhythm guitarist in Black Summer Days, the band of my
4 friend Georgy. Our common fascination with music was the base of our friendship, but I soon noticed that music occupied an even more important place in the lives of my bandmates than in mine. One day, after informing the band via SMS that I could not make it to our weekly group rehearsal, I received a message back from one of the band members: “Try not to do that again, music is all I have in my life.”
His words surprised me. I began contemplating the meaning and overall importance of musical activities in my friends’ lives. Obviously, what was merely for me – at least in the beginning – some sort of social experiment meant something very different and more important to some of them. And my co-members of Black Summer Days were not the only ones to have such an intense connection to their musical activities. There were at least several thousand indie rockers like them in Taipei who, despite the improbability of commercial success – a topic I shall discuss later in this thesis – nonetheless poured a substantial amount of their time and all their heart into their musical endeavors, from writing and listening to music at home to rehearsing in practice rooms and performing live with their band2.
I became genuinely interested in understanding better who these indie musicians were, what kind of existence they had and why their band and music in general was so
2 In a 2009 M.A. thesis, Huang Shi-Wen estimated the total number of indie acts (including bands and single artists) playing different types of popular music and in all regions of Taiwan to 784 (Huang 2009:
38). From that number, 527 played only once or twice over the year during which the investigation was conducted. I personally judged this number to be largely underestimated, knowing that about 360 Taiwanese rock bands applied to the 2012 Spring Scream festival alone, and that Huang forgot several important live houses in his calculation. This prompted me to come up with a rough estimation of my own based on the rock bands that I know, that received subsidies from the government, and that performed at the Underworld, at the Wall, at Legacy and both Riversides between March and May of 2012. I estimated the number of active indie rock bands based in Taipei to be around 300. This number excludes bands and artists identified to types of music other than rock (utterly pop, folk, or jazz). According to my assessment, about half of these bands perform regularly. This would mean that there are between 1000 and 2000 active indie rock musicians in Taipei; much more if we include all those who currently do not have a band or play with individual artists. One must keep in mind that the rock scene is only a part of Taipei and Taiwan's larger indie music scene.
5 important for them. As I deepened my practical experience in the countless details of the sometimes-thrilling-yet-immensely-fastidious craft of the modern rock musician, fundamentally simple yet elusive questions appeared. Why do local veteran indie rockers persist in playing music if mainstream success for their bands seems so out of reach?
What are these painstaking musical activities about if not gaining wealth and fame? What is the role of musical activities in the lives of these people?
Those are the essential questions that prompted me to carry out this research project. Another element of motivation came from the limited amount of literature on Taiwan’s indie soundscapes. There is a near absence of English research about Taipei’s indie rock scene; a gap which the current work can hopefully contribute, in part, to fill. It is true that rock music is an increasingly popular subject of M.A. theses by graduate students in Taiwan and abroad. But, very few works in Chinese have offered a comprehensive presentation of Taiwan’s indie music or an explanation of the meaning of these activities in the Taiwanese context. It is my sincere hope that the personal observations and interpretations reported in these pages can help the reader learn more about and make better sense of the lives and involvement of these young Taiwanese adults in the realm of music – and perhaps by extension better sense of the endeavors of their fellow indie rockers in other regions or countries. As such, the objectives of this research are essentially ethnographic and interpretative in nature. I sought to accomplish this task in a way that is primarily accessible and useful for English-speaking and non- Taiwanese readers who are not familiar with Taipei’s indie rock scene, Taiwanese society in general, or the craft of the modern rock musician. I invite these foreign readers to see this thesis as a general introduction to Taipei’s indie rock scene and the specific
6 experience of being an indie rock musician in Taipei. Also, the present work offers a substantial amount of insights and interpretative leads that can hopefully provide food for thought for people who are already acquainted with the Taipei’s indie rock music, thereby stimulating further discussions on the subject.
Ultimately, I expect this work to offer a contrast to the majority of academic investigations of music-related phenomenon, due primarily to my unique perspective as a foreign member of the indie rock scene in Taiwan. The journey from naïve foreigner to (partial) insider in Taipei’s indie rock scene enabled me to provide a more human and experience-driven angle on the activities, lives and experiences of indie rock bands in Taipei. Therein possibly lies the main value of this work.
The particularity of this thesis becomes clearer when compared to the body of existing literature on rock music phenomena, both in Taiwan and in other countries. As of 2012, a growing number of academic efforts, albeit somewhat limited in terms of scope and thoroughness, are being devoted to Taiwan’s indie music scene. An author who arguably stands out is Ho Tung-Hung, sociologist and popular music specialist at the Fu Jen Catholic University. Although his Ph.D. dissertation, reports and communications about Taiwan’s popular and indie music world are concerned with questions that differ greatly from this project, his work provides substantial ethnographic data and accounts that greatly help to understand the development and present-day realities of Taipei’s indie rock circles. Another very useful English publication is the December 2007 edition of the
“Fountain Arts and Living” magazine, which offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of Taiwanese popular music through several portraits of major figures, music events and movements (including Taipei’s indie rock domain). Other interesting reads by
7 foreign observers of Taiwan’s indie music scene are Mack Hagood’s (2008) and Wendy Hsu’s (2008) articles, which respectively discuss the “liminal” position of indie musicians in Taiwan and the transnational character of Taiwan’s indie rock scene.
In recent years, several M.A. theses (in Chinese) have been produced by Taiwanese students of various institutions and academic branches. Primarily based on case studies of specific bands and investigations of the economic and political context of Taiwan’s indie rock domain, these researches have discussed issues pertaining to band practices and aesthetics (Chu Meng-Ci 2001, about local metal band Chthonic; Chang Kai-Ting3 2010, about indie band 1976), to socio-political identity (Mon Ya-Fen 2007, about L.T.K. Commune), to the localization process of rock music in the country (Cai Yue-Ru 2006; Fang Mei-Jung 2008), to the weaknesses of local rock bands in terms of management and career development (Ding Yi-Wen 2004), as well as to the tensions between Taiwan’s indie domain, popular music industry and cultural policies (Jeng Kai- Tung 2005; Young Tsang-Yu 2008; Huang Shih-Wen 2009; Chang Being-Yen 2009).
Rock music scenes around the world are also the object of increasing attention in the English-language scholarship. Perceiving indie rock as a large cultural movement that encompasses various types of actors (performers, fans, labels, etc.), several researchers have produced thorough discussions of its core representations, symbols and aesthetic specificities, as well as of its socio-cultural and commercial practices (ex: Hibbett 2005;
Hesmondhalgh 1999). A more common approach in social sciences, ethnomusicology and cultural studies has been to interpret rock and pop music performances as enactments of various types of collective identities and representations by indie musicians and concert-
3 Chang Kai-Ting’s thesis offers on pp. 22-25 a very useful table that summarizes 14 M.A. research projects about indie music in Taiwan produced by students between 2001 and 2009.
8 goers. Hence we now have detailed accounts of the construction and expression of regional, national, socio-political and gender identities within specific local indie (or underground) rock scenes, types of music, or aesthetic forms. a few examples of such scholarship are the research and publications of Cushman (1995) on the rock music counterculture in soviet Leningrad and post-communist Saint Petersburg, Seca (2001) about the musical practices and social representations of underground musicians in Paris, Wallach (2005) on the role of local indie rock scenes and the democratization process in Indonesia, Davies (2006) on Hamilton’s indie rock subculture, Rogers (2008) on the practices, mindsets and historical context of Brisbane’s indie music scene, and Ligot (2012) on the cultural identification of “Taike Rock” (台 客 搖 滾) and Taiwanese
traditional rap (台灣味唸歌).
Given the highly complex and profoundly elusive nature of the subject at hand, each of these approaches yields an important contribution to the understanding of rock music and musical activities.. Yet taken together as a body of work (in its most general fashion), it fails to adequately address certain fundamental questions that I, speaking as an amateur indie musician, would like to see explored. Whether offering a blueprint of the indie rock symbols and ideology, an interpretation of the socio-political meanings permeating musical practices and expressions, or a macro-level perspective on the rock music business, such work (again in its most general form) can be described as being somewhat detached from the subjective realities of rock musicians themselves. As a result, most of these accounts fail to see what I would describe as the “global human picture” of rock activities, and tell very little about the basic experience of being in a rock band in a given society. Indeed, the majority of the research on popular forms of music,
9 while focusing on the practices, symbols or representations observed in rock music scenes, barely stops to consider why musicians engage in such activities in the first place, as if being passionately committed to rock music were an all-too-common, self-evident phenomenon that does not require careful reflection on the particular sense of these activities. In order to understand human payoff of these painstaking activities, we must re-examine the experience of being an indie rock musician through the lens of the larger socio-cultural context in which these social actors evolve.
A few publications do address issues that are similar to those orienting the present research. In his 1999 ethnography of what he calls the “commercial hard rock scene” of Akron (Ohio), Berger mentions that, “beyond the situational goals of fun, most rockers join bands in pursuit of fame and wealth” in an attempt – unsuccessful for the most part – to “sidestep the stultifying life plan of high school, college, family and work” (Berger 1999: 51). Other examples include the seminal ethnographers of music scenes that are Finnegan (1989), Cohen (1991), Gay (1991), and Frith (1992), who all attest in their studies (or article in Frith’s case) that, beyond the desire for financial gain, a longing for certain types of social experiences, related among other dimensions to live performances, sociality and identity, were key motivations for their informants’ hobbyistic involvement in music. While observing that the “possibility of ʻmaking itʼ” and “the quest for success [were] a major motivation and preoccupation” for rock bands in Liverpool, English anthropologist Sara Cohen also notes that a band could provide “a means by which friendships were made and maintained” (Cohen 1991: 3). The social benefits of being in a band are also highlighted by Rogers (2008), who mentions that the “importance of
10 friendships and status forged within the scene” is an “integral part” of the satisfaction of rock musicians in Brisbane (Rogers 2008: 647).
The present thesis certainly shares general ethnographic objectives with these authors. Yet most of the latter are concerned with a large variety of questions that diverge from or go far beyond questions pertaining to the meaning of these musical activities for local rockers, and thus provide little detail on this issue.
An exception is Jennifer Milioto’s 2008 ethnography of Tokyo’s hardcore music scene, based on a small sampling of the scene’s different venues, musicians, performances and practices (from rehearsal to marketing activities). Apart from adopting a participative approach analogous to the fieldwork I have done with Taipei’s indie rockers, Milioto’s also seeks to understand the meaning of music performances for Tokyo’s underground hardcore musicians themselves. However, her interpretations differ greatly from mine, illustrating just how deeply each socio-cultural context uniquely informs the local manifestation of global cultural phenomena.
Indeed, by focusing exclusively on the story of Taipei’s veteran indie rock musicians and the role of their musical activities and bands within their life project, the present monograph shows significant contrasts with most of the English and Chinese- language scholarship mentioned above. The scope of my investigation was limited to the activities and lives of indie rock musicians, with little attempt being made to address the entire local or transnational indie rock culture, music itself or the different types of actors involved in a music scene. Also, I assumed that the activities and life project of Taipei’s veteran indie rockers take their meaning from the socio-cultural, historical and physical context in which they take place. For this reason, I made only a limited use of existing
11 literature and theory on international and Taiwanese rock music, preferring to rely mainly on the observations, insights and information gathered over several years of active participation, networking and fieldwork in Taipei’s indie rock scene.
During all these years, I sought primarily to better understand what the musical activities of Taipei’s veteran indie rockers mean, and what particular role their involvement with their band, in the local music scene and in the world of music plays in their life. In order to achieve a more thorough understanding of this human phenomenon, it appeared useful to first produce a general profile of local indie rock acts, as well as a working description of what their musical activities involve. Additionally, it is necessary to situate these musical activities within the specific history of Taipei’s indie rock music scene. Hence the following secondary research questions which steer the second and third chapters of this monograph: What is the historical context of Taipei’s current-day indie rock scene? What are the musical activities and careers of a typical indie rock band in Taipei? Building on initial answers to these questions, I went on to examine the economic realities of local indie rock bands, and to ask if veteran indie rockers aim at mainstream success or celebrity.
Chapter two will offer a short historical overview of the development of Taipei’s indie rock scene, highlighting the fact that, in the two decades that followed the lifting of martial law and the emergence of an original indie music scene in the late 80s, Taipei’s indie rock bands have been facing a marked lack of interest and comprehension from the Taiwanese music industry and society in general. Not only have local rock acts largely remained marginalized by the music business and mainstream soundscape, but Taipei’s live houses have been regarded with great suspicion (and sometimes even outright
12 hostility) by the city’s authorities and the residents of some neighborhoods.
Chapter three will start with a portrait of Black Summer Days and OverDose, which will be complemented with an explanation of why these two bands are representative of the variety of acts found in Taipei’s current indie rock scene. Section 3.2 will describe the predominant dimensions of the musical activities of local indie rock bands (rehearsing, songwriting, recording and performing) with a marked emphasis on the specificities that pertain to these activities in the particular socio-cultural and urban context of Taipei’s indie rock scene. In the last section of the chapter, I will detail the difficult relationship of local veteran indie rock bands with the local music business, while maintaining that the aspiration for mainstream and economic success, if not completely absent among local indie rockers, is far from representing a major motivation for their continued involvement in the world of music.
Relying on these insights, I will examine the band activities of Taipei’s veteran indie rockers within the larger context of their personal backgrounds, of the normal existence of ordinary students and young adults in Taipei, and of the socio-cultural realities of Taiwanese society. This process will be guided by three main questions: What particular set of social experiences, values, attitudes and backgrounds are typically associated with the continued participation in an indie rock band in Taipei? How do these experiences, values, attitudes and backgrounds that are typical among local veteran indie rock musicians contrast with those of average young people in Taipei? In light of these findings, what are the musical activities of local veteran rockers about?
In the later phases of my fieldwork, I came to the conclusion that the band activities of a majority of veteran indie rock musicians in Taipei could best be described
13 as the cornerstone of an alternative mode of existence that shows substantial divergences from the dominant model for life in the Taiwanese society. Through their continuous involvement in the world of music and the local indie music scene, local veteran indie rockers seek to cultivate a non-conformist way of life and resist the rigid and traditional (or simply conventional) type of life that Taiwanese institutions and parents expect the younger generation to adopt. This topic will be developed throughout the fourth chapter, which will start with a short presentation of the regimented daily life of ordinary students and full-time workers in Taipei, and of the traditional mindsets that prevail in the majority of Taiwanese families (4.2). These remarks will serve to outline important contrasts in the four subsequent sections, in which I will explain how, through their musical activities, local veteran indie rockers can cultivate an alternative mode of existence based on the following four key dimensions: a unique set of powerful sensory experiences, emotions and enjoyment (section 4.3), flexible sources of income or opportunities to find music- related employment (section 4.4), social connectedness (section 4.5), and a sense of adult and distinctive self-identity as rock musicians and member of the local cultural elite (section 4.6).
1.3 - Research area and methods
As mentioned earlier, the primary objective of this thesis is to offer an account of the musical activities of indie rock band musicians in Taipei based on the roles that these activities play in their lives. I sincerely hope that the information and perspectives herein exposed can contribute to the reader’s understanding of what it feels, implies and means to be a musician in Taiwan. Yet, a series of delimitations must be identified, so as to
14 define which types of musicians are encompassed in the discourse that will follow and which ones exceed its given scope.
First, it is necessary to clarify what I mean by “indie”. The use of this term – a contraction of “independent” – can sometimes be problematic. Indeed, its meaning is loosely defined and has been known to vary greatly over the years in the writings of a legion of scholars, journalists and observers as well as in the vocabulary of musicians and fans. In accordance with what appears to be the common treatment of the term in academic literature, indie music specialists David Hesmondhalgh (2009) and Ryan Hibbett (2005) both use “indie” as referring to a type of music “at the intersection of various aesthetic, social, and commercial phenomena” (Hibbett, 2005: 55). At the same time, Hibbett recognizes the “makeshift quality” of such denominations, and abstains from proposing a clear definition of the term. It is not my intention to discuss in depth the meaning or implications of the notion of “indie” in these pages. Still, I must mention that the meaning of the term that prevails in this text varies significantly from the abovementioned usage.
In a lot of contexts, other definitions of the term prevail over its aesthetic component. It must indeed be added that the notion of “indie”, as applied to a whole range of bands and record labels throughout the world, predominantly conveys a sense of opposition to “major” record companies or “popular” music artists4. Such is the case in Taipei’s indie rock scene, where “indie” usually designates bands and singers of all types of popular music who perform their own original material and are not aligned with a major record company. Interestingly, the terms “indie” (獨立), “alternative” (另類) and
4 Thereby the contradiction, attested by several scholars, that arose when music labeled as indie became mainstream in the 1990s.
15
“underground” (地下) are used as virtual-synonyms5. This usage might well be anchored in the hierarchic configuration of the country’s soundscape. The Taiwanese music market is dominated in an overwhelming fashion by a small and extremely exclusive circle of pop superstars (along with their supporting management and record companies, or the extensions thereof)6. Despite the indisputable presence of a large gray zone between indie and popular7 – especially in terms of business practices and values – the gap in popularity and revenue between Taiwanese idols and the rest of local bands and singers is such that the vast majority of artists who are not part of the idol regime can be said to share similar economic conditions8. This situation is especially true among indie rock bands, the most popular of which (ex: local band 1976) have to keep exceptionally active to thwart off the precariousness or rapid decline that has marked the story of so many other local bands9. Facing this considerable disparity, concerns for aesthetic differentiation among the country’s marginal indie scene understandably fall second to the need for an expression
5 This phenomenon was captured by Jeng – himself a longtime musician in the scene – in the first pages of his thesis: “本文主張，主流/ 大眾/地上、獨立/ 另類/ 地下之間的互動是一種相互辯證的動態關係…” (Jeng 2005). A similar correspondence between the terms “indie” and “underground” can be found in several theses referenced in this work.
6 Ironically enough, one of the largest (if not the largest) music label in Taiwan, Gold Typhoon (金牌颱風 – representative of local idols like A-Mei and S.H.E.) claims it is “independent” because is not one of the three international major labels with established branches in Taiwan (Universal, Sony and Warner). Yet, its dedication to mainstream popular music, considerable market share in the Chinese world and transnational operations can hardly be likened to those of most independent labels in the world.
7 Observing that several artists and labels are in fact positioned in-between these two categories, Jeng Kai- Tung suggests in his thesis (2005) that indie and popular should be understood not as definitive opposites, but as interrelated poles of a same continuum that stretches over several criteria, including creative and business practices, level of popularity and income, or values. For example, a lot of albums released by major labels in Taiwan (ex: Warner, Sony BMG, etc.) are in fact only distributed under a specific deal, while the production duties and management of the artists are carried out by smaller organizations. This phenomenon has made it increasingly difficult to determine which artists are indie or not, thereby seriously compromising the meaningfulness of the term itself.
8 See section 3.2 and 3.4 for more details on this subject.
9 Between 2006 and 2010, 1976 has released 3 studio albums (plus 2 EPs) and has performed on average 37 times a year, which is a lot by Taiwanese standards (Source: Chang Kai-Ting, 2010). In an informal conversation at the Underworld, bandleader A-Kai mentioned to me that most of the band’s revenue indeed came from performances, and that, as of 2012, 1976 was still playing live about once a week. To my knowledge, this makes 1976 the most active band in Taiwan.
16 that best represents a common economic reality. This situation might partly explain the usage of the term “indie” that seems to prevail in Taipei. Such is also roughly the sense of this word as it is used in this thesis.
The exclusive objects of interest of this monograph are the musical activities and lives of Taipei’s indie rock band musicians who constitute Taipei’s indie rock scene. By “musical activities”, I am referring to what Berger calls “musical experience”. This “includes the full range of settings where music life is carried out” (Berger 1999: 23), from listening to music at home to performing in a live house, via recording music tracks and socializing in the scene. It must be made clear that this thesis focuses solely on original indie bands that are based in Taipei. Here I am pointing at bands that perform music that they create themselves – which excludes so-called “cover bands” – and whose members live permanently in Taipei, regardless of their city of origin. In addition, this monograph is concerned only with rock bands that fall within the indie category. I did not consider highly popular rock bands that work within the frame of a major Taiwanese label (as mentioned above). Virtually all rock bands in Taiwan can be labeled “indie” – the most notable exception being the famous Taiwanese rock group Mayday (五月天).
This ethnographic discourse is also about band musicians, which refers to local musicians who are part of a music group that operates under a common band name. This means that indie rock singer-songwriters who perform under their personal name (or artist name), for example Deserts Chang (張懸) or Mavis Fan (范曉萱), are excluded from the scope of this thesis, even though they are accompanied onstage live by a full rock band. Another important criterion of demarcation of the present monograph concerns rock music. In the realization of this research, I devoted all my attention to bands that
17 play a style that roughly falls in the verticals of rock and of most of its aesthetic variations, including hard rock, alternative rock, reggae, punk, post-rock, funk, blues- rock, Britpop, nu metal, and electro-rock. Without seeking to draw an absolute line between aesthetic categories, I largely steered away from bands that can be described as predominantly electronic (ex: DJs), heavy metal, jazz, pop, hip-hop, folk and other related types of music (ex: Taiwanese traditional music, as performed by Labor Exchange – 交工樂隊).
I decided to largely exclude single indie singer-songwriters and bands that play styles other than rock from the present research, even though a lot of the information gathered in these pages may also apply to them. This decision results from a personal choice as much as from ethnographic concerns. Although the said bands and artists are a very important part of Taipei’s larger indie domain, these can be said to differ on various aspects from local indie rock bands, especially in terms of instrumental setup (ex: the use of specific instruments), relative place and prospects in the local music market and industry, internal functioning, socio-cultural identification, lifestyle, attitudes, etc. I indeed came to notice that, not only do the experiences and stories of these non-rock indie musicians and singer-songwriters often show significant discrepancies from local indie rockers, but these performers tend to be anchored in different live houses and/or specific circles of bands, fans and promoters than the majority of indie rock bands in Taipei10.
10 While this thesis assumes the existence of an “indie rock scene” in Taipei, one must keep in mind that other “scenes” have formed around other types of music, for instance folk or metal. It goes without saying that these distinctions between “scenes” are convenient but artificial constructions, the purpose of which is ultimately to provide a rough outline for a complex sociocultural phenomenon. In reality, the majority of indie and popular music circles in Taipei are tightly intertwined and overlapping. It is not the goal of this monograph to address in depth this issue.
18 It must be acknowledged that the peculiar context that led to the realization of this research greatly contributed to shaping both its strengths and weaknesses. As hinted in the two previous sections, I was already participating in (and closely observing) Taipei’s indie rock scene when the desire to better understand the life of local rockers drove me to deepen my investigation in the more formal framework of a master’s thesis. My fieldwork was carried out between early 2008 and the summer of 2011, mainly in the natural continuation and intensification of my social life and activities in the local indie music scene. During this formidable journey, I acted as guitarist of local rock band Black Summer Days for about 18 months, participated in the organization of a few music events, attended more than 150 performances (sometimes up to three per week), and loyally frequented the various social hubs of Taipei’s indie rock circles that are the Underworld, the Wall, and the Artist Village (in 2011), as well as several practice rooms and instrument shops. I was very fortunate to be part of an extended circle of friends and acquaintances in Taipei’s indie music scene. Whether at concerts, nights out in bars, private gatherings, or other types of social occasions, I spent countless hours sharing beers, “hanging out” and discussing music and life with a lot of local musicians.
I never hesitated to ask questions, choosing to immerse myself as much as possible in every moment and pay full attention to my interlocutors (i.e. my informants).
For this reason, I preferred to take ethnographic notes only after returning home, and completely ruled out doing so during informal conversations. I conducted 13 in-depth interviews, 8 of which were made in coffee shops and digitally recorded, for a total of 15 hours of discussion. The remaining 5 interviews were conducted in more crowded places (ex: outside a music venue), and I limited myself to taking field notes. Most interviews
19 were made with friends who were kind enough to “do me this favor”11.).
On several occasions, interview meetings were cancelled at the last minute by the informants. I thus realized that persisting in using this method would risk alienating some of my friends and acquaintances in the scene, which would be detrimental to both my academic project and my social life. But I also came to notice that there was a limit to what could be learned through formal interviews. My most precious insights were gathered and confirmed little-by-little, as I met new people in the scene and got closer to some of them. In retrospect, it appears very unlikely that I would have seen and learned so much about the lives of local rockers had I employed a more formal approach.
Besides, I soon understood that a lot of local rockers are men and women of few words.
When asked questions in a somewhat formal context – especially when their interlocutor is a foreigner with whom they are, after all, not that familiar – most of them will provide only a short and commonplace answer (Ex: Q. “Why do you think you like to play in a band?” A. “I don’t know… Because it makes me happy.”). A post on Facebook by one of my key informants illustrates very well this reluctance to justify or make sense of everything in one’s life:
I do some things because I like them. When did this way of thinking start being wrong?
I play music because I like it.
I get up in the morning to watch the NBA because I like it.
I hang out with this bunch of friends because I like it.
I do….[this and that] because I like it.
Do we absolutely have to have a goal when we do these things? Can’t we keep on doing these things simply because we like them?12
All things considered, it seemed more appropriate to collect insights in a more natural
11 Most of these interviews were carried out between 2009 and 2010, in the first stage of the project. A list of my informants has been appended at the end of this thesis.
12 Interviewee A, Facebook post, September 2011.
20 way, by letting the human mechanisms of friendship do their work, while being on the constant lookout for insights that were relevant to my research.
The data collected via participant observation and interviews was then complemented by a substantial amount of information found on the Internet, including music-related websites and personal pages of my contacts on social networks (ex:
Facebook). Given the personal nature of some of the information disclosed in these pages, I deemed it preferable, upon consideration, not to mention any names when quoting or providing examples taken from the discourses and lives of my informants.
A lot of the key in-depth insights that raised my awareness and helped to articulate my understanding of my object of investigation came from the few bands and individual musicians with which I was most familiar. These included Black Summer Days and OverDose; the two bands portrayed in section 3.2 of this thesis. The great majority of these insights were then verified or contrasted on multiple occasions with several other local rockers and observers, so as to acquire a sample that is, to some extent, representative of veteran indie rock musicians in Taipei. Still, it might be useful to reiterate that the sole purpose of this monograph is to provide familiarity with and interpretation of the musical activities and lives of indie rockers in Taipei. I thus invite the reader to consider the information gathered in the following pages with a sound circumspection, and to further pursue his or her own perspective on the subject.
I am fully aware that the modalities of my fieldwork and my personal experience in the scene cannot but imply a series of involuntary focal points, which can rightfully be perceived as so many potential weaknesses of this ethnographic work. For one thing, there is a limit to what one can apprehend of such a vast and complex human
21 phenomenon as an indie rock scene. If I was close to some individuals, bands and circles (ex: bands that usually perform at the Underworld and the Wall), it is undeniable that I was less familiar with other important people and places that compose Taipei’s indie rock scene (ex: more popular bands that are regulars at the two Riverside venues). Also, I must admit that my close social network counted only a few female musicians. This is particularly unfortunate, because some of the most popular and seasoned bands of Taipei’s indie rock scene are fronted by women (ex: Go Chic, White Eyes, B.B. Bomb, Braces, My Skin Against Your Skin). This thesis does, however, include a substantial amount of information and insights gathered from conversations with female rockers.
Besides, it is relevant to think that, apart from a few particularities (ex: the object and extent of parental pressure), much of what can be said about male indie musicians in Taipei also applies to female rockers in Taiwan.
Other potential biases in this thesis most likely result from the fact that the music scene, as well as Taipei’s entire socio-cultural landscape, is in constant evolution, which makes it very difficult for one to keep track of all changes that occur over time. For instance, my understanding of the indie scene and the lives of local rockers took its form between 2008 and 2011 via my involvement and friendly association with a series of veteran indie rockers (born between 1975-1985) who had been active musically for at least 5-8 years. These veteran indie rockers, who can now be said to belong to the “older”
generation (or “前輩”), represent the main focus of my thesis, and it is undeniable that I am somewhat less personally acquainted with the new waves of young indie musicians that have emerged in recent years.
Furthermore, this monograph purposely emphasizes ethnographic data over data
22 analysis and theoretical discussion. I fully agree with Harris Berger, who states that “we [ethnographers of music-related phenomena] must conceptualize our study object as lived experience and interpretation as a partial sharing of meaning” (Berger 1999: 12). In this task, I sought to straddle the fine line between emic and etic accounts (or between insider and outsider perspectives). Without claiming to follow the principles of phenomenology (which encompasses both deeper and larger analytic aims), the interpretation developed in this thesis relies on a sizeable sum of experience-near insights gathered through years of fieldwork and participation in the scene to tell the story of Taipei’s veteran indie rockers. I roughly limited myself to situating the musical activities of local rockers into the context of their lives and socio-cultural environment, and to seeing how the main features of their experiences and approaches to life contrast with the conventional life trajectory of ordinary people in the Taiwanese society. Also, I judged it preferable, out of concerns for simplicity and economy, to not venture deeply into investigation methods like symbolic analysis or hermeneutics. However, further analysis of the data at hand using various approaches from anthropology, sociology, ethnomusicology or even psychology could certainly have proved fruitful for this research.
23 Chapter 2 - A short history of Taipei’s indie rock music scene
2.1 Introduction
Seeing local rock bands performing their own original songs is a fairly recent phenomenon in Taiwan compared with Euro-American countries, where rock first originated in the 1950s. It is not until the 1990s that an original rock music scene emerged in Taipei, as local independent rock bands gained some presence in the local soundscape. Among other factors, the imposition of martial law by the Kuomintang in Taiwan up until 198713, or more concretely, the extremely tight grip they exercised on social and cultural life, was a major factor in the late development of a popular interest in rock music and culture among Taiwanese people. Over the two decades following the lifting of martial law, rock slowly took its place in the imagination and daily life of an increasing number of young Taiwanese people. But general enthusiasm for such music has never really reached the widespread popularity it enjoys in Europe, Japan and the Americas.
In the early 1990’s, an authentic creative rock music scene emerged in Taiwan thanks to a handful of pioneers, mainly young musicians, entrepreneurs, and devoted music lovers. Their individual and group initiatives showed extraordinary resilience, and determined the further development of an original rock scene in the country. One must acknowledge that, all these years, playing in a rock band, regularly attending rock concerts in live houses and investing a significant amount of time in rock musical activities for a sustained period has remained a marginal phenomenon in Taiwan, and this
13 Martial law in the R.O.C. lasted from 1948 to 1987; almost 40 years.
24 even in Taipei, the largest agglomeration and arguably the most cosmopolitan city in the country. To this day, Taipei’s indie rock scene can still be considered substantially – some could even say abnormally – smaller than that of other metropolises of comparable population size around the world14.
Very few formal publications have been dedicated to the historical development of Taipei’s independent rock music scene. A number of theses by local students do include partial treatments of various elements pertaining to the history of the scene.
Unfortunately, most of these accounts appear as either too precise in their focus (for instance by depicting the history of a particular band) or too succinct, general or sometimes even too muddled to represent reliable sources. The three most useful resources I found were the following: first, the work of music enthusiast and prolific blogger Jeph Lo (羅悅全), which includes a series of articles and a precious book entitled
"Secret Bases – A Musical Map of Taipei15 (秘密基地－台北的音樂地圖, 2000) that covers a variety of topics related to Taipei's past and present music culture16. Secondly, the work of Ho Tung-Hung, sociologist and popular music specialist at the Fu Jen Catholic University, who has also been a very active figure in the advancement of indie music in the country, notably through his past involvement with local indie label Crystal Records (水晶唱片), and his current role as co-owner and spokesperson of the Underworld live house in Taipei. Among Ho’s several publications on Taiwanese music, the most
14 There has never really been more than 8 to 10 live houses in Taipei City. In comparison, Tokyo is said to have between 300 and 450 live houses, depending on the definition.
Source: www.japantoday.com/category/arts-culture/view/tokyos-live-house-music-scene-set-to-go-global and 2012, Kyohei Miyairi, The Recitalization of Live Music Scenes in Japan, IAMPS 2012 (presentation).
15 Personal translation in English of the original title in Chinese.
16 A great sum of Lo’s writings are available on his blog at http://jeph.bluecircus.net/.
25 instructive on the history of the local rock music scene is arguably his Ph.D. thesis (in English), entitled The Social Formation of Mandarin Popular Music Industry in Taiwan (2003), which offers detailed insights into the activities of an independent label of the 1980s-1990s as part of a thorough account of the development of the music industry in the country. A third essential resource is the December 2007 edition of the Fountain Arts and Living magazine; a publication funded by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture. Edited by American journalist David Frazier – who has also been an event organizer and explorer of the Taiwanese music scene for several years – this special edition entirely dedicated to Taiwanese popular music consists of a large collection of short profiles of influential Taiwanese music artists of all types (including indie rock), as well as a few historical overviews of the different periods that marked the development of popular music in the country.
I must inform the reader that, in the absence of a systematic and authoritative publication on the subject, the history of Taipei’s indie rock scene remains a formidable puzzle, the multiple pieces of which each interested researcher must patiently stitch together into a necessarily subjective narrative of the past. This is what I have tried to do here. In my case the process was made even more uneasy and venturesome because I am a foreigner who has witnessed only a small piece of this history.
My historical narrative is based partly on the abovementioned resources, but also on dozens of hours of informal conversation with several long-time participants of the scene, some of whom, like Randy Lin (林志堅, veteran rock DJ) and Zhang Xianfeng
(better known as 阿峰, founder of Taipei’s first real indie live house) were important actors in the shaping of the scene. The various fragments of my understanding of the
26 scene’s history were then meticulously verified, complemented and amplified with a vast amount of scattered information found of various music blogs and websites created by venues, bands and fans, as well as in articles taken from major local newspapers. The information at hand may be interpreted in many different ways, or presented so as to support various discourses. I thus encourage the interested reader to go beyond this simplified account and pursue his or her own assessment of the past, which might very well be more accurate than mine. If the reader finds mistakes or missing elements in the following pages, these are to be attributed to my person only, not to my friends and informants who were gracious enough to share their experience and knowledge with me.
It is not my objective to produce a detailed and comprehensive diachronic synthesis of the development of an independent rock music scene in Taiwan. This formidable task should be carried out by someone with capacities, experience and contacts superior to my own. I shall rather limit myself to offering a few factual and interpretative leads to understanding the past of Taipei’s indie rock culture. So doing, I would like to draw the reader’s attention on the fact that Taipei’s indie rock scene is fairly young, and that since their beginning more than 20 years, the activities of local rock bands have remained an exclusively marginal phenomenon in the context of the Taiwanese music industry, mainstream media and public at large. Readers can also consult the two diagrams added at the end of this thesis (Annexes 1 and 2), which outline the history of the main live houses in Taipei, as well as of some of the most important bands, festivals and events that have marked Taiwan’s indie rock scene.
27 2.2 - Taipei’s soundscape from the 1960s to the 1980s
In the two decades that followed the Second World War, the Taiwanese music market was mainly dominated by imported music from Japanese pop artists and local Taiwanese-language (Taiwanese Hokkien or “台灣閩南語”, commonly called “台語” in Taiwan) adaptations of popular Japanese songs. An original Chinese pop music industry would gradually conquer mainstream audiences towards the late 1960s, thanks notably to the emergence of stars like Yao Su-Rong (
姚蘇蓉
) and Teresa Deng (鄧麗君), to the creation of the first television stations (starting from 1962) and to the enforcement of Chinese as Taiwan’s predominant language by the Kuomintang17.Parallel to this, Anglo-American popular music, mainly brought by American soldiers and media stationed in mass on the island in the 1950s and 1960s18, was immediately adopted by successive generations of young Taiwanese people and rapidly gained some prominence in the local soundscape. These forms of western music, from rock and roll in the 1960s, contemporary folk and disco in the 1970s, to rock in the 1980s – all of which were generally referred to as “western popular (hit) music” (西洋熱 門音樂) by the media – appealed to students and youngsters throughout the country via a series of evening programs on mainstream radio stations (both English and Chinese- language stations) airing rock hits from foreign music charts. Also key in the
17 Source: Scheihagen, Eric. Music of the 1950s and 1960s. In Fountain Arts and Living 4 (December): 24- 28. 18A substantial number of US intelligence officers and military personnel (a permanent presence of more than 10 000 active personnel) were based in Taiwan on several sites (including air bases) throughout the country between the escalation of the Korean War in 1951 and the official recognition of the PRC by the US in 1978. Sources: Su Wei-Hsuan (2011) and Wikipedia entry for “Military Assistance Advisory Group”.
28 development of a rock audience in the country was the broad distribution of cheap pirate copies and compilations of popular Anglo-American and Japanese records, all of which were tolerated by authorities due to the R.O.C.’s late imposition of international copyright laws19.
Generally speaking, the adoption of western popular music by local youngsters was considered with suspicion by Taiwanese authorities and older generations, with spontaneous and provocative types of music like rock and disco being deemed decadent and harmful to social order. Repression of self-expression, entertainment, as well as of western and Japanese cultural influences remained omnipresent in Taiwan, even after martial law, with the authorities’ attitude ranging from uneasy tolerance to direct crackdowns on overt identification with alternative (sub)cultures (ex: having long hair during the hippie movement in the late 1960s, or direct censorship of subversive music material)20.
The success of western popular music on local radio stations and the development of a rock music audience among urban youngsters were also accompanied in Taipei by a flourishing Anglophone music scene, anchored in a few clubs and restaurants, where music lovers could go to listen and dance to their favorite western hits performed live by semi-professional bands of both local and foreign origin. Originally stemming from the nightclub scene created in the 1960s and 1970s for the entertainment of American troops based in the country, these establishments soon became an important part of Taipei’s nightlife for both foreign and local music fans21. Also importantly, this “cover” live scene
19 Source: Ho 2005: 78.
20 Source: Ho 2005: 96.
21 Such type of live rock performances are still part of the nightlife in several Taiwanese cities, but the number of establishments offering such events seems to be shrinking rapidly due in part to the massive
