Figure 8b.1 Carsick Cars playing in Underworld, February 8, 2011 (photo by the author)
Underworld and D22
Miaoju Jian
In Asia, small live venues have been given a trendy name, called “Live Houses.” These spaces are vital in providing information about a city’s current live music industry and music scene subculture. They demonstrate a distinctive relationship with urban musical activities in regards to its historical and geographical context. The intimate feeling of being a member of a subculture within local live venues also shows that the music scenes are united with the global rock trend, presenting a more universal and fluid metropolitan music style. The creativity, innovation, and critical power that have evolved from this subcultural commitment, also expresses the venues’ values and style. Their repellence and critical response towards popular culture has even helped advance cultural transformations in the area (Straw 1991; Shank 1994; Hesmondhalgh 2013).
Moreover, observing the complicated political, social, and economic relationship of the live music industry within its social setting elucidates its influence on cultural change (Frith 2013). Music venues have been closely linked to government policy from their very inception. In order to even begin operations, music venues must contend with government policies, including obtaining a business and liquor license, and conforming to noise and safety regulations. Also of importance is the ability to negotiate with the government when acquiring subsidies, as well as taking the necessary steps to avoid undesirable interference. As spaces where performances take place, they also have to manage local musicians, audiences, and handle foreign musicians on tour. The marketing and promotions of a venue have an affect on its ability to turn a profit. Besides, with the rise of global consumerism and visualized urban life, the underground music scenes have to confront the logic of gentrification. Many cultural processes and available spaces that we once associated with music are now taken over by food, drink, cafés, and restaurants (Straw, 2015). In other words, small urban music venues reflect an ongoing relationship of political, social, and economic relationships on a broader scale.
This chapter focuses on two representative cities in the Chinese music scene—Taipei and Beijing—and two legendary music venues established within the past ten years: Underworld (Taipei, 1996–2013) and D22 (Beijing, 2006–2012). They were similar in a number of ways, including having a capacity of 50–200 people and housing low-grade, modest equipment. Although not appreciated by everyone, they paradoxically gained a legendary reputation and respect in the local indie music scenes. The venues did not flourish financially, but their unique atmosphere, music taste, and member’s characteristics made them stand out from all the others.
This examination will explore the emergence, changes, and current state of affairs of the rock music scenes in Taiwan and China over the past twenty years by discussing the important legacy of the two live venues.1 What made them so special in their local rock scene? What did they contribute? How and why did they disappear? Our inquiry will take note of the changing traces of the local music scenes in Taiwan and China within a more globalized pop/indie music environment.
Underworld was founded in August 1996 by a group of young intellectuals who participated in the March Student Movement for democracy in Taiwan in 1990. Named after the movie they loved, “Underground” (1995, Emir Kusturica), Underworld is located on Shida Road, within Da’an district in Taipei. It is a particularly cultured and highbrow area in Taipei, with National Taiwan Normal University (Shida), National Taiwan University, and National Taipei University of Technology encompassing the same area. During 1996–2000 Underworld was more akin to a café or bar, where social activists, young intellectuals, hipsters, hippies, and foreign residents gathered. At that time live performances were not regularly scheduled, and the place was considered a “home” to its frequent visitors. They gave the place an intimate nickname, “hue-shia”(會社), which means a community or a home in Taiwanese. In a corner of hue-shia, there was a bookshelf loaded with literature, novels, and academic books. Experimental theater troupes often borrowed the stage and performed in the afternoon, and lesbians in Taipei also loved to hang out there. As the house DJ show became much more popular, Underworld started to schedule routine live gigs in 1999.
By the early 2000s, Taiwan’s first and second rock generations had already flourished for almost ten years.2 Pioneering bands such as LTK Commune (濁水溪公社) and Groupie (骨肉皮), and the bands that came after them, such as Quarterback (四分衛), the Chairman (董事長), ChthoniC (閃靈), and Mayday (五月天), had all formed their different localized music styles. Whether it was pop rock, punk rock, or black metal, all of the bands’ sounds were highly recognizable with influential lyrics. The expectation coming from the band generation had soon stimulated the whole of society. Respectively, in 1994 and 1999, the great success of the band Wu Bai & China Blue and Mayday reached a new record sales peak for rock bands. Besides major record labels, indie labels were also making records for indie bands.3 One of the shareholders of Underworld, DJ Randy Lin (林志堅), was the manager of the international department of Crystal Records (水晶唱片). He founded Scum Workshop (實幹文化) to produce records for indie bands and then handed distribution details to Crystal Records. These bands included the first Taiwan girl punk band Ladybug (瓢蟲), the post-rock band Sugar Plum Ferry (甜梅號), and the Britpop band 1976. The place where these bands performed most frequently was Underworld. By then the band 1976 was even called the “house band of Underworld.”4 It was these bands that formed Underworld’s gig style back in the early 2000s. It’s worth mentioning that since most live venues in Taipei successively shut down in the 90s (such as Live A-Go-Go, the Growing Land [息壤], Vibe, Scum, Zeitgeist Live House [聖界], etc.), Underworld became an important successive venue for indie bands to perform. The subcultural music scene formed within Underworld had attracted numerous young music fans, and encouraged the third and fourth rock generation to chase their rock ’n’ roll dream and to make their own music.5
The years from 2000 to 2005 represented a glorious time for Underworld. The business was flourishing, with live gigs regularly presented every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. During this period all kinds of bands, whether senior or junior, were performing at Underworld, presenting diverse music styles, such as punk, entertaining, post-punk, acid, electro, experimental, etc., as well as DJ music parties of various interesting themes. For most new bands, Underworld was the most challenging venue. The female lead vocal of the band, Peppermint, said:
It wasn’t easy to get the chance to perform in Underworld … The shareholders are senior music devotees who listened to rock music for over 20 years … The audiences were also senior rock fans, including band members, professional critics, foreigners and artists. These people formed Underworld’s own unique atmosphere, it was not the kind of place that any band could easily take charge.
(Lin 2014)
Many musicians had the same experience of hanging out late in Underworld as an audience, drinking alcohol until sunrise, and then one day, finding themselves forming their own bands. The unique ambiance of Underworld was called “the Underworld tone,” and the people on and off its stage were called “the Underworld gang” (地社掛) (Ho 2015). The sense of belonging that these people had towards Underworld came from their exceptional feelings, experiences, and values they shared with each other in this particular scene. Participants accumulated a wealth of fond memories during this period of time.
After the mid-2000s, Taipei and the ‘upper-class’ environment were experiencing dramatic changes. As local bands flourished in the music market, the Taipei City Government started to throw free New Year’s Eve countdown parties. Rock bands soon became regular performers due to their excellent performance skills, and thereby faded away from their original subcultural scene. Meanwhile, a few small live venues in Taipei started to rename themselves as “Live Houses,” which is a term borrowed from Japan, with the meaning of “vending live shows rather than alcohol.” Underworld, Witch House, Riverside, and The Wall, became the big four live houses in Taipei, and going to a live house had become a new fashionable entertainment option that was generally approved by the middle class.
However, the values of the middle class added new restrictions to these live houses. In 2007, the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) was passed, prohibiting smoking in most indoor areas and public places in Taiwan. Additionally, pushed by public opinion, the National Police Agency also began to enforce strict regulations curbing drunk driving. These new regulations had a pronounced impact on all the music pubs, as cigarettes and alcohol were commonly consumed in pubs and live houses. In the meantime, the Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office was set up in 2004, which took charge of the city’s regeneration, industry revival, and community construction. The Shida night market area, which included Underworld, was originally an educational zone formed of numerous lanes, alleys, and old apartments. In 2011, the area became a place not only where most of the city regeneration cases were targeted, but also a place with the highest housing prices in Taipei. Therefore, urban public spaces were continuously being turned into private properties (Huang 2012). Not only did new residents surge in, the number of stores and shops also increased substantially. Within three to four years, the number of stores had increased from 200 to 700, with housing prices and rents rising unceasingly. The middle-class residents refused to bear their deteriorating living standards and subsequently formed the “Shida Self-Help Assembly” (師大自救會) to push the government to clamp down on illegal stores (Lou 2011). Underworld was designated as one of these stores.
Furthermore, the high youth unemployment and the working poor caused by the global financial crisis in 2008, along with the rise of neoliberalism, was reflected in Underworld’s consumer behavior. Some of Underground’s customers started to feel that spending NT$150 for a bottle of beer was too expensive, and bought beer at convenience stores for NT$30 instead. They often drank their beer in a small park located across from Underworld, and thus became another subcultural scene in this area. These people were called the “Shida Park gang” (師大公 園幫), and they were different from the Underworld gang because they were mostly frustrated young men who resented the current society in which they lived. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s government also tried to assist young people to find a job or start their own business. In 2007, the government began to subsidize band recording, with the aim to help boost the popular music industry in Taiwan. The government also encouraged the development of a local “cultural and creative industry” ( Jian and Zheng 2012). Under the concept of urban regeneration, the city’s discarded spaces became known as public cultural parks. After 2008, many more legal mid-sized live houses were established in the cultural parks with a capacity of 800–1500 people. As a result, when bands reached a certain level of fame, they often skipped Underworld and chose to perform in bigger venues with more professional equipment, such as The Wall or Legacy,6 founded in 2010.
The above-mentioned national environmental and urban gentrifying changes concerning middle-class residents in Taipei set an insurmountable barrier that Underworld failed to overcome. In June 2005, Underworld was inspected by the Taipei City Government. Consequently, band performances were prohibited since its business category was deemed a violation of the law. As The Wall faced the same difficult situation, Underworld then gathered musicians and live house operators and held a “live house legitimation movement.” Initially the government responded positively, and live gigs were back on stage in July 2006. However, the legitimation process was proceeding at a slow pace; regulations from different government departments failed to come to a resolution.
In June 2012, Underworld again received warning notices from the government concerning irregular fire prevention capabilities and a repudiated business category. In July, Underworld made their closing announcement. This time, over 400 musicians and supporters protested in front of the Legislative Yuan, pleading for justice (Chang 2012). Furthermore, Underworld held a two-week goodbye concert and sold souvenirs. Renowned musicians and celebrities, such as Mayday, called for public support and garnered an immense media response. The Minister of Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture, Yingtai Lung (龍應台), promised to assist in solving the problem and Underworld reopened on August 15. However, the problem was never resolved. Underworld was reported and constantly inspected, receiving violation tickets concerning fire prevention, business category, and noise regulation, with fines totaling NT$120 thousand (Chung 2015). Meanwhile, conflicts evolved within the Shida night market area and did not cease, which resulted in stores continuously closing one by one. On June 15, 2013, the landlord of Underworld could not bear the pressure from the Shida Self-Help Assembly and the public, and decided to discontinue the lease. By then, Underworld had formally passed into history, along with the legendary subcultural music scene it represented.
The live music bar, D22, was founded in Wudaokou (the fifth railroad junction, 五道口) in Beijing, with a capacity of up to 200 people. It appeared at a fortuitous time, just before the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, when attention from all over the world was focused on Beijing and China was looking to present an open image to the world. Wudaokou is the main university area of Beijing. It is a place where a considerable number of local and foreign students gather, and where all kinds of subcultural scenes emerge. The founder of D22, Michael Pettis, is a professor of finance at Beijing University, and a financial strategist and author. Before coming to Beijing from the United States in 2002, he was a rock fan who had witnessed the art and avant-garde rock wave that evolved in the East Village in New York in the early 1980s. He discovered a few potential young bands in Beijing’s live scene, and along with managing D22 he also persuaded Yang Hai Song, the frontman of the local band, P.K. 14 to start their own indie label, Maybe Mars (兵馬司), to produce and distribute records for rock bands they favored. The records distributed by Maybe Mars included works from Carsick Cars, Snapline, The Gar (嘎調), and also of senior bands such as Joyside, P.K. 14, and Hang on the Box (掛在盒子上). The opening of D22 was originally intended to support the young bands that Pettis personally loved. After he started Maybe Mars, Pettis was even keener to promote the bands in the global market. Maybe Mars bands recorded their albums in Europe or in America, and they also toured bands on their label in the United States, Europe, and China. Pettis and the American sponsors invested US$3 million, and were eager to promote these emerging Chinese indie bands outside of China. D22 soon gained popularity for its open, free, noisy, and experimental music style. The collection album that Maybe Mars released annually, Voice of Young China (青年中國之聲), attracted media attention from China and the international media. During 2006–2012, under the “rising China” atmosphere, D22 and Maybe Mars soon cultivated a fresh Chinese rock wave that appealed to a massive populace (Roberts 2009; Gluckman 2012; Cornell 2011).
Despite these efforts, to those who were part of the 90s underground rock scene in China, D22 was not that important. The underground music scene in Beijing had flourished for over ten years before D22 was founded. Top rock stars arose in the 80s, and were people from China’s first rock generation. These rock stars include Cui Jian (崔健), Liu Yuan (劉元), the band ADO, and rock musicians Tang Dynasty (唐朝樂隊), and “the three idols of Magic Stone” (魔岩三傑): Dou Wei (竇唯), Zhang Chu (張楚), and He Yong (何勇). These rock stars gained huge success across the country, and inspired numerous future rock bands and audiences in China. However, they had nothing to do with the rock music that emerged from the small live venues. There were no live venues in Beijing in the early 90s, as the only place that both art activities and rock performances might appear was a foreign-owned French restaurant called Maxim’s (馬克西姆餐廳).
In the mid-to-late 90s, the concept of rock music in China began to diversify. To the mass audiences, rock had become a fringe and alternative culture label (Sun 2012). This is also the time that all types of small live venues emerged in Beijing. Several representative venues started their businesses in the Wudaokou area, such as bars like the Second Dream (亞夢), Busy Bee (忙蜂), and disco pubs Live in Rhine (萊茵河聲場) and Nasa Disco. By that time Modern Sky, an indie music label founded by Shen Lihui (沈黎暉), the lead vocal of the band Sober (清醒樂隊), had started. Modern Sky released works by Sober, New Pants (新褲子), the CIR (麥田守望者), the Flowers (花兒樂隊), and Supermarket (超級市場), under a project named “New Sound in Beijing” (北京新聲). These bands dressed in trendy styles, with music that merged with all types of alternative music popular in the Western world. They represented a more modern and international music style, which included pop rock, post punk, and electro, and was totally different from the former Chinese rock style led by rock stars like Cui Jian and metal rock circles. They soon became a new group of idols worshipped by hipsters and young rock fans.
Around 1997, musicians and artists from other places in China gathered in villages located in northern Beijing, such as Shu Cun (tree village, 樹村) and Dong Bei Wong (東北旺). These bands included Muma (木馬), Tongue (舌頭), SMZB (生命之餅), P.K. 14, Yaksa (夜叉), and Zuoxiao Zuzhou (左小祖咒), as they all explored a unique music style of post punk and noise while living an impoverished life. This variety of bands and musicians often played together in venues like Busy Bee, Scream Club, and Happy Paradise (開心樂園). Among the venues, Scream Club, founded in 1998, was the base camp of the Beijing punk scene. An Italian student, Tina, even started a bilingual fanzine called “Bored Army” (無聊軍隊), to introduce the Beijing punk bands in both Chinese and English. The words “bored army” was a reference to bands including Brain Failure (腦濁), Reflector (反光鏡), 69, and Anarchic Boys (無政府男孩).7 Also, folk bands and musicians often gathered in the famous folk bar, the River (河酒吧), in San Li Tun (三里屯). Artists including Wild Children (野孩子), Xiao He (小河), and Zhou Yun Peng (周云蓬), all surged towards a folk music renaissance movement in China.
The live bars in the Wudaokou area were almost the center of China’s underground rock music during 1996–2006. However, with the exception of a few rock magazines, they were hardly reported on by the Chinese media. Although they played a key role in developing modern indie rock, for most audiences these rock scenes remained mysterious and underground.
The year 2006 was crucial for Beijing’s indie rock scene. Under the driving force of the Olympic economy, a few spacious live houses appeared in the city. Among them, Star Live (星光現場), a mid-scale venue with RMB20 million investment and a capacity of 1200 people; Yugong Yishan (愚公移山), and MAO Live House (founded in 2007, with investments from Japanese sponsors), are also mid-scale venues with a capacity of 300–800 people. These venues were all equipped with better hardware and situated in better locations. Therefore, watching live performances became a favored nightlife activity, or even a consistent pursuit for music or art fans. As live houses in Beijing had become much more fashionable, commercialized, and professionalized, the uniqueness of D22 remained in its inattention to commercialization. The goal of D22 had always been to maintain its singular music character by creating an unusual music scene. As its owner Pettis puts it: “We don’t create profit, we create history” (Liu 2010).
The unique music style of D22 came from several bands of the newer generation, who participated in a movement called “No Beijing” held in 2005. These bands included Carsick Cars, Hedgehog (刺蝟), Queen Sea Big Shark (后海大鯊魚), and the Gar, and resembled the underground music scene in New York in the 70s. Not only did they imitate New York’s No Wave Movement, but they also acted differently than their “New Sound in Beijing” rock predecessors. Under their fresh slogan, they successfully created a new music crusade that emphasized their intention. Their songs were mostly written in English, with different music styles of noise, experimental, and post-rock. When audiences heard their music for the first time, most of them could not tell if it was a Chinese or foreign band. Even so, the two Chinese-written songs in Carsick Cars’ debut album, “Zhong Nan Hai” (中南海) and “Guang Chang” (廣場), were appreciated by most young rock fans who were later labeled the “Zhong Nan Hai generation” (中南海一代). This generation referred to a group of newly born audiences that were younger, more modern, and more particular about their quality of life (Erdong 2014). They no longer listened to Dakou CDs (打口帶) (De Kloet 2010), but chose the Internet and English-speaking social networks instead, to gain a more globalized, modernized, and diverse music palette.
Another special feature of D22 was “Zooming Night” (燥眠夜),8 the experimental gig regularly held every Tuesday since 2009. The gig’s organizer, Zhu Wen Bo (朱 文博), was a member of an experimental band and recruited by Pettis to plan a recurring show. Tickets to Zooming Night were often free, or at a low price of no more than 30 RMB. Zhu and some foreign musicians largely took charge of the show’s arrangements, reflecting a more globalized indie/experimental music environment, attracting smaller, and discriminating audiences.
As Maybe Mars continually succumbed to yearly financial losses, D22 finally yielded a profit in its last year. Most performances were sold out, the venue continued until the lease expired in January 2012. Maybe Mars found a new venue in Beijing’s city center in May, near the Drum Tower (鼓樓). The new live house was called “XP,” and was closer to the South Gong and Drum Lane (南鑼鼓巷) area, where most emerging live houses were gathering. However, in Pettis’ view, the key to D22’s success was Zooming Night. Therefore, the music style XP presented was even more experimental and moved beyond the general collective imagination of rock music. Despite the creative triumphs, XP faced problems of frequently changing staff and disappointing ticket sales, resulting in more serious financial losses.
At this same time the music scene in China was changing. When D22 closed, the Chinese culture critic, Mu Qian (穆謙), had made a prophetic comment: D22 was an investment “without a chance to encore.” D22 was not a commercial operation and not a financial success; the bands it promoted garnered attention in select circles, but were still far from “being famous around the world.” Moreover, they often reminded the audience of Western artists, whether by the band’s name, the song lyrics, or their music style. Mu further commented that it seemed like D22 was a self-satisfying Utopia of a little group of musicians. “But Beijing is not like New York, if there really is a rock market in China, it should be different from which it is in America… I hope China’s rock market could be more localized” (Mu 2012). However, Mu’s perspective, and those alike, can’t dissolve the significance of D22. As China gathers attention from all over the world, what D22’s and Maybe Mars’ music styles represented was the most ambitious of China’s indie scene in the twenty-first century. Most young musicians discovered by Maybe Mars worked with foreign producers and toured abroad. Not only were they welcomed and praised in the international market (Sheehan 2014; Zaillian 2015), but China’s new generation of elite music fans also showed their support (Erdong 2014). This made D22 unequivocally unique and representative.
Moreover, the live music scene in China was no longer considered as a subcultural, underground economy, but rather began to industrialize. The altering environment brought stress to both D22 and XP. In 2008, Modern Sky had become a major player in the local music industry, and the biggest indie label in China—holding music festivals and hosting live performances of up to two hundred times per year. Live music in China was then coming to be distinguished by three different-scaled industries: performances in small live houses, in mid-sized theaters with a capacity of 2,000 people, and in large music stadiums and festivals that could hold over 10,000 spectators (Guo 2009). As more foreigners began investing in music festivals and live venues, China’s government set more regulations to control the industry.
From its inception in 2014, XP had been inspected by the Beijing government. Since it was not a legal performing venue, ticket sales were banned and monitored by the government. As a result XP went deeper underground, with their show’s information spreading throughout a certain group of people. In early 2015, they stopped updating news on their website, and turned to WeChat to send direct, private messages via these select groups. In June 2015, XP announced it was shutting down in early July (Feola 2015). As Maybe Mars was winding down its live business, the company recruited Yang Hai Song from P.K. 14 as CEO, to reorganize the company and focus on maintaining the professional quality the music label was celebrated for.
Underworld and D22 were respected as legendary stalwarts of the music scenes in Taipei and Beijing. The music styles they presented were both alternative, experimental, and were only attractive to certain audiences. The participants in these two scenes were not lacking in renowned musicians and fans with distinctive characteristics. Naturally, when it comes to rock, as in less advanced countries, these venues were often praised as their local CBGB. The audiences and musicians often recalled the good times and had fond memories of had happened to them in the scene. This feeling of belonging made these venues the “home” or “classroom” of the participants, rather than a business place. Meanwhile, as they gathered the most emerging bands with fringe music styles, both venues released collective live albums. These included “Welcome to the Underworld Live Recording” 《歡迎來到地下社會現場合輯》, 2010), “Let’s Make a compilation CD about Underworld” 《來作一張地社合輯吧！》, 2012), and “Welcome to the Underworld Vol. 2” 《歡迎來到地下社會vol. 2》, 2013), released by Underworld; and “Zoomin’ Night Live Recording Vol. 1” 《燥眠夜－現場錄音第一輯》, 2010), and “The XP Sound” 《小萍之聲》, 2014), released by D22 and XP. These live recording albums are the key to understanding the specific indie music style of these two cities in 2010. They are also an important historic document worthy of preserving. When bands from the two cities visited each other’s country, Underworld and D22 were the places where foreign bands loved to perform and hangout (Figure 8b.1).
Figure 8b.1 Carsick Cars playing in Underworld, February 8, 2011 (photo by the author)
The two venues faced the same difficult situations, especially in the way they ran their business and adjusted to the changing environment, including survival under urban regeneration laws and other regulations. As urban live scenes, although these non-profit venues were able to incubate the music style they appreciated, they also showed a tragic side to their urban indie culture role. These legendary scenes rarely gained any interest from the music industry or critics, due to their incompetence or disinterest in making a profit. Without a promising business strategy, these unique yet scarce scenes easily turned into closed circles as time accrued. Meanwhile, as live venues became a more popular urban entertainment activity, the strict and institutionalized regulations became much harder to follow by these smaller grassroots venues. Nor would they be able to compete with better-quality venues that had more investments and resources.
Despite the shared difficulties, due to the differences of the music environment in the two locales, the destinies of the two venues were not the same. What Underworld faced was a rise of the local live house industry, in which unique venues were being replaced by larger, government-endorsed venues. Additionally, operating solely as a music venue without any affiliated music businesses, Underworld was doomed to fail, ultimately becoming a historical display object in music/art exhibitions (Lo 2014). D22 and XP were different from Underworld. Under the emergent local trend of online music sites and the live music market, they too, were closed. Maybe Mars transformed to focus on its own label business instead and recruited one of its co-founders, Yang Hai Song, as CEO. Yang restructured the label’s copyright resources, and concentrated on scouting for new talented musicians and music works. In other words, although Underworld and D22 showed two similar trends of the music industry in their particular social context, they still manifested two distinct music subjectivities. Without a profitable operations strategy, live venues could hardly survive, however, values of the musicians and their music would remain significant in many other ways.
Certainly, notable people and unusual stories always abound in these legendary places. However, is it precisely the uniqueness and exclusionism that these places engender that make their participants easy targets for attack? For example, Underworld was criticized as “not favored by every band” (Yeh 2014). Similarly, D22 was deemed narrow and elitist, and far from the social reality of China. Underworld was like an underground tunnel, digging deeper and deeper; D22 was like a kite, flying higher and higher—both unreachable to broader audiences. Although the two venues weren’t concerned with the opinions of outsiders, the unitedness of these indie communities was surely under challenge as living conditions became inflexible. The one thing that remains constant is that the development of a live venue is always in flux. The end of legendary scenes is inevitable, as new emergent energy is lying restlessly just below the surface. Following the pace of gentrification, the lively subcultural scenes were forced to vaporize as a legendary history. After all, an ongoing music making process, rather than a ‘scenic’ venue itself, might be a sustainable music subjectivity to survive in the process.
1 My observation of these two music scenes is based on research conducted during 2010–2015, which includes continuous field observations, interviews with musicians and key persons, and relative document materials. In 2015 I interviewed notable operators in the music scene including Tunghung Ho (何東洪) and Showyao Yao (小搖/姚良彥); the vocal and guitarist of the band 88 Guava Seeds, Jon Balaz (阿強), who had the experience of performing both in Underworld and D-22; the key participants of D22 and Maybe Mars, musician Yang Hai Song (楊海崧) and Zhu Wen Bo (朱文博); and renowned music critic, musician and experimental music show planner Yan Jun (顏峻).
2 Here, the specification of different rock generations in Taiwan is based on the general understanding of the scene, rather than having a precise definition. I use the word generation to depict the developing history of the bands, which acted actively in the indie rock subcultural scene in Taiwan in the late 80s and early 90s. There were several bands who were scouted by major music labels and entered the mainstream music market, for example Wubai & China Blue and May Day. The first and second generations are the “underground” bands that were active during 1990–2000. The third and fourth generations are the “indie” bands that were active during 2000–2010. From the first generation to the fourth takes approximately two decades. After 2010, the term generation is rarely used not only because there are a very large number of bands, but also because the boundary between mainstream and indie is rather obscure.
3 For example, records of 88 Balaz, Won Fu, Tizzy Bac, Peppermint, and Nipples, were produced and distributed by indie labels such as Taiwan Colors Music (角頭音樂), Wonder Music (彎的音樂), and White Rabbit Records (小白兔唱片).
4 The band 1976 wrote a song about Underworld in 2009 (using Underworld as a song title) to describe how Underworld became a special locale for fringe musicians and audiences with the same poetic taste to meet and give encouragement to each other.
5 For example, the band Chasing Sparrow (追麻雀), Fall of This Corner (一隅之秋), Angry Y oung Man (生氣的年輕人), and bands involved in the post-punk scene in Taipei after 2008, such as TOUMING MAGAZINE (透明雜誌), Wayne’s So Sad (傷心欲絕), Hang In The Air (盪在空中), Sleaze (湯湯水水), etc. These emerging rock bands were inspired by Nirvana, and other monolithic Western alternative rock bands such as Fugazi and Superchunk. They also worshiped senior bands in Taiwan, and were influenced by indie music from Japan. Their music style is fused with Taiwanese, Japanese, and Western rock styles.
6 Legacy is a live venue that can be found in Huashan 1914 Creative Park in Taipei, run by Street Voice (中子文化), an emergent music group that regularly holds music festivals and owns its own online music site.
7 In the collection album released by Scream Records, there were two songs called “The Bored Army” and “The Scream Club.” The song titles and their lyrics were all referring to the anarchist ideology of themselves: “Come and enjoy the boredom! Come and join the Bored Army” / “I want to go to a place called the Scream Club, to sing, to dance, to laugh, to make noise!” The Chinese researcher Sun Yi believed that the group followed the idea of the British punk culture and the American beat generation, and constructed the Scream Club as the Utopia of their youth life (Sun 2012).
8 “Zooming Night” is an early song of the iconic local band, P.K. 14, admired by this new generation of musicians.
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