Our self-titled album is now officially out, and we had a party/show last Saturday night to celebrate at the Huashan Culture Park on Zhongxiao East Road. Sandman, who started drinking early to keep up with his usual pre-show nerves, and I got there around 3pm, though we were supposed to get there at 2 to start setting up. I busied myself putting up pictures (oddly enough we’d run out of posters; I had to draw a sign for the door downstairs) while Robyn directed the entire operation with exceptional speed and efficiency. After a while we did what we could during the sound check to make the harsh acoustics of the place a tad more acceptable to the human ear.

Before we knew it, it was 6:30, and guests began arriving. We’d been featured in the newspapers and other media, and the place, an elegant hall on the second floor, filled up quickly. Almost as quickly, the food provided by Alleycats and Sababa vanished. It was a strange situation for me, socially speaking, as there were so many people in the room that, under normal circumstances, I could have chatted with any of them individually all night, but instead I had to keep excusing myself and doing more mingling. The replacement pizza smelled wonderful, but it was for guests, not the band, and we’d feasted on biandangs earlier anyway.

Soon it was almost time to go on, so we all made our way back to the green room, where there was a nice smoking balcony attached, and got ready to go on. Upon The Appointed Hour, David opened the door to the stage, and we all hesitated, staring at the open door, and the stage and people beyond. I think we could all feel what it meant, those few steps. Sandman was the first through the door, and I followed, the rest of the band behind me. The crowd erupted as we strode onto the stage, with a degree of emotion that I’d never encountered before in my career as a Rambler. There were there to see us, and we were there to make them happy.

“I’ve been wanting to say this for the longest time,” David announced to the audience. “This is the first song from our NEW ALBUM!” We began playing through the songs of the album, in the same order, more or less. Hundreds of people were stuffed into the room, and most of them ended up dancing, and many whooping as well. Several little kids banged on their small plastic chairs to the music just below the stage. At one point there was a minor confusion over the key of a certain song, but the crowd didn’t seem to notice.

Seventeen songs went by in a flash, and it was over. We put our instruments away and chatted with people before they left, all of us high from the show and just being able to hold the album in our hands, the finished product of so many months of effort. It was almost sad in a way, being the end of an exciting, fun and rewarding period for all of us, even though it was also a beginning of sorts.

Later on we piled everything into cabs and went over to Bobwundaye to continue the celebration, which lasted into the wee hours of Sunday morning. I accompanied Jason Green for a few tunes on Charles’ surprisingly sweet Jupiter trumpet, which he got for a song, and didn’t have too much to drink.

One by one, the band left. Thumper disappeared, Sandman and Jojo went home, and David exited to cheers. Eventually, Slim and I also bade Conor and the others farewell and hopped in a taxi back to Xindian, our work done, at least for now.

Saturday was a full day. I was late again meeting Sandman down at the 7-Eleven, but we eventually caught a cab to the corner of Renai and Jianguo, where the annual Dream Community Parade was forming. Traffic was blocked up, and the street was lined with floats. We found David, Slim, Conor and Thumper gathered around a large pig-shaped float that was supposed to be ours, but it turned out to be a mix-up. The pig was for BoPoMoFo. Ours was actually more of a “court jester” themed float, and much smaller. Two banners with the indecipherable “Planet Alasida” written on them flanked the small truck, and a little painted guy wearing only a blue loincloth was fussing around on top the cab, which had a railing. He seemed pretty well-endowed, and we stood at a distance, wondering if he had added anything down there. It was at this point that we should have realized what he was planning.

We walked up and down the line of floats a bit. Kids on stilts wobbled up and down the road. Two guys dressed in upside-down clothing staggered around pretending like they were walking on their hands. David and I did an impromptu guitar-and-bass piece; I shredded the colorful pencil I’d been using as a pick, so I prowled the offices of the elementary school looking for something to replace it. Hopefully nobody will notice the absence of a blue pen from their table.

Back outside, Thumper was letting some kids play his washboard, but suddenly the parade was starting up and we all jumped up on the truck just as it started off. The painted guy stood on the cab dancing and waving a flag. We moved slowly along Renai Road, following a group of Jedi knights, while a large goldfish followed behind. Periodically bubbles and smoke would emit from the goldfish, which made us wonder if there were some kind of party going on inside.

The weather cleared up as we played. I was standing against the ladder on the cab, facing the back of the truck. At one point I looked up to see David, Slim and Sandman staring aghast at something behind me, and I turned around to see that the painted guy had taken off his loincloth and was dancing, buck naked except for his “extension”, to our music. We kept playing, however. There seemed nothing else to do at that point. The people standing by the side of the road watching us giggled into their hands in embarrasment, or pointed and stared, for once not at us. We drove by a group of policemen who seemed to wonder if they should do something, but didn’t. This being Taiwan, we didn’t encounter any Puritan-style Outrage or shocked hands over children’s faces.

We continued down Renai, past a plethora of brand new luxury high-rises. We played “Reefer Man” but substituting “Naked Man” for the title character. “Have you ever seen that funny naked man?” David would sing, and we would all answer “Naked man!” while pointing at the oblivious subject of our commentary waving his flag on the top of the truck.

Eventually another man, who was painted purple from head to toe and sported angel wings and a fig leaf like some giant heaven-sent grape, ran up and had a conversation with the naked guy, who then put his loincloth back on. I’m guessing the police had words with the grape guy and sent a message through him. Afterwards, people began to look more at us than the painted guy, and we were finally able to concentrate on making music without distractions. A couple of times we passed a woman on the side announcing what each float was. “And the next float is….Planet Alasida! They use….uh, what the….kitchen implements! Let’s give them a hand!”

The sun went down as we approached the presidential palace, where a large stage had been set up. We continued to play even after the truck had stopped, as there was an audience of people listening to us. I was tired after a couple of hours balancing on one foot on a moving truck, though, and was glad when we finally stopped. We gathered up our stuff and got down to look at the other groups. Thumper went backstage and got himself a picture of himself with Mayor Hau, while Sandman went to gawk at the Brazilian dance groups. He came back with a small flower for his hat.

We decided to go to California Grill for hamburgers before adjourning to Da-an Park to watch the gypsy show, but although Slim and I ended up there, the others gave us the slip and went to the Italian Job instead. Later, Thumper joined us at the park, but we didn’t go watch the gypsies; instead we laid on the grass and chatted while looking at the stars.

At around 10pm we caught a cab over to Bliss, where we were playing a farewell show for our friend Chris. We got two free drinks, and the rum cokes perked me up a bit after a long day. A very blonde woman named Karen was taking money at the stairwell, but there weren’t that many people, which wasn’t too bad as Bliss can become very uncomfortable with too many people. Occasionally the whole building would sway a bit, a feeling Thumper and I attributed to the nearby subway construction.

The show went well, though it was difficult at times to make ourselves heard over Karen’s fascinating stories concerning her textbooks. We played two sets and called it a day. Charles borrowed my euphonium for a bit, but Sandman wanted to go home. I was bushed as well, so we packed up and caught a cab back to Bitan.

(Due to some complaints about the readability of this site, I’ve made the text slightly darker. Let me know if it’s too dark or if you any better ideas.)

I went to see Ratatouille on Friday after work, having forgotten that Prince Roy was going to see The Simpsons Movie until the last minute. It was the best movie I’ve seen in a while, and refreshing after so many sequels (the evil food critic was particularly good, voiced by Peter O’Toole). They also managed the dicey job of telling the story from two different points of view. As for the sequels: Spider-man 3 made me embarrassed for Sam Raimi (we just watched Peter Parker deal successfully with Great Power, and now suddenly he can’t? Huh?), Shrek the Third, while funny, was not up to the standards of the first two movies, and Harry Potter 5 seemed thin on plot and character in comparison with its predecessors, and the Chinese translation of the title mistranslated “order” as the kind you give instead of a group. Die Hard 4.0, while pretty good especially considering how long it’s been since Bruce Willis began the series, sometimes felt like a long Nokia advertisement. I was also disappointed that they didn’t get a single Mac/PC joke in Justin Long’s dialog.

Last week I also saw I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, the Chinese title of which is quite clever in that it copies a children’s song “When We’re Together” but includes the Chinese word for “fake” which, read in Minnan, is pronounced “gay”. Chinese title-related cleverness aside, it’s pretty much a typical Adam Sandler movie, with the usual stereotypes thrown in. The movie lost me when Ving Rhames adopts a lisp.

As an aside, is it just me, or is IMDB letting anyone post anything (in English at least) to their database now? It used to be that an IMDB listing denoted a certain level of professional filmmaking, but more and more I’m seeing cheap porn and student projects listed as well. It may be only a matter of time before they start listing Youtube videos. This is all sour grapes, of course, because they refuse to list Clay Soldiers because the documents proving it was aired multiple times nationwide are in Chinese. Heaven forfend a film is made in another country and includes, god help us, another language. Not entirely cricket, you know.

The weather’s been cool and rainy-ish ever since the duel tropical storms departed our fair island last week. We hammered out the last of the recordings for the long-awaited Muddy Basin Ramblers album over the weekend, practicing at the Sandcastle on Saturday and then getting the last three songs in the can at my place this afternoon and tonight. I managed to turn in a passable performance, all things considered. The final mixing will tell, of course. Sandman managed to refrain from trashing my place too badly, and we took some commemorative pictures afterwards. I’m going to miss these sessions; it’s always fun having a few good friends over to hang out and make some music. The session was followed by much rejoicing and a slightly drunken waltz, accompanied by singing, down to Rendezvous Pizza for a last meal before they tear the place down in the name of Progress. The owner appeared a bit sad about the whole affair, and told us she hoped that they would eventually be allowed back at that location instead of being condemned to the crowded street behind them. We hope so, too.

The rest of the weekend has been spent tidying up before practices, tidying up afterwards, film editing, tai-chi practice and taking pictures of El Mono Severo, who made a visit yesterday but had trouble moving my old, mildewed, concave mattress downstairs due to logistical issues involving elevatorial dimensions as well as a general lack of motivation. I’d given the “memory foam” mattress a fair shake, but after over a month I still wasn’t quite comfortable, so I sold it to a friend and bought a standard Ikea mattress to sleep on instead. Slim vowed to post El Mono Severo posters in odd locations all over the Taipei basin, but we’ll see if remembers his pledge in the morning, when tonight’s events are not quite as tangible. David thinks I should do an action comic series about El Mono Severo, with the Mattress Conundrum as Episode One. I have to say I am tempted. And that mattress isn’t going to move itself.

In order to make up for having an extra day off last week for Dragon Boat Festival, we only had a one-day weekend this week. After a rough night trying to break in a new mattress, I gave up on sleeping late and set out on a hike up the hill out back and back down to the community on the other side. On weekdays the sound of the cicadas is only broken by the sound of housework within the various apartments, but on Sunday more people were out and about, kids on bikes, repairmen, and one guy selling incense door-to-door. I took some pictures of leaves in ponds, squinting at the monitor in the sunlight, before heading back up the hill. As I descended, I wondered what it would be like if I somehow found myself back at the time of the amusement park’s heyday in the 70’s. My building wouldn’t be there, for one thing. My money would be no good, nor my current ID. The subway wouldn’t exist, but I might be able to take the train back to downtown Taipei. If Back to the Future were filmed today, Marty would go back to 1977. Imagine that.

Back home, a dip in our cool, little-used swimming pool awaited. After lunch I tried another nap on the new mattress, but it wasn’t having any of it. I’m hoping I’ll get used to it soon, as I miss my old mattress when I’m trying to get to sleep.

The Ramblers, minus Sandman who sadly had to work even on Sunday, were getting together for a practice session down by the waterfront in Bitan, starting in the late afternoon. On my way across the crowded bridge, washtub in hand and marveling at the number of swanboats in the river below, I ran into David Reid, who recently moved down here. He was just walking around taking pictures, and decided to come along to the practice.

David Chen was waiting on the steps by the river with his guitar. A few minutes later Slim and Thumper sidled up. The afternoon was as perfect as you could ask for, with a cool breeze and interesting, non-threatening clouds dotting the sky. My college roomie DJ showed up, fresh from the old movie exhibit in Xin Beitou, looking extremely tired. Maestro Chen began strumming his National, and we fell into music the way we usually do. Conor showed up in the middle of a song, and David inserted a verse about how Conor is always late. We were playing in a kind of circle, with David, Slim and Conor on the steps, and me and occasionally Thumper facing them. At one point I looked behind me to find that we’d attracted a small crowd of listeners. Our practice had turned into a concert.

We played a few crowd-pleasers, and then continued practicing, but the crowd remained. We even learned and played a couple of new songs that David taught us right then and there, and they still enjoyed it. Some even danced.

The evening deepened as the sun set behind the hills. Gradually we scaled down the music until the crowd was mostly gone. DJ and David Reid had to go, as did Thumper, so we sat on the riverbank chatting for a bit longer before going up to Rendezvous Pizza for dinner. On our way there, we passed a group of musicians playing at another restaurant, a guitar, some bongo drums and a wicked flute player who really got into the Nakashi-type songs they were ripping through.

We got a table looking out over the river and ordered pizza, pesto, risotto, beer and wine. The moon illuminated spider webs of clouds in the night sky, and the swanboat lights twinkled like stars in the river. We were in the middle of our food when the Nakashi band guys came over and set up at the table next to us. This time they had two flutists and really went to town on the music. David grabbed his guitar and asked if he could play along, and I got my pocket trumpet out and tried to follow along as well. It was difficult, especially considering that they were all about a quarter step south of us, tuning-wise, but I liked the challenge. All I had to do was pull out my tuning slide and figure out the key.

We played on. Conor had to leave, and then David followed. Slim, who was rather inebriated by the time, and I sat at the other band’s table and played or sang along as best as we could late into the night. We also chatted with them and the restaurant staff in a mixture of Taiwanese and Mandarin. I left Slim singing and rapping and chortling along with every English-language hit the guitar player could think of when I left at around midnight to pursue an ultimately fruitless quest for a good night’s sleep on my new bed.

“It’s raining,” I said on the phone to David, who was still entwined in the subway system on his way to Bitan. We’d promised Athula, the Sri Lankan rotti-provider and patron saint of the Muddy Basin Ramblers, that we’d perform on the street in front of his stand as part of the Taiwan Beer Festival on Saturday night. But all I could see from my balcony as dusk fell was sheets of rain. Still, I got my things together, just in case.

20 minutes later the rain had stopped, so I stuffed my pocket trumpet in my backpack and lugged the euphonium and the washtub bass components down the wet street and over the bridge, meeting my neighbor Brent and his wife on the way. The bridge was full of people, and I wondered if it might not be a good idea to have a sign saying “Do you know why you’re crossing this bridge?” on the Xindian side, as most people just cross the bridge and turn back. The strollers I can understand, but it’s the people who seem to be in a hurry to cross, glance at the other side, and then rush back that confuse me.

Xindian Street was full of people and pavilions selling various products under a curtain of Taiwan Beer ads, and Athula was doing his usual roaring business. We set up in the middle of the street. Just our appearance, with all of the unusual instruments, attracted a lot of people, but once we started the show we gathered up quite a crowd. They were in a festive mood, too, applauding and yelling in appreciation. It seemed that everyone had some kind of recording device running. Several people brought cups of herbal jelly tea for us all to drink through thick straws. Sandman’s dog Balu trotted around the area following up interesting smells.

The rain started in again, and we moved under one of the awnings nearby. The acoustics there were a little better, but there wasn’t enough room for much of a crowd. As soon as it stopped, we moved back out into the middle of the street. We played nearly every song that involved the euphonium, which tired me out and left my trumpet performance lacking, but I managed anyway. At one point Thumper invited a small boy in a striped shirt to play the bells on his washboard, and the kid really took a shine to it; the look on his face was priceless.

We played the Taiwan Song, which David said was meant for just such an occasion. After another song I had just put away my trumpet and returned to find a spectator playing the washtub bass with a rather confused yet determined look on his face. He used so much force that he broke the pencil I’d been using to pluck the string in half. I let him play and retrieved my trumpet to play along instead.

We were halfway through Work Song when the downpour started. Big, heavy drops began splattering down, and around us a host of umbrellas went up. Slim slipped his hat over Conor’s amp to keep it from electrocuting anyone. By the time we finished it was pouring rain. I slipped the washtub over my head and gathered up my trumpet and the euphonium, which had tumbled to the pavement when Jojo had mistakenly picked up the unfastened case, and ran back over to the awning for shelter.

It was 10pm, and the pavilions were beginning to pack up. We stood around chatting with local denizens, politely declining invitations to play again on other nights. I pinched the straw of my herbal jelly tea, trying to filter out the jelly part, but to no avail. In the meantime, some of the foreigners in the crowd were getting pretty drunk. One guy fell off his motorcycle, breaking a part off of it.

The rain stopped again. By the point, traffic was being allowed through again, and a cavalcade of little blue trucks approached to take away the pavilions. We weren’t quite finished, however. We set up again and played some quieter songs for a while before the police showed up, as we knew they would. More chatting and milling around ensued before Thumper and I whisked Slim away from his complicated social life, down to the dragonboat platform erected on the edge of the river, which was covered in beautiful fog. There, we chatted and drank until the wee hours. It was a nice evening.

“It’s raining,” I said on the phone to David, who was still entwined in the subway system on his way to Bitan. We’d promised Athula, the Sri Lankan rotti-provider and patron saint of the Muddy Basin Ramblers, that we’d perform on the street in front of his stand as part of the Taiwan Beer Festival on Saturday night. But all I could see from my balcony as dusk fell was sheets of rain. Still, I got my things together, just in case.

20 minutes later the rain had stopped, so I stuffed my pocket trumpet in my backpack and lugged the euphonium and the washtub bass components down the wet street and over the bridge, meeting my neighbor Brent and his wife on the way. The bridge was full of people, and I wondered if it might not be a good idea to have a sign saying “Do you know why you’re crossing this bridge?” on the Xindian side, as most people just cross the bridge and turn back. The strollers I can understand, but it’s the people who seem to be in a hurry to cross, glance at the other side, and then rush back that confuse me.

Xindian Street was full of people and pavilions selling various products under a curtain of Taiwan Beer ads, and Athula was doing his usual roaring business. We set up in the middle of the street. Just our appearance, with all of the unusual instruments, attracted a lot of people, but once we started the show we gathered up quite a crowd. They were in a festive mood, too, applauding and yelling in appreciation. It seemed that everyone had some kind of recording device running. Several people brought cups of herbal jelly tea for us all to drink through thick straws. Sandman’s dog Balu trotted around the area following up interesting smells.

The rain started in again, and we moved under one of the awnings nearby. The acoustics there were a little better, but there wasn’t enough room for much of a crowd. As soon as it stopped, we moved back out into the middle of the street. We played nearly every song that involved the euphonium, which tired me out and left my trumpet performance lacking, but I managed anyway. At one point Thumper invited a small boy in a striped shirt to play the bells on his washboard, and the kid really took a shine to it; the look on his face was priceless.

We played the Taiwan Song, which David said was meant for just such an occasion. After another song I had just put away my trumpet and returned to find a spectator playing the washtub bass with a rather confused yet determined look on his face. He used so much force that he broke the pencil I’d been using to pluck the string in half. I let him play and retrieved my trumpet to play along instead.

We were halfway through Work Song when the downpour started. Big, heavy drops began splattering down, and around us a host of umbrellas went up. Slim slipped his hat over Conor’s amp to keep it from electrocuting anyone. By the time we finished it was pouring rain. I slipped the washtub over my head and gathered up my trumpet and the euphonium, which had tumbled to the pavement when Jojo had mistakenly picked up the unfastened case, and ran back over to the awning for shelter.

It was 10pm, and the pavilions were beginning to pack up. We stood around chatting with local denizens, politely declining invitations to play again on other nights. I pinched the straw of my herbal jelly tea, trying to filter out the jelly part, but to no avail. In the meantime, some of the foreigners in the crowd were getting pretty drunk. One guy fell off his motorcycle, breaking a part off of it.

The rain stopped again. By the point, traffic was being allowed through again, and a cavalcade of little blue trucks approached to take away the pavilions. We weren’t quite finished, however. We set up again and played some quieter songs for a while before the police showed up, as we knew they would. More chatting and milling around ensued before Thumper and I whisked Slim away from his complicated social life, down to the dragonboat platform erected on the edge of the river, which was covered in beautiful fog. There, we chatted and drank until the wee hours. It was a nice evening.

Over the years, the Hoping for Hoping Peace Festival has gained a reputation, at least in my mind, for playing host to mostly crappy weather. Spring is Taiwan’s most unstable season, and it has rained at some point during every Peacefest I’ve been to so far. In the past, we always played the last act on the last day, Sunday, and were invariably shut down by the management before satisfactorily completing our sets. This time, however, we chose to play on Saturday afternoon, just before the mass abstract jamming/hand-holding/circle-dancing orgy they call the “Peace Circle”.

I shoehorned myself into the back of Sandman’s Sentra along with his dog Balu, and we set off for Longtan. Jojo had a rough map, but so engaged were we in a fascinating discourse concerning language acquisition that we managed to miss the exit; we had to go all the way to Guanxi and then back around. Then we missed another turn and had to stop for directions at a gas station before we finally got on the right track, arriving at the hippie-filled garden spot at about 4pm. To our surprise, the weather was gorgeous, with a fresh breeze and no sign of rain. People, mostly young, tanned foreigners with interesting hairstyles, lay spread out on the field in front of the stage. Balu played with the other dogs and cheerfully mauled someone’s Frisbee. A short, heavyset foreigner with frizzy hair rushed up to Slim and David, pushing cans of coffee into their hands and saying in a good approximation of a 40’s businessman voice, “Hold these, fellas, I need to get to promotional pictures…make sure the labels are showing!”

I walked around for a bit, taking pictures of the temple’s lotus pond. After a while, we set up a little practice session behind the temple in a claustrophobic clearing next to a tipi. The grass muffled the sound of the washtub bass, and I felt tired and apathetic among the stunted trees filled with spiderwebs. We went over Viola Lee several times, but it seemed slow and lethargic, and I played a few rather inappropriate fills. Sips from a Rosemary Screwdriver perked me up a bit, and afterwards I used the time before our show to buy a decent whiskey coke to put me in the mood.

We took the stage as the sun set, and all I could see through my sunglasses were brief glimpses of the audience as the lights swept out and around the field. The bass was booming in a resounding fashion, but nobody else seemed to mind. We hit our stride early on and things only got better. People moved up towards the stage, and soon we had a large crowd, most of whom were dancing. The sound guys stayed on top of things, and the audience, which had up to that point only showed passing interest in what was going on on stage, was incredibly enthusiastic. Our allotted time went by in a flash of some of the most inspired Ramblry I’ve seen to date. It was almost surreal. Part of that was the whiskey, and part was the shades, but by any estimation, it was an amazing show.

We stepped off the stage into a shower of compliments, which was gratifying. The Peace Circle was next, and a group of other musicians took the stage with a guitar, a digeridoo, and some other instruments. The crowd assembled into a large, hand-holding circle and danced to the rhythm. I took some pictures and then joined Sandman and some others in a little horn ensemble that had formed next to the drummer.

The Peace Circle lasted a long time, and I was tired afterwards. Slim, Thumper and I trekked up the hill a ways for a post-show chat, sitting on the dark road taking care to avoid being mown down by any unwary scooters. As the next band started up, we were glad we’d done so, because even at that distance it was painfully apparent that they were not only way too loud, but they didn’t seem to be playing any songs. I kept waiting for their soundcheck to end, but it never did. We sat on the road and talked until they stopped, which took quite a while. It might even have been more than one “band”. Maybe they have a following among others, but it was definitely not to my taste, and I could only feel sorry for the eardrums of those who stayed below.

Thumper took off into the night on his scooter, back to his mountain abode, while Slim and I toured the field again. The stage was back to its more-or-less unattended state. We were soon surrounded by Taiwanese girls, who oohed and aahed over Slim’s Chinese. Of course Slim, being the Evil Child that he is, sicked them on me by revealing my secret identity. In the end I was forced to show my card.

Sandman, Jojo and Balu were ready to go by that point, so we piled in the car and set off. Balu shifted around in his seat for a while before falling asleep and snoring, and Sandman soon followed his example. I sat watching the lit windows of the apartment buildings flash by. I love driving through the highway tunnels at night and spying the lighted tip of Taipei 101 over the mountains ahead. Traffic was reasonable; we made the trip back to Bitan in under an hour. But I was exhausted and in bed by 11.

Over the years, the Hoping for Hoping Peace Festival has gained a reputation, at least in my mind, for playing host to mostly crappy weather. Spring is Taiwan’s most unstable season, and it has rained at some point during every Peacefest I’ve been to so far. In the past, we always played the last act on the last day, Sunday, and were invariably shut down by the management before satisfactorily completing our sets. This time, however, we chose to play on Saturday afternoon, just before the mass abstract jamming/hand-holding/circle-dancing orgy they call the “Peace Circle”.

I shoehorned myself into the back of Sandman’s Sentra along with his dog Balu, and we set off for Longtan. Jojo had a rough map, but so engaged were we in a fascinating discourse concerning language acquisition that we managed to miss the exit; we had to go all the way to Guanxi and then back around. Then we missed another turn and had to stop for directions at a gas station before we finally got on the right track, arriving at the hippie-filled garden spot at about 4pm. To our surprise, the weather was gorgeous, with a fresh breeze and no sign of rain. People, mostly young, tanned foreigners with interesting hairstyles, lay spread out on the field in front of the stage. Balu played with the other dogs and cheerfully mauled someone’s Frisbee. A short, heavyset foreigner with frizzy hair rushed up to Slim and David, pushing cans of coffee into their hands and saying in a good approximation of a 40’s businessman voice, “Hold these, fellas, I need to get to promotional pictures…make sure the labels are showing!”

I walked around for a bit, taking pictures of the temple’s lotus pond. After a while, we set up a little practice session behind the temple in a claustrophobic clearing next to a tipi. The grass muffled the sound of the washtub bass, and I felt tired and apathetic among the stunted trees filled with spiderwebs. We went over Viola Lee several times, but it seemed slow and lethargic, and I played a few rather inappropriate fills. Sips from a Rosemary Screwdriver perked me up a bit, and afterwards I used the time before our show to buy a decent whiskey coke to put me in the mood.

We took the stage as the sun set, and all I could see through my sunglasses were brief glimpses of the audience as the lights swept out and around the field. The bass was booming in a resounding fashion, but nobody else seemed to mind. We hit our stride early on and things only got better. People moved up towards the stage, and soon we had a large crowd, most of whom were dancing. The sound guys stayed on top of things, and the audience, which had up to that point only showed passing interest in what was going on on stage, was incredibly enthusiastic. Our allotted time went by in a flash of some of the most inspired Ramblry I’ve seen to date. It was almost surreal. Part of that was the whiskey, and part was the shades, but by any estimation, it was an amazing show.

We stepped off the stage into a shower of compliments, which was gratifying. The Peace Circle was next, and a group of other musicians took the stage with a guitar, a digeridoo, and some other instruments. The crowd assembled into a large, hand-holding circle and danced to the rhythm. I took some pictures and then joined Sandman and some others in a little horn ensemble that had formed next to the drummer.

The Peace Circle lasted a long time, and I was tired afterwards. Slim, Thumper and I trekked up the hill a ways for a post-show chat, sitting on the dark road taking care to avoid being mown down by any unwary scooters. As the next band started up, we were glad we’d done so, because even at that distance it was painfully apparent that they were not only way too loud, but they didn’t seem to be playing any songs. I kept waiting for their soundcheck to end, but it never did. We sat on the road and talked until they stopped, which took quite a while. It might even have been more than one “band”. Maybe they have a following among others, but it was definitely not to my taste, and I could only feel sorry for the eardrums of those who stayed below.

Thumper took off into the night on his scooter, back to his mountain abode, while Slim and I toured the field again. The stage was back to its more-or-less unattended state. We were soon surrounded by Taiwanese girls, who oohed and aahed over Slim’s Chinese. Of course Slim, being the Evil Child that he is, sicked them on me by revealing my secret identity. In the end I was forced to show my card.

Sandman, Jojo and Balu were ready to go by that point, so we piled in the car and set off. Balu shifted around in his seat for a while before falling asleep and snoring, and Sandman soon followed his example. I sat watching the lit windows of the apartment buildings flash by. I love driving through the highway tunnels at night and spying the lighted tip of Taipei 101 over the mountains ahead. Traffic was reasonable; we made the trip back to Bitan in under an hour. But I was exhausted and in bed by 11.

Hot, muggy days. The cicadas are starting up with their one-note song, which will become the familiar cyclical chugging sound as the summer progresses. I got up around 8am and took a nice hike up the mountain to the Meizhicheng Community. I enjoy walking around there because it’s quiet; everyone’s off at work in the office, and it lets me relish the fact that I’m not. This afternoon we came close to having our first clockwork summer thunderstorm, but it didn’t quite happen.

Saturday night we played at the Animals Taiwan benefit held on a rooftop near Zhishan Station. It’s a nice neighborhood with older houses along the river that leads up to the palace museum. As I walked up the strange double staircase I noted signs asking me not to talk or make any other noise in the stairwell, as the neighbors were sensitive to noise. Not a good sign.

The roof was teeming with people, mostly foreigners, and several pavilions had been set up against the possibility of rain. The “restrooms” were a couple of bins behind the stairwell door. At one point our host, David, spotted an old Taiwanese fellow standing at the stairwell door, and hastily called on a local friend to reassure him that we weren’t going to cause any havoc.

A troup of Taiwanese girls did a dance routine to recorded music. I didn’t really pay that much attention, as I was chatting with Rowan about the movie. Then it was our turn to play. We did several songs and got the audience dancing. It was great, until the police showed up. Predictably, the neighbors had called them, though it wasn’t even 10pm yet. David rushed to find another interpreter to talk with the police, and the group of them stood by the door going back and forth. “This is so embarrassing,” I said to Brian Foden, who was standing next to me. “How can someone live here so long and still not speak the language?” I immediately regretted it, as I always do when I express such a sentiment in a crowd of people who are likely to take great umbrage at it. Mr. People Person, that’s me.

A deal was negotiated with the police to let us play until 11pm, so we started playing again. We got a couple of songs in before the boys in blue made another appearance, this time demanding that the whole party be shut down. The cops herded us off the roof, their walkie-talkies squelching out orders. I wanted to tell them to turn them down, as the neighbors didn’t like noise, but I refrained, as it wasn’t really my party. “We’re getting rid of the foreigners…they’re almost gone,” one of the cops said into his radio. Apparently the complaint had been against “those foreigners.” Hopefully next time they hold an event they’ll find a more suitable place.

I was exhausted from editing by the time David, Sandman and Conor showed up at my door at 4pm on Saturday. While it was good to have company, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to make it through a show that started at 10:30pm and lasted into the wee hours of the morning, as is our wont. Slim called and said he couldn’t make the pre-gig practice, and Thumper was in Kaohsiung, so we ran through a few of the horn pieces until we were more or less satisfied everyone remembered how they went.

After packing up and heading over to Athula’s for a rotti dinner, it began to sprinkle. I went to the local shop and picked up a new washtub, and Athula helped me poke a hole in the bottom with a piece of metal heated on his grill. In addition to the rotti, I also got a beef kebab and tossed all the gritty bits at one of the local dogs. David and I then caught a cab to Sappho while Sandman and Conor waited for Jojo to drive them.

Sappho is, simply put, 1977. Or rather, what I imagined that year and we drove past lounge bars with the word “DISCO” in lights above the door on rainy Houstonian nights. The crystal motif permeated the place, and all the surfaces were shiny with a distinct lack of right angles. Even the music was appropriate to the era. I tried and failed to capture the brown tones and funky barstools with my camera.

We threw our stuff in a side lounge and started setting up as the other Ramblers began showing up. Slim took a while tying Sandman’s gold bow tie, resulting in the picture above. We got two free drinks. My first was the worst rum and coke I’ve ever had. The second was the worst ginger ale and whiskey, but slightly better than the rum and coke. But they did the job. Plus the Panadol I took for the oncoming migraine I was feeling, or rather, seeing in the form of bright lights flashing across half my field of vision.

There was only a small crowd when we began playing, and only one of them had a suitable hairstyle. From what I understand the bands there usually only start after 11pm. Playing 20’s and 30’s music in a 70’s lounge bar was a little strange, a feeling enhanced by the fact that the sound was muddled and far away sounding. We couldn’t hear ourselves very well. The sound guy took our name literally, I’m thinking. The bass was muffled and faint most of the time, yet managing to emit loud booms now and then. The small crowd was growing, and everyone was trying to talk over us. It wasn’t a very good set.

The second set was much better, however. The sound guy figured out what he was doing, and the crowd got into the music, even dancing on the lighted octagonal floor tiles. We played for quite a while. It was about 2am when we stopped. I was still conscious, but my feet were dragging. Fortunately Sandman and Jojo gave me a ride back to Bitan so I wouldn’t have to deal with a cab ride.