2011 is very special year!

It is New York City’s Passport to Taiwan Festival 10th year anniversary!

This is the largest Taiwanese American outdoor festival in the entire US! Come out and explore many wonders of the Taiwanese American heritage with live performances, Theme Exhibitions, Delicacies & Handicrafts!!

New Taipei City Culture Handcraft Association presents:
Bamboo Dragonflies/Water Guns
Dough Figurines/Weaving
Fragrant Sachets/Calligraphy
Fancy Calligraphy/Engraving
Kites/Paper Cutting/Glass Beads

Boston Chinese Folk Art Workshop Inc (A Performance Group of Young Artists) presents:
Taiwanese Folk Drums & Arts Troupe – Thousand Hands drum
Taiwanese aboriginal dance – Moonlight Gossamer
Chinese YOYO – Yoyo Sensation
http://www.folkartboston.org/

TKNY 紐約台客 Tai-Ke New York presents:
Passport to Taiwan Festival 2011 ROCKS Union Square NYC!!

Special Host:
Andy Shaw (Shaw Promotions) & Alyson Schill (Spring Scream festival)

Performing band & Acts Schedule:
12:00 – Folk Drums & Arts Troupe
12:10 – P2T opening ceremony
12:30 – Chinese YOYO, Taiwanese dance, fan dance
01:15 – The Sounds of Domestic Living
01:45 – XYZ 鍾翔宇 (Roc Yezzy)
02:10 – Jonathan Lee
02:15 – DJ4 with Young Kin (DJ小四 & 奕峻)
02:40 – Erhu Performance – present by MHCS Chinese School
02:55 – The Hsu-Nami
03:35 – Taiwan Flute performance – present by Fairlawn community church
03:55 – Notorious MSG
04:25 – Taiwanese Boston Performance Art

http://www.p2tw.org/

Like art?  Want to see more cool stuff in the city?  Well The Drop NYC will hold a day long festival on October 3rd featuring interactive art, fashion and music.  Part of the programming will include contributions from Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yoko Ono.   There’s is a fashion installation titled ‘Trash and Treasure’; live painting performances and DJ music via a solar powered booth.   Check out The Drop website for more details.

If you want to show support for this progressive project, then click here to help The Drop meet it’s goal.

Continue reading →

The New York Anime Festival is just a couple weeks away and the Far East to East Showcase is back.  F.E.T.E.S. 2009 will feature 2 bands from Japan and 2 local bands.  Included in the lineup is the pop-rock band Swinging Popsiscle, who played at Knitting Factory in 2007:

Kokusyoko Sumire: http://www.myspace.com/kokusyokusumire

Swinging Popsicle: http://www.myspace.com/swingingpopsicle

Echostream: http://www.myspace.com/ECHOSTREAM

Gelatine: http://www.myspace.com/gelatinenyc

The showcase will be help at The Studio @ Webster Hall on Sunday September 27th.  The first band goes on at 6:30PM so NYAF attendees will have plenty of time to leave Javits and head down to Webster Hall.  Click the jump for more details and advance ticket info.

Continue reading →

The Sing For China Tour will bring three of China’s biggest and best indie-rock bands to the U.S. this month as part of an unprecedented effort by the Chinese music community to help children orphaned by AIDS in China.

The tour is being produced by Modern Sky Records of Beijing, China’s largest independent record label..

The featured bands include:

• Hedgehog
• Queen Sea Big Shark
• Casino Demon

Band info. and tour dates after the jump.

Continue reading →

Shonen Knife - Super Group

Shonen Knife, the legendary all-female Japanese pop-punk band formed in Osaka, Japan, is back again with a new album (Super Group) and tour.  Since the original member and bassist Atsuko moved to Los Angeles and left the band, Naoko and Etsuko played with support bassists. On the new album “Super Group”, support bassist Ritsuko has joined the band as an official member. Now Shonen Knife has become a 3 piece band again and a super group was born.

In 2007, they released an album “fun! fun! fun!” in Japan. Since then, they’ve spent very busy days  playing lots of shows, they enjoyed a North American tour, recorded a cover song for an AC/DC tribute album and played at many international rock festivals. In 2009 Shonen Knife signed a deal with Good Charamel Records (www.goodcharamel.com) to release their 14th studio album,“Super Group” to the fans in North America! Tours of Europe, Australia and North America will follow the release of  the new “Super Group” CD !

The concept of this album is to “go back to the starting point of ROCK”. All the lyrics on “Super Group” are written in English. The 1st song “Super Group” is very punk pop like the Buzzcocks. “Muddy Bubbles Hell” and “Pyramid Power” taste like Heavy Metal. “BBQ Party” starts with a Jonathan Richman like intro and transforms into punk rock. The harmony at the last part of “Na Na Na” is very cute. The last song is a cover of Paul McCartney and the Wings song “Jet”, the Shonen Knife version is very fun and very ROCK. This album makes everybody happy.

Tour Dates after the jump.

Continue reading →

ALL PROCEEDS OF THE SHOW (from The Hsu-nami) GOES TO TYPHOON MORAKOT AID.

Recent Typhoon Morakot which unleashed the worst floods in 50 years in Taiwan. and millions of dollars lost and death toll not known as of yet.  After hearing this terrible news, Hsu-Nami decided that they are going to donate all the proceeds from this show to the survivors and the needs.

Show Details:

Date: Wednesday, August 26, 2009  (9PM ~)
Arlene’s Grocery 
95 Stanton Street, NYC

Admission: $8 (Please mention “The Hsu-nami” to the door person)

This is 21+ show

Tsugumi of the Japanese electro duo Pine*am will be as a member of new band Butterfly Monkey.  Check them out at Don Pedro’s in Brooklyn on Thursday July 2nd.  They are set to perform around 9pm.

Venue Info:

Don Pedro  (90 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY)
http://www.myspace.com/donpedrobarlounge

Continue reading →

After her awesome collab. with Towa Tei on his Big Fun album, Miho Hatori is set to debut her ‘New Optimism’ at the Northside Festival.  Stop by The Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg on Thursday July 11th to check out Miho’s new music plus other great stuff from Exit Clov, Autodrone and Class Actress.

Local pop band Love Etc. is celebrating their 3 year anniversary at Drom this Friday.  It will also be lead singer, Yasuyo’s, last performance in NYC till summer.  On the bill: Love Etc., Exit Clov, Honeychild and LPF, with music by DJ’s Hayden Honey and Tony Grund.

Details:

Date – Friday April 24th

Venue – Drom : Avenue A, b/w 5th & 6th St.

Doors: 6pm  Show: 7pm

$10.00  All Ages

Continue reading →