::Tribute to the Great Taiwan Band:: MILK

The band Milk was one of the very first foreigner bands to emerge in Taiwan. It all started as a rock band with no drummer... instead they had two djembe african hand drums. They started at a time when there was no english presence on the island... today there are plenty of comforts for the westerner... but not when these guys started. We are talking about roughly 10 years ago. Quoted as being "Taiwan's Bizzaro Darlings" by a reputable Taipei magazine, these guys really had a great run. They made several CD's and toured Asia and Canada. A couple of the guys from this band are now playing in a new blues band with me... and they are fantastic. This is a little tribute video that a friend made of the last MILK concert ever held at a small Taichung bar. The video does little justice to the actual mood at the venue, but none the less lets those who frequent this blog in on the ever changing Taiwan music scene.

There's always time for Thailand

It's time to take a little break from teaching! Those little runts can really get to a sister/brother after a while. We have been constantly complaining that this trip will only be for a little more than a week... but alas we must work at some point. Reason for the complaining is that once we get to where we are going... we could stay there for a very long time because it is insanely cheap.... 50 CDN a month each, for a beach side bungalow is what we have heard. The spot we have picked is on the west side of the gulf of Thailand. There are three little islands located there: Koh Samui (where we will fly to from Bangkok), Koh Phangan (where we plan to spend our trip exploring.. also home to the world famous Full Moon Parties), and Koh Tao (directly translated to English as Turtle island). We had really wanted to spend some time exploring Koh Tao, as it is even more remote than Phangan, but given the time period, is a little too far of a journey. Hopefully in the future we can go scuba diving in Koh Tao and battle off killer trigger fish and play with the reef sharks. We are still working out the fine details of this trip, but as usual with our planning, we are affording as much room for spontaneity as possible. It's all really just a time issue....While traveling, if you have the time... you can save the money..... if you don't have the time.... you spend the money. It's very strange the way it works. I suppose its a small reward for those who have allowed themselves to go with the flow. This time around we are spending the money... as we have to be back for our jobs. More Soon.















FLIGHT INFORMATION (for those who like to do the online flight track)

Friday July 20th, 2007
KLM Royal Dutch AIRLI878 Terminal 2
LV: Taipei @ 7:30 pm
AR: Bangkok Suvarnabh @ 10:05 pm

Saturday July 21st, 2007
Bangkok Airways PG103
Bangkok @ 6:00 am
Samui @ 7:05 am

Sunday July 29th, 2007
Bangkok Airways PG100
Samui @ 6:00 am
Bangkok @ 7:05 am

KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLI877
LV: Bangkok Suvarnabh @ 1:40 pm
AR: Taipei @ 6:15 pm Terminal 2

Kenting Vacation

We slid on down to southest of all southbound Taiwan locations: Kenting. Everyone goes down to Kenting on the long weekends so we took a midnight bus that would fly us down... miss traffic etc.... we ended up sleeping on the floor in the luggage compartment... beside a clogged toilet. When we got there.... we were in the middle of nowhere... and we were starting to question what it was that we were doing. As it turned out, a bunch of our friends showed up, we had the most beautiful weather ever... and the beach was fantastic. Here's a couple pics. We are madly working on getting ready for the infamous Thailand.

A little walk in the city

We decided to head on up to Dakeng again. It is about a 20 min drive from our house... we should go every week but we don't quite seem to get out there that often. Instead of going to the "trails" we just wandered into the bush. Found some pretty cool stuff there, including a nice little waterfall. Noseeums??? little black bugs that really bite you good.... really bit us good... (No see thems... cause they are so small???) i dunno.. thats what they tell us. ciao

::The Grooveyard 2nd Anniversary::

The grooveyard is THE place in taiwan to play music... rather... experiment with music. The bar was started 2 years ago by two foreigners named Roger and Patrick. This bar, has arguably shaped the music scene in Taiwan.

The crowds at grooveyard are always composed of freaks and geeks.... prepared to encourage and support creative efforts. It is so very different from the music scene that we were apart of in North America... In this place, I am constantly reminded why it is so amazing to be alive.

At this show, our band lost a fantastic multi-talented musician named Kevin Lee, who could not only wail on the sax and twinkle the blue keys, but could also outsing anybody. anyday. On the up, the best rock and roll drummer I have ever met joined our crew and proved his reputation. Jubba, the south african always knows exactly what to do.

In the works for the band: 1. a concert in the mountains for the Taiwan Biker Assoc. 2. full length album of original blues. 3. Mainland China Mini-tour

In the works for jacqui and I: Thailand in less than 2 weeks!