One Day in May…

Because we haven’t had one of those in a while, and because I have a lot of grading to do.

And frankly, because I just like news digests. I should do them more often, really I should. Somewhere along the line I got into the habit of writing longer posts that make me update less often because I don’t have time to write long posts. If you look at the archives for July 2006, however, those posts are short. Really short. And still perfectly acceptable.

But I digress.

First and foremost, will B’in Music please refrain from trying to make Ding Dang into Jolin? This sort of song frankly does not suit her. Another song on the album, “I love him (我愛他)” is a much better fit. Demonstrating that they can have good marketing when they want to, the latter is also the theme song for the currently-airing soaper “Next Stop, Happiness (下一站幸福),” starring Vanness Wu. On the off-chance that you don’t hang on my every word, I would like to remind you that I have a definite soft spot for Vanness – who, whoops, it seems is now going by “Van Ness.” He is my one soft spot in the entire world of Taiwanese boybandiness. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, yes: we can all agree that “Meteor Garden” was one of the only really watchable Taiwanese soap operas in the last ten years. Sure it was about five episodes and four new melodramas too long, but they all are, and this one was at least more realistic about interpersonal relationships and full of funny language puns suitable to Mandarin study. But more importantly, don’t forget this. As I always say, never miss an opportunity to link to the sweaty shirtless boxing, no matter how roundabout a path one has to take to get there.

Wait, Ding Dang who? That’s right, we were talking about one intrepid singer and her sadly mismanaged career. Of course, I just ordered her album, so again: it might all be a plot, and if so, it’s working. The new album mixes a wide variety of styles and features not only the duet with Ashin (ugh) but also a duet with Wakin Chau, which is two duets too many in my book. But then, I suppose I do not go to karaoke enough to be considered an average Mandopop customer. Anyway, I’ve decided Ding Dang gets her own category. I’ve have to go through and mark old posts later.

In other news, Fish Leong’s fiancee swears she’s not pregnant, explaining to the media that they’ve even reported on her drinking – how could she do that when she’s pregnant? True, but still, not something I really need to know about, you know, either way. They had wanted to get married in the Philippines in January, but given the typhoon destruction, they moved it to May and perhaps Guam.

If you’ve been getting worried about Mayday getting big ideas and insisting on fancy gourmet meals every night, I wouldn’t just yet. After the Taipei concerts, Masa and Ashin met at a local cheap, all night Teppanyaki place for dinner. Ashin got there first, ordered, and immediately started eating; Masa followed and started eating as soon as he sat down. The two didn’t seem to talk or look at each other, just ate like pigs (sorry, but come on) for about fifteen minutes; when they were done, they finally started talking. Stone, Guanyou and Monster had better things to do with their respective families. If you want to feel sorta slimy about the whole thing, follow the link for several paparazzi pics of the event.

There’s a better summary of the Nanjing concert here, though don’t get too excited about that first picture with Guanyou looking like his shirt is coming off (would people get excited about that?) (poor Guanyou, that was kind of a mean question. Apologies) – they were playing with controlling crowd noise. I can affirm that it was only Monster who lost his shirt all night. Really.

Evan Yo (蔡旻佑) has a new album coming out, and Masa contributed a song called “Candy Rock.”Love is Right (愛是對的).” [Edit: thanks for the correction, inkblueraindrops!] Hmm, I’m going to have to remember to check for that one; I’m curious about Masa’s compositions. And concerned about his hair, but that’s a different issue.

Okay, this is a slam: Power Station is prepping for an upcoming concert in Shanghai. They said that in terms of the competition with the next generation rock band, Mayday, they actually really like the simplicity and ease of their songs. They claim their manager keeps asking why they can’t be more like Mayday and write “simple” songs. Ouch. Maybe they’ve been listening too “Love-ING” too much and forgot Mayday has other songs?

Last weekend Mayday was in Foshan (in Guangdong) for a concert, and here’s a picture of Monster once again, shirtless. I’m starting to think he might be doing this voluntarily, even without crowd encouragement. Their own songs, others’ songs, new songs, old songs, played live they all became Mayday songs… haha, just kidding. The concert reports all appear original this time. The band practiced some Foshan kung-fu and Ashin attempted to speak some Cantonese, and a good time was had by all.

Next stop: Chongqing on Halloween. That’s for Mayday, of course. My next stop is the sodagreen concert in Shanghai this weekend. I’m getting excited for it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Ding Dang, Mayday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.