Hiya! Still here, though this tends to be a busy time for me and a pretty dead time in Mandopop news. (Lots of talk about who’s playing at what New Year banquet, etc.) But there are some things to report.
For the second year running, Mayday will play at the Kaohsiung lantern festival. Anyone who missed their concert on December 5th can enjoy the free, hour-long show on March 7.
Stay Real is outfitting Korean boy bands in their “rock-like” music videos. Exposure any way you can get it, I suppose, but there are far too many manufactured Korean boy bands on the scene, so it is hard to imagine each new one getting much attention.
Speaking of the StayReal brand, Magic Power, a band on the B’in Music label, recently went to Ximending to spray graffiti on Ashin’s StayReal store there. When they were all done, though, they posed for a picture with their new “art” and did such a bad job of setting up the band in the picture that they obscured much of their hard work. Ashin teasingly called them “inexperienced” (a term loaded with other meanings). They joked with fans later that they’ve been trying to improve their work to avoid this kind of situation in the future.
Just in case you thought the discussions of Masa and Fish were over now that she’s getting married, here’s a story that talks about Masa’s plans to attend Fish’s wedding (the whole company will be attending, he notes. They have work connections beyond anything personal). Well, maybe after the wedding the stories will cease. Fish has received her wedding dress ordered in New York, so she says she really feels like she’s getting married now. (Also in that article: are Cowboy Jay and Jolin back together? I don’t really care, personally.)
When it comes to concert sales, Mayday “won” the year of the Ox in Taiwan, performing five larger concerts to over 90,000 people on the island, in addition to all their campus appearances. The year of the Tiger, on the other hand, will belong to people like A-mei, who are gearing up for big local tours.
…and it should be obvious by now that probably the most compelling reason for the long lag between posts is that I haven’t read any Mandopop news I actually found all that interesting lately. I’ll have to check in with the rest of the crowd I like and see if there’s anything fun to talk about.
I swear there was nothing on MTV Taiwan but alternate clips of Magic Power and Da Mouth for a month. Ugh.
I hope Ashin isn’t Magic Power’s stylist….
Haha that FT Island MV is pretty old but apparently the member wearing SR is gaining popularity due to a recent drama so they’ve started promoting old songs in TW. Free publicity for SR. Ashin must be