June 26, 2005
News | Taiwan Chronicle #4: Coffee with Wan-ting Huang |
Towards the end of my trip, I interviewed Wan-ting Huang. I'd first met her by chance in Chicago a few years ago. Two bands we were playing in were sharing a bill at Schuba’s and we'd started talking. I was excited to find out that she was not only from Taiwan, but was the guitarist and a founding member of Ladybug, the trailblazing punk band. Ladybug was a fun band, but perhaps more important to their success, they were an all-female punk band that emerged just as the late-90s “riot grrl” trend caught fire in the States. Two U.S. tours ensued and the band played with indie luminaries June of ’44 and Yo La Tengo.
In 2000, Wan-ting broke with Ladybug to study sound engineering in Chicago, where studios like John McEntire’s Soma were perfecting the pristine organic/electronic hybrid that “post-rock” had become. She’s back in Taipei now, but the sonic imprint of those Chicago years can be found in the work of Varo, an instrumental project which highlights her skills in the studio and on a laptop more than her guitar work.
At a time when Taiwan seems awash with three-chord indie girl bands, Wan-ting, now 30, seems to neither want nor receive any credit as a pioneer. She’s moved on, making sophisticated new music that has gotten little attention at home, but has raised the eyebrows of tastemakers at BBC Radio and the Wire abroad. Blazing her own trail has meant not only recording her own music, but releasing it. Her 7” Vinyl label puts out CDs by Varo and other bands from Taiwan and Japan.
We met up at Wan-ting’s favorite Taipei coffee house and had a wide-ranging conversation about indie music in Taiwan. She began by telling me why she does everything herself...
Wan-ting Huang: I’ve gotten more equipment so I can do the mastering myself. I want to do everything myself because I don’t really trust [engineers] in Taiwan. Maybe in the future there will be some good ones, but [presently] I think I have to do it myself.
Is it because of different tastes or is it because of technical abilities?
I think both. When I was in Chicago, everything was so professional. Even when I was in school I think it was much better than any studio in Taiwan.
At Columbia College?
Yeah, I loved it. I like professional.
[We talk about varying degrees of professionalism in different places in the world. Wan-ting mentions that she works at a guitar shop in Taipei that she thinks is better than the shops she saw on VARO’s recent tour of Australia.]
I wonder what happened to all the old guitars in Taiwan because, you know, in the sixties and seventies there were a lot of instrumental and surf rock bands in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia…
You know, I think everyone threw their guitar away. They didn’t know it could be worth a lot. I tell my friends that second-hand guitars are much more expensive in the States and they say, “How? Why?” They always think brand-new is the best.
Do you feel like you picked up any influences musically during your time in Chicago?
A lot. Especially jazz. Before I went to Chicago, I didn’t like jazz. I knew it was very difficult, but when I heard it on CD, I felt nothing. I went to the Chicago Jazz Festival because it was free and I saw Dave Holland. It was so amazing, so after that I listened to jazz almost every day.
I heard Pitchfork is in Chicago, right?
Yeah, that’s a good site.
Many people in Taiwan get all their music news from Pitchfork.
Really?
Yeah, almost all my friends do. I work at Underworld. I think it’s the most famous venue for underground rock bands in Taipei. All my friends go there. For me, the reason I started my own label is to put out my music, my friends’ music, any good music. For most of the labels, they want to make money, but I know I can’t make money even if I want to, so my goal is just to do good music. It’s like I had problems when I recorded in Taiwan and I had problems when I did mastering in Taiwan and I know other people have the same problems, so I want to help them. I can’t do huge promotions or commercial stuff, but I can help [them] do high quality recordings. But I can’t make money. It’s not that I don’t want to—I just know that I can’t.
Is it possible for an indie, non-commercial band to make money in Taiwan right now?
Yes, it’s possible, but not a lot. It’s really possible that you don’t lose money. I don’t think I’ll make money off of Varo’s CDs but I won’t lose money because… how do you say—
--Your overhead is so low…
Yeah, I recorded everything myself in my own tiny studio, mixed it myself. So I won’t lose money, but I won’t make much. Even the most popular indie band in Taiwan, 1976, they have to work day jobs.
Do you think the population on Taiwan is big enough that indie bands can ever get past that stage and make money?
I hope, maybe in the future. But now there’s a problem: Lots of people play in a band and they listen to indie rock but they don’t buy CDs or go to other people’s shows unless it’s their friends’ shows. They don’t really go to shows to see bands and they don’t buy any Taiwanese indie rock CDs.
It can be like that in small towns in America too. In the towns that have a good scene, they always support each other.
I know, I think that’s really important, but here, you know, people are willing to pay NT$880 [around US$25] to go dance, but they won’t pay that much to see bands. And the air tickets are so expensive, so we can’t afford to bring in American bands. People won’t pay that much to see a rock show… So, maybe it’s good to be a DJ.
I’m interested in how old traditions and new music technologies can come together and do interesting things…
I’m sure you saw the movie by Wim Wenders—he filmed the old Cuban musicians [Buena Vista Social Club]? It’s really good right? But now there’s a new one that films the young Cuban musicians. It’s so bad! [Laughs.] Because it’s kind of like, young people want to mix the new stuff and old stuff, but you kind of feel it’s… you feel it’s on purpose—it’s not natural. I think it’s the same thing here. Some people think, “Oh, I’m Taiwanese—I’m special.” But it’s nothing special at all. “Oh, I put some traditional Taiwanese or Chinese music in my music—I feel I’m really special.” I just think about that movie.
I’ve been noticing that, too. I was in a car with some Chinese friends in Puli and a song started off with some traditional erhu but then it just turned in to a regular metal song. The erhu section really had nothing to do with the rest of the song. It sounded nice, but kind of arbitrary…
They think they are cool. I think it’s a cliché.
I wonder now if it’s possible to get around that, because now everyone is so aware of everything. Everything is a choice. You take some of this, some of that, so everything is so self-conscious. Whereas I think the older stuff, you know, the old Taiwan singers, they learned the enka style from Japan and sang in that style here in Taiwanese. They wanted to be modern, so they took the latest instruments and used them, but it seems like a more natural mix of old and new.
Yeah. Have you heard of the band Labor Exchange? They’re Hakka.
Yeah.
They were so good. I think they’re some of the best music in Taiwan. They had two albums. They sang in Hakka and used some traditional instruments. Everyone in Taiwan loves them. For me, for a real Taiwanese band, it’s them.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but almost anytime a Japanese girl band goes to the U.S., it’s always marketed as, “Look how cute. Japanese girls play instruments.” I wonder what, as a woman musician, your feelings are about that.
I think in Taiwan, too—and in most Asian countries—if you’re a girl and play in a band, people think, “O.K., I’m going to see this girl band because they’re cute, they’re hot.” They’re always thinking about looks and not music. That’s one thing I really don’t care for and I was kind of angry about it before, but now I’m O.K. with it. But if you’re female and you play in a band, you really don’t know if you’re good or not, because people say you’re good for a girl. That’s one thing I’m really against. I really want to break this male-and-female stuff in music. It’s not about gender.
A lot of my male friends in Taiwan just want to go see girl bands. And a lot of girls only want girls so they can be a girl band. But one funny thing I’ve noticed is, every girl band in Taiwan, they hate each other very much. I do the sound at Underworld, so once I was doing sound for a girl band and they were talking shit about another girl band. Then I did the sound for that girl band and they were talking shit about another girl band! I just couldn’t believe it—it’s so weird.
Are most of these bands punk?
Yeah, most are punk or some are kind of metal.
Do any of them stand out?
So far, not really. People know about them because they are girl bands.
Do you feel at all responsible for this generation of girl bands?
No, because… [Both laugh.] Because, it’s kind of like, with Ladybug, it was really natural. When we started a band, we didn’t ask for girl bandmates. We just found each other by accident. We didn’t want to start a girl band. We didn’t want to do punk—at all. I think music, like other art, is 80% talent. Even if your technique sucks, people can feel your talent. I think it’s the spirit that’s most important. But I think that if there are a lot of girls who are ambitious, that’s good.
It seems like at least half the bands I hear about in Taiwan have one or more women in them. There’s a larger percentage than in, say, Chicago.
Yeah.
Why do you think that is?
Actually, I never thought about it. Mmm, I guess girls think they can play in rock bands too.
Is it possible that people play rock if they’re dissatisfied—
--I think most of the time.
So do you think that maybe women in Taiwan are less satisfied than men, so they want to react against something and start a band?
Maybe that’s part of the reason, but I think actually, in this society men are more depressed. They have much more pressure than girls. So, I feel girls are more open here. They’re happier. In this culture, men have huge responsibility for their family, for their parents.
So if you’re a first son, you can’t start a band—it’s really hard…
Yeah, you have to make money to support your parents, even if you don’t have a family. That’s your responsibility.
But if you’re a first daughter—
--It doesn’t matter! [Laughs] Yeah, I think for girls, we don’t have a lot of pressure here.