so many good players...

having been a professional musician for some time now, and with the burden of ambition and need for both cerebral and primal nourishment from the music i play and hear, it might seem strange to an outsider that i would stay in taipei.

it is true that the market for english medium performance is limited, but it seems that the pool of competent musicians is at least as big as the collective fan-base. i'm not saying that taipei has more skill or variety than other centers, but the difference is the open nature of the artist community. there may be well formed groups, but they're not really clique-y. on many occasions i've seen top university trained jazz-musicians enjoy jamming with self-taught laymen (i happen to be a member of the latter category), and if a combination works, then a band will blossom seemingly from nowhere until the individuals morph themselves into new combinations, and so the cycle continues. buddha would approve.

i'm going to watch three bands on saturday at, of all places, roxy-vibe. the money-shot-horns, high tide and some other very good band featuring those two surfing-mandarin-jabbing-discovery-travel-and-living-blond-haired wai-guo-ren twins from ilan will play and are a wonderful example of how the music here happens.

it doesn't make for decade long recording outfits, but the dynamics of so many folks coming and going makes it bloody interesting.