Tag: Nightlife

  • Day of the Dead

    Day of the Dead

    Local characters

    Day of the Dead is the Mexican holiday that brings people together to remember those that have passed away. Rather more celebratory and stylish in nature than our own Halloween, it is a firm fixture on San Francisco’s calendar; particularly in the southern Mission district, traditionally home to San Francisco’s Latino population.

    A procession makes its way through the streets of the neighbourhood, and people go to great lengths to get dressed up, paint their faces and make elaborate shrines; either mobile or immobile. It’s a sight to behold: you can really see where Tim Burton gets his inspiration from for his animated films.

    As I spend time in this city, it’s nice to discover local events that feel really ancient. This is a ‘new’ city with many transient residents, and it made me realise how much I miss the festivals or events that happen in Europe or Asia that have been happening since time immemorial; things like Guy Fawkes night, where it is not even a question if you participate – it’s woven into the fabric of the country.

    I missed Day of the Dead when I was in Mexico by a few weeks, back in 2004, so I was really pleased to see it this time round. Next year I dress up!

    Dancers perform at the four intersections of the route; Mayan culture fusing with western religion before your very eyes.
    Flamboyant dancers.

    An extraordinarily well art-directed event, without any art direction.
    Vantage points

    Some people slightly less entertained – but the event went off peacefully.
    Crowds of people with their own models followed behind.
    Local celebrities
    The destination on the route is in Garfield Park, with the Festival of Altars. People spend the day setting up little shrines to loved ones, family members, or even pets.
  • Tony & Kat

    Tony & Kat

    Tony, one of my best Greek friends, got married to one of the best ladies I have had the pleasure of meeting, Miss P.

    Naturally, I flew in to make sure she didn’t change her mind, and had an awesome weekend catching up with old Dell friends, and reminding myself what summer is supposed to be like.

    Austin – I have a big place in my heart for you!

    The Continental Club – essential
    Austin aesthetics
    Agreed!
    Details
    My ride for the weekend … and stayed at the San Jose no less!
    The Moment
    Two of my favourite people
    Victory lap
    I also had the IMMENSE pleasure of meeting Kat’s girls, and saying hello again to Tony’s. What a great bunch of ladies.
    Apparently, I am the biggest joke in the house, which is the nicest thing anyone has said to me. PRINCE PHILIP!
    The coolest Mr and Mrs I know. 10/10!
    For various reasons best left unsaid, I needed a drink.
    Lord of the Dance

     

  • Palm Springs

    Palm Springs

    It was easy to imagine the Three Amigos strolling through town (and into Starbucks – it was bloody hot!)

    Palm Springs, located just over one hundred miles from LA, is a traditional playground for the stars of Hollywood. Offering seclusion and a balmy winter climate, it became fashionable after the war, and the well-healed commissions allowed architectural modernists to flourish in the desert.

    I was invited by a set of old Glasgow University friends, one of which was getting married at the impossibly cool Parker. Combined with the July 4th weekend, it made for a great get-away for a few days, and a chance to catch up with some of my old mates; plus of course setting up some sofas in LA to crash on when I make the trip down.

    I have never been anywhere quite like it. As if air-lifted from space, lush vegetation, palm trees and swimming pools are set against a backdrop of a brutal, arid landscape. The place is entirely unnatural, and feels very much like being on a film set – I found myself tapping rocks and walls to see if they were fibreglass. I felt a touch guilty, thinking of the madness of spraying water mist into the pedestrian areas, the unimaginable volume of water needed to maintain perfect green golf courses, and the energy requirements to keep everyone happily air-conditioned. It was the polar opposite of attitudes in San Francisco (at least on the surface), but accompany the sun setting against the mountains with margaritas sipped by the pool and I can begin to understand the charm.

    A 26ft high Marilyn Monroe graces main street, naturally.
    Heading up on the gondola (a rotating gondola no less) was a refreshing break from the heat in the valley. Strangely, the trees in the glades up in the cool air secrete an oil that smells much like vanilla. Time for ice cream!
    Joel surveys the scene
    Bouquet
    The trees up there were twisted – literally. Like rope, they had a helical structure I had never seen before. Very interesting, I thought.
    Cressida cools down.
    And this is the result of said heat and sun … but Cressida persevered through, editing the wedding movie.
    The wedding itself was at the impossibly stylish Parker.
    An impossibly stylish hotel, filled with impossibly stylish people.
    Steven and James hit the aisle … congratulations, chaps!
    Job done. Time for drinks!
    Unreal scenes at every turn.
    Mountainous desert at the end of every street.
    The sun sets on a fun long weekend.
    Sunset Strip
  • Ken in San Francisco

    Ken in San Francisco

    My first house guest!

    Ken was in town to take care of activities at the hand-built bike show over in Sacramento, and managed to set aside some good time to hang out at the house, and with the Sitzer clan. Good times.

    Hannah and Mia fully mature in the back of the car.
    Ken's ride; the ridiculous Dodge Charger / cop car. It made satisfying 'whaaarrrrr' sounds while pretending to accelerate.
    Classic Alameda Flea Market Chaos … I came away with a couple of lamp bases, a vase, some egg cups (thanks to Hannah), and basically none of the stuff that I originally went to purchase.
    Flea market purgatory (these are Ken's pics, by the way … I rather like this one)
    Instagram – "Feets"
    Adjusting the stereo?
    Feeling a little more energetic on the way home.
  • Land of the Rising Sun

    Well, it’s been a while, Shanghai, but it’s good to be back; a great night out with Gerhard and the Shanghai design mafia, and home in time to see the sunrise from the 49th floor.  I might regret this tomorrow!

    Before I head out.

    Macdonalds on the edge of Zhongshan park, punctuating the darkness.

  • Kenting 2010

    Kenting – summed up in a single photo!

    Though the departure was a little more hectic than I was originally envisioning, it was my pleasure to jump on the HSR down south and join Michael and Tanja for a weekend of summer sun in Kenting – south Taiwan.

    The guys had come through to attend a wedding, and as such were accompanied by a group of 20 German holidaymakers – and all on the same weekend as the largest music festival in Taiwan; Spring Scream.  As a result of poor planning on my part, I was actually supposed to be staying some fifteen kilometers away in Hengchun, but M&T offered me their spare bed in the amazing, but less than charismatically-named, Kenting Youth Activity Center.  I love that place.

    Situated on a peninsular east of the main drag, it is – according to their website – a ‘traditional Fujen(a province in southern China, also called Min) style building with red gate, white wall and red tile roof, and is often reputed as the Museum of Southern Min Style Architecture.’  I wish they gave more of the history, with a bit more explanation of the layout, but no matter; I would probably discover it is made of concrete.

    Square clouds … I could just soak this in all day!

    Detail view.

    Shots of night of the wonderful lanterns, lighting up the courtyard.

    Tiles done properly. Almost.

    Doors.

    The local walk down to the rocky peninsular.

    Cable management.

    Silhouettes.

    Details, bathed in warm morning light.

    Birds of a feather.

    Little Georg makes a run for it.

    Of course, we didn’t have the place entirely to ourselves.  As host weekend of the largest music festival in Taiwan, there were some pretty odd sights, and a funny mixture of people.  Beginning with obligatory trips down to the local nightmarket (copy and pasted from Taipei?), we then began sinking drinks, seeing some of the outlying stages, and finally ending up on the beach for what was a very nice, chilled out session the last time I was here.  Nope – not this time… a huge, thumping sound system, massive crowd and despite signs urging restraint, a barrage of fireworks arcing up into the sky (as well as other places).  I must at this moment apologise to all the people with car alarms that we set off, when some enterprising vendor sold us a box of mortars, at 4:30 in the morning.  Only in Kenting.

    Beer emergency.

    Walking the dog.

    Little Georg checking the icecreams – it was fun playing with them, though I wished my German had not corroded so far!

    Peugeot 106 … waffles.

    It was quite a culture shock to land from Texas, and dive head-first into full intensity Taiwan during ‘Spring Break’, all the while accompanied by German family members!  Absolutely fantastic to see the Helds on top form though.  See you guys again soon!

    Taiwanese cowboys – summing up my cultural transition?

  • Birthday Redux

    It’s useful being friends with designers and photographers; they have a habit of injecting that extra element of quality into capturing events. In my case, I was lucky enough to have Abe shooting away on his rig, and Gerhard & Klara mounting their time-lapse cam in the corner of the room – lovely.

    http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377
    Kicking off proceedings was dinner at my favourite local ‘restaurant’ – the getto shrimp van at the end of the street. We grabbed, wine glasses, bread and candles, and created a few raised eyebrows, dining to the sounds of music and shrimps being fried with a hairdryer. As the parking lot filled up, we decamped to the apartment, where a super spread of friends gathered to wish me well as I successfully managed to circumnabulate the Sun 30 times.

    On top of that, I am now the proud owner of a 20″ Apple Cinema display, which is significantly more pleasant to work on – to the point that I am pretty sure I am processing more photos for upload to Flickr now, and the blog. Awesome.


    Nick and I discuss vases


    Really special to have the HK crew in town. Appreciated!


    Candlelit / neon – lit supper


    Strike a pose.


    Onizou Idea Nomads in Town


    Shrimp pots.


    A very special cooking style – eat your heart out, Heston.


    Make a wish!


    The team.


    Champers.


    After managing to offload this trash to Sam last year, it managed to find its way back here. Someone will pay for this!

  • Formoz Festival 2008

    Markus, clearly pulling the wool over the eyes of his client in Seattle, chose the best weekend of live music on the island to return for a few days of business. It kicked off in fine style with an impromptu photo session with insane just-graduated Masters students in one of the local “Re Chao” restaurants, and ended with a ballistic scooter ride through Typhoon rain to return Markus back to his hotel.

    In between? Another great Formoz Festival, underlined by 1976 in the final, main stage headliner slot – totally wonderful, since they were the first band I got into when I first landed here those four years ago. Is it really four years?

    They, or rather the weather, got their timing perfect, with showers arriving on queue to launch the crowd into raucous displays of solidarity, under umbrellas and spot lights. My phone has only just recently switched back on, in fact, after it drank too much. Much like me, in fact. A super night – come back more often, Markus, and bring Michwel next time!




    Not very impressed by local microbrewery slops

    I managed to flex some contacts and blagged my way into the event for free, claiming I was a journalist for Taipei Times (it’s true!), which I feel bad about and all – well, a bit. I did manage to get chucked off stage by security, though, which makes me feel cool and smooth.


    Blurry night


    1976 rule the roost


    Clearly abusing my photography pass, I capture Markus back in his natural environment.


    Antagonising the security staff, who were clearly not as enthused by the music as the crowd.


    And the afterparty – held at one of the old cabaret clubs in Ximending, and just the coolest, coolest venue in Taipei. The crowd boogied their butts off to the grooves of Public Radio and the best dub band I have heard in years.

  • Coldcut in Taipei

    Coldcut came to Taiwan as part of HP’s ‘Art in Motion’ tour, and totally blew me away. I was asked to provide the write-up for the Taipei Times, so rather than say the same thing again, here are my words from the newspaper:

    Taipei Times ‘Weekender’

    Last night saw the Taipei instalment of the HP-sponsored ‘Art in Motion’ tour at Luxy, featuring British legends Coldcut, Jurassic 5’s DJ Nu-Mark and VJ support from Berlin crew Pfadfinderei. Ostensibly a fusion of music and live visuals, early on the show seemed like an extended advert for HP’s personal computers, and with guidance from the most irritating emcee in Asia was beginning to unfold into some kind of hip-hop-themed ‘wei-ya’ end of year party.

    However, things began to improve quickly when Nu-Mark took to the decks and wowed the crowds by mixing sampled beats with a selection of increasingly unlikely musical children’s’ toys. Innovative, and unlike the local beat-boxing warm up act, not a bit self-indulgent, the crowd responded with a mixture of laughter and butt-on-the-floor boogying.

    With the audience now suitably warmed up, Coldcut entered stage right and took no prisoners with a ballistic delivery of hip-hop, dub and electronic beats, all synchronised with nine projectors beaming video and images around the room in an awesome display of digital showmanship. Jumping from the more obscure references of their own back-catalogue, they never allowed themselves to alienate the newcomers and regularly dropped in samples from sources as diverse as Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”, Run DMC and AC/DC. Taipei barely knew what hit them.

    With Nu-Mark resuming control, the entire room bounced the rest of the night away to the sounds of a thousand house parties, and the best music Taipei has heard in several years.


    Colcut – to the limit


    Nick keeps it nice and sleazy


    And some other words from Tom, as featured in ‘The Vinyl Word’ last week:

    Taipei Times – ‘The Vinyl Word’

  • Rooftop Live

    With Markus leaving Taiwan there are a few activities that we need to clear out of the way before he is granted access to the United States, we have not been the bessst at meeting up, but in the last few days we have made some pretty serious effort to meet up and redress the balance.

    I am still a bit groggy from the weekend and lack of sleep, but we had an absolute stormer of a night watching 1976 on the roof of Eslite bookstore. Fighting the elements, we enjoyed a good show, and capped it with one of the funniest moments of Taiwan in months. More to tell later on that one, in case it ruins any surprises in the near future.


    Markus and I, with about 250 people behind us not able to see past us


    Taiwan does pull of some good locations when it wants to!


    Peeking through


    My baby’s on fire


    1976 in the house

    More pics on my web gallery here: