"This ain't no Planet of Sound!" ~ Frank Black, THE PIXIES
This past May marked the 3rd anniversary if the Taiwan indie music website Island of Sound. I got the idea for the project while living in Taiwan in 2004 as a way to show off a few of the great bands I saw. The name came about as a way of showing appreciation to a legendary indie band, namely the Pixies, and applying it to the various sounds you can find when living on the Island. Partially influenced by rock journalism, ethnomusicology and my own experiences as a student of anthropology, I originally started by documenting my personal experiences of seeing local Taiwanese indie bands first hand. The new Island of Sound will be more concise, trimmed down profiles with much less anecdotal material. You'll still get the sense that I was there (if indeed I were), but it won't run on. I also want it to be more of a directory type resource, so it will be useful to foreign visitors looking for places to check out and bands looking to play shows. However, the project is also historical in order to show the development of the indie scene since its beginnings, so there will be information on defunct bands, closed venues, failed record labels. This is mostly to show that these projects weren't in vain and that younger musicians have something home-grown to build on and not just the latest trend coming out of NY or London.
I will be updating periodically until the site is as complete as I can make it. Keep checking back!
