Although the media I tend to gravitate to is often whimsical or fantastical, the charm of the subject of this week’s post is their unapologetic honesty. As an outspoken supporter on a range of issues, including Taiwanese independence, No Party for Cao Dong (草東沒有派對) is a group that resonates with many Taiwanese youth due to heartfelt lyrics that aren’t afraid to dig into grittier truths.
After evolving to its current lineup in 2015, Party for Cao Dong Street—named after a street where some of the members used to hang out—changed its name to No Party for Cao Dong (NPCD). In the year following, the group focused on recording their first album, and in 2016 they released Servile (醜奴兒). The band currently consists of four members: Wood Lin (vocals and guitar), Chu Chu (vocals and guitar), Sam Yang (vocals and bass), and Fan Tsai (drums).
Self-described as “Quiet. Loud. Honest,” No Party for Cao Dong’s music is a mixture of well balanced extremes that blends together post-rock, grunge, punk, and disco. Their songs openly criticize society, and yet the lyrics are often accompanied by an uplifting sense of empowerment that change is possible. “Love and hate always go together – one can’t exist without the other,” says Lin.
However, it’s not only Taiwanese youth who identify with their music. Nicknamed No Tickets for Cao Dong for how quickly their shows sell out, No Party for Cao Dong has an impressive tour history. In 2018, the band began touring to the United States, and in their next tour they traveled even further—beginning their tour in Taichung and traveling to South Korea, Japan, Singapore and even as far as North America and Europe. In 2019, their busy tour schedule continued as they played SXSW in the United States, Glastonbury in the United Kingdom, The Solar Budokan in Japan, and Rock in Rio in Brazil, among other shows.
No Party for Cao Dong were also responsible for the theme song of Red Candle’s Devotion. Created by the same company as Detention, Devotion is a horror game set in 1980s Taiwan that explores the chilling effects that fanatical religious devotion can have on a family. The theme song perfectly matches the meticulously constructed atmospheric horror of the game, starting with a ghostly echo that gradually builds into a melodically cacophonous wail of guitar and vocal.
Even though the group’s hectic tour schedule had to be put on hold due to the pandemic, No Party for Cao Dong used the setback as a chance to find more innovative ways to interact with their fans. In place of a concert, their four-part RPG series called We All Love Our Moms 5.0 streamed live daily on their Youtube from May 20-23. The series was filmed with live actors who performed based on input from those watching by having viewers vote on multiple-choice polls to determine the course of the story. By creating a story that was predictable in its unpredictability, No Party for Cao Dong teased at the themes of their upcoming release, Same Old, Same Old (如常), which also played at the end of the final stream.
The inspiration for Same Old, Same Old (如常) came from No Party for Cao Dong’s years of hectic tour life. As the band explained, while on tour “change is the constant.” From their perspective, touring is a strange mix of knowns and unknowns; performing the same songs with the same crew in different cities and venues for different fans creates a lifestyle where the constant changes are their everyday constant. And, now that they’ve stopped touring, they see the same predictable unpredictablity in life due to the pandemic: “Social distancing, quarantines and lockdowns weren’t the norm but over the past couple of months, they have become a new normal.”
Still, even if their lives—or the mediums through which they express themselves—change, the authenticity in their music remains constant. As No Party for Cao Dong say, “You may still be searching for your own authenticity, what makes you feel the most you. And that’s all okay. May we contribute a little piece of our journey through our music to your authenticity.“
(Feature Image by NPCD via Wonderland Magazine)
Taiwan Culture Corner 