David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers

The MBRs in Meinong

The weather in the Muddy Basin was cold, windy and wet when I arrived at the main station on Friday night to meet up with the other Ramblers, get on a bus, and head south for sunnier skies. Slim, Thumper, Dave and Sandman were already there, huddled out by the bus and waiting for me and Conor. The organizers were there as well as some kids with video cameras, already "documenting" our historic voyage I guess. Conor showed up, bathrooms were visited (there was one on the bus, but they claimed it would stink if anyone used it), and we set off.

We pretty much had the bus to ourselves. We congregated in the back, just like the "bad" kids at school and sat back, looking at the scenery, all the while congratulating ourselves on finally having a "real tour bus". Of course, it wasn't long before David got his guitar out and started playing. One by one, we all got instruments out and played along. The camera people grabbed their equipment and rushed back to catch us in the act, but there was no rush; we played pretty much the whole way down, in between bathroom breaks at strange deserted rest areas that felt like they were shipped in straight from the midwestern U.S. I had a sore throat and a sore back and wasn't feeling too great, but just getting out of town made it all worthwhile.

The ride passed quickly, and we got to Meinong in the wee hours of the next morning. The weather was clear and dry, and warmer than Taipei had been. We were staying at the "Range Bed & Breakfast", a pseudo-western-style hotel amidst farmland and near a group of mountains with a giant swath of stone in the shape of the character for the Chinese word "ren" or person. Due to the late hour, we had to wake the owner, who arranged all of our rooms right there.

After about four hours of sleep, minus the wakefulness induced by a particularly loud goose in a pen downstairs, we dragged ourselves out of bed for a hearty breakfast of egg, ham and peanut-butter toast. Coffee was passed around but I don't drink the stuff unless I absolutely have to. Our soundcheck was supposed to be at 11:30, so we walked through the fields and along a lakeside to the culture center where we were playing later. It was sunny and hot, perfect weather after cold, dreary Taipei. I stopped many times along the way to take pictures of the lily ponds next to the lake. What looked like tobacco was planted in other fields, big leafy plants about two meters high.

The center looked pretty new, and even a bit out of place among all the little farms. A bus had been parked across the main road for use as a little stage, but our event was being held in front of the center itself. We met Christoff, the German sound guy, as well as some of the other musicians such as Takashi and Ken from Japan. They were just finishing their sound check as we arrived. Children were playing around an old tree by the stage that held a large mortar in its outspread branches. A coffee truck guy coughed into his microphone across the street in front of the bus, competing with Christoff's soundchecking.

The center provided a good, solid lunch for us afterwards, and we headed back to the Range to get dressed. I couldn't believe how nice the weather was, though haze obscured the more distant mountains. After we got back to the B&B Brian and Paul, two friends of ours, arrived, as well as Sandman's wife Jojo and some other friends of theirs.

Later, decked out in our Ramber regalia, we again crossed the fields to the cultural center, where dinner was waiting. We played as the sun went down, and did a pretty decent job. Christoff did a great job of the sound and was really on the ball during the show. The crowd, mostly local people, seemed to like the music, though half the time they were staring at Brian, who was making his presence known through hoots and calls throughout the show. It was great. Afterwards, Takashi and Ken did their show, as well as Shengxiang, Yufeng and his group. At the end, we all got up on stage and did two or three of Shengxiang's songs, passing solo parts around among the musicians.

After adjourning to the Range again, spirits were bought and consumed while sitting around in the courtyard of the hotel. I would have liked to have stayed up longer, but some impromptu qi-gong sessions somehow made me sleepy, so I turned in relatively early, around one. Thus I was up pretty early the next day for sandwiches and a nice bicycle ride around the lake the next day before our next gig, which was miles away at a memorial library/museum in honor of the Hakka author Zhong Li-he.

The museum turned out to be a recently renovated two-story building filled with the pictures and writings of the late author. Down a little path lay another building that was a private residence of the author's son, now himself an old man. Further on was a large grove of palm trees. It was very pleasant. The weather was so hot that many of us, including myself, bought Zhong Li-he T-shirts to cool off in.

A stage was set up, complete with a sound guy, monitors and speakers, but the organizers seemed to have forgotten the audience, so we played to our own people and anyone who happened to be there visiting the museum at the time. I think we did a bang-up job, though, and the camera people seemed happy, at least. I was standing in a spot where I couldn't hear the bass, so I kept trying to get the sound guy to turn it up, when the rest of the band wanted to turn it down. Well, live and learn.

We took the hotel van back to the Range and waited around in the courtyard, talking and enjoying the weather as dusk fell, until getting back on the bus to Taipei. This time it was only me, Conor, David and Slim, but Dave and Conor kept us entertained on the way back by practicing for their duet performances. We kept having to put on more and more layers of clothing as we traveled north in the night, and by the time we reached Taipei again, we were all muffled up again as we had been when we set out. We went our separate ways, Slim and I sharing a taxi after failing to find a working escalator down to the MRT, and stairs with all our stuff were simply not an option.

I'm really happy that I went on our little tour; it was exactly what I needed after being stuck in Taipei for so long. Sunny, warm skies, little lanes criss-crossing farmland, happy audiences and great music...we need to do more things like this.