The Low-Tech, Tacky Band That Defies Definition: Amazing Show (Part 1) – April 2024 Week 2 Playlist
Intro
Meow meow everyone, welcome back, it’s me, Mydondon! Is there a band you can listen to over and over again without ever getting bored, a band whose every song you’ve basically memorized? For me, Amazing Show (美秀集團) is exactly that kind of band. But even after listening that many times, there are still tons of questions nagging at me, like why is the band called a “Corporation/Group” (集團) instead of just a band? Who on earth is the Electric Fire King? Why doesn’t the rolling tobacco come from the back hill? Stuff like that… If you’re as curious as I am, or if you’ve never even heard of this band and want to get to know Amazing Show, then keep reading, fellow Maccas!
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How Amazing Show Began
In the very beginning, Amazing Show was made up of Goubai, Peici, Xiuqi, and Guanyou. Just like they often mention in their bios, all four of them came from the same private secondary school in Chiayi (a “complete” school that runs from junior high all the way through senior high). They’d known each other since junior high, sometimes in the same class, sometimes not, but everyone knew everyone. Back then, though, they couldn’t yet be called Amazing Show, they were just friends who happened to know each other. The only one who actually had the dream of forming a band was Xiuqi, who back in junior high was a member of the rock music club and was always covering famous songs.
You might assume that kids who attend private schools through junior and senior high all give off a goody-two-shoes vibe, but these guys were anything but quiet and well-behaved. They were always pushing back against traditions that maybe weren’t quite appropriate. One time, when Xiuqi was a high school freshman, he organized his own music show on Christmas Eve while the teachers and discipline officers weren’t paying attention. Back then there wasn’t really any tradition like that, but somehow the discipline officer assumed they’d gotten the school’s approval and even sent the student patrol team to help keep order. A few years later, this thing that was originally supposed to be off-limits turned into a fixed annual event, and now the school even pays out of its own pocket to host the Christmas show.
So now you’re probably wondering, where was Goubai during all this? Honestly, back then Goubai had absolutely nothing to do with bands. He was a model student who did great academically and was good at sports too. As a senior, his goal was actually to get into the math department at National Taiwan University, that is, until he met Li Wei, a friend of Xiuqi’s at the time. Li Wei was studying something design-related, and he introduced Goubai to a whole lot of film knowledge. Next thing you know, Goubai had completely fallen down the filmmaking rabbit hole, and even chose a fine-arts-related major in college. Once they got to university, Goubai, Xiuqi, and Li Wei even started a design-and-advertising company together.
Apparently, if you searched for Liu Xiuqi on YouTube back in the day, you could find his junior-high covers and early personal creations, but it seems they’ve all been deleted by now. Even though Xiuqi was the one who originally wanted to form a band, the funny thing is that a lot of Amazing Show’s early songs, like “Crazy Fire,” “Xilì’s Eyes,” and “Electric Fire King,” were actually written or composed by Goubai. So why is that? Well, it all goes back to the start of their third year of college. Goubai, who was studying at Shih Chien University, had taught himself acoustic guitar over the summer break of his second year. When the new semester started, he played Xiuqi the song “Xilì’s Eyes” that he’d just written, and to his surprise, Xiuqi realized it was actually way better than the stuff he himself wrote, so he secretly admired the fact that this song existed. Then one day, by sheer chance, they stumbled across a music audition event called “Sing from the South” (南面而歌), and with only a week left to prepare, Xiuqi remembered this song. So he skipped a few classes, recorded the whole thing himself, and submitted it. Lo and behold, they got selected, and then they went off together to compete and record for the compilation, and that’s when Amazing Show was officially born.
Amazing Show’s First-Ever Song – “Crazy Fire” (懶趴火)
The very first song they posted online was “Crazy Fire” (懶趴火). Honestly, the first time I heard it I kept thinking how weird this song was. Not only does it open with these baffling, nonsensical lyrics (my Taiwanese isn’t great so I couldn’t really make out what they meant), the spoken-word bit in the middle is also pretty hilarious. It was only after digging up some info that I learned what “Crazy Fire” is actually about. In short, it tells the story of a guy who goes to Beigang to eat duck thick soup, runs into a fancy-looking barbershop and decides to pop in for a haircut, only to end up furious because of how the owner cut his hair. “I reckon, see, he looked at me thinkin’ I’m real handsome, so honest, kinda cute too, gave me one heck of a haircut, ruined me for life, every style under the sun, soy milk splashed everywhere, even Mazu and the sausages are hiding behind me, grinning quietly.”
Even though music started out as just a hobby, it kept creeping closer and closer to their everyday lives after that. In their third year of college, Amazing Show even held the first concert of their lives, right inside the university’s international conference hall. To be honest, though, they later admitted that concert was absolutely terrible. They only played a few songs, the sound quality wasn’t good enough, and a string even snapped mid-show. But back then, with only three music videos up on YouTube, the Amazing Show guys could never have imagined that one of them, “Rolling Tobacco” (捲菸), would make them blow up overnight.
“Rolling Tobacco” and the Story Behind It
“Rolling Tobacco” (捲菸) is actually about a guy’s heartbreak: even though the other person no longer loves him, he keeps waiting for her in the same spot. Xiuqi sings the start of this song, and then Goubai takes over for the chorus, which is why the chorus has that slightly “Taiwanese-accented Mandarin” flavor. Before I knew that, I kept wondering how one person’s voice could change so much. “I’m sorry, I lied to you, the tobacco in my rolling cigarette doesn’t come from the back hill, can’t quit the smokes, can’t quit you, what am I supposed to do, you turned around and left me, I know I had it coming, the rolling cigarette rolled away my love, my love.”
So I bet some of you are curious what “the tobacco in my rolling cigarette doesn’t come from the back hill” actually means. As it turns out, this line refers to a lie the Electric Fire King, Goubai, told his wife. One day his wife finally discovered that he had a smoking habit, and since smoking is bad for you, she was really worried about his health. But the Electric Fire King explained that the tobacco in his rolled cigarettes wasn’t the kind they sell in stores, it was grass he’d picked from the back hill of Shih Chien University, so it was totally fine for his health. But of course, the tobacco in the rolling cigarette didn’t actually come from the back hill, and that’s how this song’s story came to be.
Amazing Show’s “Low-Tech Bewitching Gadget Instrument” – Provincial Highway 8
That dazzling contraption you often see at Amazing Show’s live shows nowadays is actually the second “low-tech bewitching gadget instrument” built by Amazing Electronics. In the very beginning there was another homemade instrument that fewer people know about, called Provincial Highway 8 (a.k.a. “Tai 8 Line”, and of course Taiwanese people just can’t escape the curse of the pun). Simply put, Provincial Highway 8 has eight laser pens as its main body, and it makes a sound whenever an object passes through one of the beams.
Provincial Highway 8 is used in the song “Only Scott Knows.” “Only Scott Knows” is a bit different from the two songs I introduced earlier. The whole song basically consists of just these two lines: “If you don’t love me, why did you kiss me” and “Only Scott Knows, I got nothing at all.” Super simple, yet ridiculously addictive. “You’re so tempting, I’m so fragile, you’re so impulsive, why did you kiss me, becoming my boyfriend took only two seconds, you’re just an animal, why did you kiss me, why did you kiss me.”
So who exactly is the Scott in this song? Scott was actually something of a manager figure back when they founded their advertising company, and also “one of the people who led them astray.” At the time, this bunch of southern Taiwan guys came to the big world of Taipei and encountered those more “open-minded” values for the first time. This song is basically about the Taipei that Scott introduced them to.
The First Album – Electric Fire King
Those three songs are some of my personal favorites off the “Sound Check” EP, and they’re also some of the more well-known ones. Even though “Rolling Tobacco” really did put Amazing Show on the map, their official album didn’t make its debut until the end of 2018. That first official album was called “Electric Fire King,” and the lead single was, of course, the song “Electric Fire King.” Like the earlier songs, it has a very Taiwanese flavor and is inexplicably addictive. “I need the gear your household tossed out, gather it up, bring it over to mine and just be done with it, aluminum, screws, batteries hooked up to running lights, slap them together, slap together a heck of an appliance.”
This song is actually about Goubai, the Electric Fire King himself, during those years in Taipei: running around collecting all kinds of parts, building Provincial Highway 8, building the dazzling contraption, getting chewed out by bosses when he had no money, and making do with whatever stuff was lying around when he had no tools. Despite being nothing but scrap metal, once it landed in the Electric Fire King’s hands it was enough to assemble that dazzling contraption. The fun part is that there’s this passage in the info box below the song: “At the end of the story, the Electric Fire King finally realizes that what he commands is not electricity and fire, but ‘electric fire’ itself, and so the true Electric Fire King comes to know himself, finally ascending from ‘assembler’ to ‘controller,’ and his name shall be called ‘King of the Multicolored Treasure Mountain.'” And that “King of the Multicolored Treasure Mountain” later became the title of their next album.
The Affair Trilogy
This album also features three songs known as the “Affair Trilogy”: “Mier,” “Little Wife,” and “Light One Up.” Personally, I think it tells the story of a hostess at a drinking establishment. The guy in the story is like a man trapped in Mier’s pink bubble, and even though he knows she’s not a woman he should give his heart to, he still can’t keep himself from sinking deeper. “I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of you, and yet you don’t love me, I pretend not to know, she’s into rich guys’ junk, she’s not buying my fake romance, dumbass, dumbass, you lie to me, I don’t lie to you, I lie to myself that I understand.”
So who is Mier, really? Turns out she’s… a scam account? In one interview, Goubai mentioned that the Mier behind this song was actually one of those pretty-girl accounts used for “escort delivery” or scams, the kind that always showers you with attention and will chat with you about anything, all just to swindle your money. Back then, Goubai ran into an account like that and actually started chatting seriously with it, and the account’s nickname happened to be Mier. As for the next chapter, “Little Wife,” it’s like the juicy “affair part” in the trilogy’s narrative arc. The story is about going to hook up with a mistress after fighting with the main wife. “All I can do is hold your hand, take you in my mouth, two cheaters who can’t find a place to make love, hold your hand, take you in my mouth, while each of our spouses sleeps soundly in bed.”
As for the final chapter of the Affair Trilogy, “Light One Up,” it’s about a breakup. The two people in the story go their separate ways because their life paths diverge, yet after all those years they still can’t bring themselves to cut it off cleanly. As sad as it is, what’s done is done, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. I’m not sure why, but whenever I listen to this song there’s always this “well, what else can you do?” feeling, that open-hearted acceptance that what’s happened can never be undone. “Maybe I’m the one who changed, or maybe I haven’t changed, maybe what changed is that fixation I had on you, when you opened your mouth and said you didn’t want to grow old together, that’s when I realized I’m no longer the person I used to be.”
And this song is a true story too! It’s about one of the Amazing Show guys still ending up heartbroken after a really long relationship marathon. As for who it is, you’ll have to guess for yourself! Alright! Thanks so much for reading, there’s still a lot more to this story, but I think we’ll leave it here for today. Thanks again for tuning in. Below are all the songs I’ve recommended in my weekly playlists, so feel free to save them. I can’t believe how much I ended up writing without even realizing it~
Oh, here’s one piece of trivia you might be curious about, even though the answer isn’t all that interesting. Why does Amazing Show call itself a “Corporation” (集團) instead of a band? It’s because they didn’t want to be boxed in by the meaning of the word “band.” Compared to a band, a “corporation” can take on all sorts of different experiments without it feeling strange! And honestly, I think that really fits their image. To me, Amazing Show is already so free that if one day they invented their own language, I wouldn’t even be surprised. That said, every time I see a music streaming site list them as “Amazing Show Band,” I still find it pretty silly.
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