Queens Of The Stone Age - If I Had A Tail

Trip Part 2: The next few days. We landed in Taipei, Taiwan, down $500 and a good friend. But we could not let that deter us so we hopped on a bus to the city centre with what little energy that was left in us. After finally finding our hostel we had gotten there too late and nobody was there... except for the only other guy staying there who heard us and let us in; I guess we had to get lucky at some point! After a brief introduction and the dropping of the bags we headed out for our first $1 beer(s) in Asia (bought at a 7-11, drank in public). Our "doorman" turned out to be from Ohio originally but he was basically Asian as he had been travelling the continent for over four years. He immediately became our personal encyclopedia as we racked his brain with as many questions that we could think of and he was more than willing to at least attempt to answer them all. He was an incredible person to run into on night 1 and ended up being an excellent travel companion as well.

Taipei was a city that my friend and I had never, ever envisioned visiting, save for it's airport on connecting flights. What we discovered was a city bursting with culture and character that was both familiar and very foreign. We arrived right at the start of Chinese New Year and the city was alive with celebrations as families  and friends reunited for a few days of feasting and  fireworks. We attempted to partake in the festivities by setting off shoddy fireworks, exclaiming "Shin ye quai le" (Happy New Year in brutal Taiwanese-English) to the amusement of locals, and had a feast of our own with the help of some Taiwanese girls on break from studies at University (a delicious, crazy meal complete with duck blood, chicken hearts and many other things that I still have no clue what they were).

Taipei was a familiar city because it was very modern and first world. We ventured to the top of the world's second highest building that holds the Guinness Record for fastest elevator (1010 m/s), the Taipei 101 Tower, danced the night away at a club called Roxy 99 (of course!) to great hip-hop, rock and pop (watching an entire dance floor of Asian guys and gals belting out the chorus to Oasis' "Don't Look Back In Anger" was an incredible sight to behold), had a greasy Burger King hangover meal and took in some brilliant live blues at a bar called Bobwundaye (two white, American dudes on guitar and vocals/harp and a local girl on drums). Yet for everything that was modern and recognizable there were even more very foreign experiences. Streets came alive with markets selling the likes of terrible knock-off clothing, live yet very sedated ducks, Angry Birds on anything and, of course, poorly made fireworks. I smelled quite possibly the worst smell of my life which was in fact a food item known in English only as stinky tofu. Myself and our Yankee friend destroyed a combined 12 years of not puking due to alcohol with one sip of Taiwanese vodka. We felt a great lil' high and started spitting red after chewing on the mighty Betel Nut. And we even met a girl from Swaziland who's name was, no joke, "click" leeswa. Taipei was accidentally awesome and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with the time to go there.

The Queens Of The Stone Age are fucking back with a huge roar. The entire new album is fantastic, full of stoneriffic riffs, killer grooves and the badass snarl and songwriting from front man Josh Homme. This track, "If I Had A Tail" is the best example of everything that the album stands for. It begins, oddly enough, sounding a bit like the beginning of The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" but quickly stomps out that pop rock with a sick riff over a strong, haunting beat. The guitar solo that follows the first chorus proves that modern rock still isn't quite dead and that these guys are ready and willing to carry its torch. The video is also awesome, featuring cool animation and a driver on an apocalyptic mission. QOTSA are headlining the Squamish Valley Music Festival this year and I cannot fucking wait to see them.

Some Taipei pics...

The Taipei 101 Tower getting lost in the clouds

Our New Year feast

Brilliant translation breakdown

The Betel Nut, a cheap and legal hiiiiigh