Sam from Fire Ex talks about VFTS

This article originally appeared in Chinese on the Megaport Association website.

Voices From The South: Sam Yang, lead singer for Fire Ex

Never before has there been a person who possesses such an earnest attitude towards Kaohsiung’s music scene. We all love Kaohsiung and love our bands as a matter of course. However, there’s a guy from Canada, a guy who at all times can produce a bag of beer, who picks up a digital video camera and with great conviction tells us that he too loves Kaohsiung and its bands. Furthermore, he tells us he wants to carefully document the scene, and let the whole world see it.

At first, we all thought this wouldn't be such a difficult task. But after watching him and a couple of friends working hard filming every single performance, and arranging and filming band interviews, we slowly started to think that is not so easy after all.

One day, Don called me up and said “Join Us lost all the sound recording files, can I come film your show in Dan Shui?” I told him that this was only a small-scale performance, and it was not too convenient to get to the location of the show. Nevertheless, he still decided to come. Below the setting sun in Dan Shui came the man carrying two bags of equipment and a bag of beer. He came all the way from Kaohsiung. Immediately, my esteem for him went off the charts. The degree of importance he attached to this project far, far exceeded my imagination.

Folks in Kaohsiung haven’t really said thanks to him, so I want to tell you, Don, you’ve done an excellent job. We all admire you and want to thank you. On the 18th, let’s party! We wanna get you drunk!

As for what changes or influence this documentary will bring about, I don’t even want to take a wild guess. After all, I’m not a professional movie critic. I do hope that we can look back at this precious movie again and again when we’re old. I also hope it can let more and more people know about Kaohsiung rock music. Of course, if Don can make a bit of money from the movie, that would be good. At the same time, I hope the film will carry the sounds of all of our bands’ laughter throughout all of Taiwan.