The Studio (@ Webster Hall) 125 E 11th St (between 3rd/4th Ave), NY

TICKETS :  $10 in advance and at the door

The Wall Music presents Fire Ex and The White Eyes! The Wall Music runs The Wall Live House in Taipei City and also operates a rock venue in Taiwan’s second largest city of Kaohsiung.  Now with the support of the Taiwanese government, Taiwan’s top indie bands are coming to North America for the first time.

The White Eyes (白目樂團)
Website: http://www.myspace.com/whiteeyeslovesyou

The White Eyes debut album, Kiss Your Eyes, was recorded in Beijing and mastered in New York by Greg Calbi (Sonic Youth, Pavement, Interpol, MGMT). The album is a fusion of Grunge, Punk and Psychobilly. Female lead singer Gao Xiao-gao is famous within Taiwan’s and China’s indie scenes for performing outrageous stunts on stage, including showing up for one gig wearing a nude leotard painted to look as though she was naked. The entire scene did a triple take on that one, both at the show and the next day on Facebook. Formed in 1994, White Eyes takes their name from a Taiwanese expression for people who say out loud those embarrassing things that everyone knows about. They’ve opened for international acts The Music and These New Puritans in Taiwan, were named best indie band at Taiwan’s 2009 Hohaiyan Music Festival, and their gigging experience covers Taiwan, China and Japan.

Fire EX (滅火器)
Website: http://www.myspace.com/fireex

When Fire EX (also called “fire extinguisher”) formed in 2000, all four members were 16-year-old high school students enthralled with the sounds of Green Day and other pop-punk acts. But they somehow managed to combine that raw guitar energy with local strains of Taiwanese rock, and by the time they were in college a mix of pure attitude and Taiwanese inspired melodies had carried them to the stages of Taiwan’s two largest music festivals of the time, Spring Scream and the Formoz Festival, where they quickly found themselves as a regular act playing for crowds in the mid-hundreds. While most of Taiwan’s indie music scene revolves around Taipei, Fire EX came out of Taiwan’s second largest city of Kaohsiung, which is around 300 miles to the south. Fire EX sings in both Taiwanese and Mandarin, as well as a smattering of English, and they are known for easy melodies, many of which combine the shout-along choruses of pop punk with revved up, guitar-powered interpretations of Taiwanese folk songs. With the band members approaching the ripe old age of 26, Fire EX has two full albums under its belt as well as a film soundtrack.