About Me
Semi-con was formed in the spring of 2001. The three members were Jimi (Shiao Ma) - Vocals/Guitar, Jafy (Fei Shin) - Bass/Vocal, and Eric Diong (Malaysia). When we first started, I had only been learning to play guitar for about a month. Jafy and Eric didn¡¦t know how to play bass and drums at all, but during our first practice we played the same four songs non-stop for ten hours. We felt very energetic at that time. We had our first show the week after Semi-Con formed. The performance was at an event celebrating the reconstruction of a police station that was destroyed during the 921 Earthquake. It was held in Puli, a very small town in Central Taiwan. There were all these grandpas and grandmas at the show. We sang our first song -(notebook). This song is full of dirty words. The song accuses the education system of ignoring the students¡¦ voices. Some people in the audience were very into the show, but most of them were shocked and thought we were insane. This show was very important to us, not only because it was our first show, but also because it gave us more momentum and a purpose behind playing music - ¡§happiness and playing non-stop.¡¨After this, we started to write more songs. We wrote some Brit-pop tunes because we loved Brit-pop when we first got into music. But after a while, we felt Brit pop was not suitable for us - we felt it¡¦s too ¡§heavy¡¨, so we started to write pop-punk songs. . Our best songs at that time were "free" - about Jimi¡¦s first love, ¡§Skyumi,¡¨ - about Jafy¡¦s first love, and "notebook", a kind of nu-metal style song.Because none of us knew how to play music, and we wanted more power, we invited Ah-Q to be their bassist and Jafy switched to guitar. This was our first line-up change. Semi-con¡¦s music became much fuller. During that time, we wrote a lot of songs. We called this period ¡§the middle age.¡¨ Most of our songs during that time were Rancid style, such as "The First Encounter Between Asshole and Dick", - cause we didn¡¦t like to shower at that time, ¡§Fuck You, Teacher¡¨, ¡§Future¡¨, ¡§Anti-Myself,¡¨ and ¡¨Peace Day.¡¨ Some of these songs we don¡¦t sing anymore and some of them only our friends heard, but all of this material brings back good memories for us. Two of these songs, ¡§Future¡¨ and ¡§Anti-Myself¡¨ are still very meaningful to us. These songs were dedicated to our friend who left us in a car accident. She always told us she loved those two songs the most. She had always supported us and we were all very sad when we found out she was gone. We held a show for her in front of a 7-11 at Chi-Nan University. Nobody jumped or laughed at the show. We just sang these two songs and we hoped she could hear them.I decided to shave my first mohawk after seeing RPDX at a ¡§Stock Rock¡¨ punk party in Taichung for the first time. After we formed the band, we all bought a razor and started to shave our hair. It wasn¡¦t hard for Jafy and I, but it was quite a hard decision for Eric (the handsome one¡K) and Ah-Q (who had long hair). After several packs of cigarettes, we finally coerced them.Not long after that, we had our first pub gig. The show was held at the old Nuno¡¦s Livehouse with the Taipei ex-pat band The Deported. Because this was our first real show at a real live house, we were are all really excited. We rode our motorcycles about 2 hours from Puli to Taichung. This show was really crazy and wonderful. Although there were only about 5 people there, we still felt very excited. We met The Deported at that show. That¡¦s how I got to know Andy and became friends. He writes lots articles about us in Pots Magazine and many other places. We always have appreciated this. After this show, Semi-con began to find shows all around Taiwan and we started to play one or two shows a week. We even made a tradition out of playing in front of 7-11 at Chi-Nan University. The 7-11, the library, and a local restaurant all hated us and closed the doors whenever we played. Semi-con also played at the first ¡§Cross-Year¡¨ festival in Kaoshiong. After we took out pants off at this show, they forbid us to ever attend another Cross-Year show again. Not long after, that we recorded the first Semi-Con EP. We spent three hours recording eleven songs and mixing it down, so you can imagine - it¡¦s full of spirit but it sounds terrible. We called the EP ¡§Have you every thought about your future?¡¨ Only a few people have this EP. Although the recording on this EP is of pretty poor quality, it got our music out to more people. It also got us on the bill to play ¡§Stock Rock*¡¨ the local punk music party which got us into punk in the first place. It has always been our dream to play in front of all the Taichung punks and we had finally gotten our chance. Although we didn¡¦t get the response we expected, we still got to live our one dream at the time.After the Stock Rock show, Ah-Q left the band and we got a guy named Sliver to play bass. He was a computer engineer and played guitar in a metal/gothic band. We had to teach him how to play bass and jump around on the stage like us. The following April we got accepted to play at the 2003 ¡§Spring Scream.¡¨ Although the rain was pissing down, lots of people stood there to watch us play.At the end of 2003, Semi-Con was invited by the popular Beijing punk band, ¡§The Reflector¡¨ to come to Beijing with another Taiwan punk band, Fire EX, for a one week tour. This tour was like an amazing dream because we all love Reflector and we have been influenced by them a lot. Unfortunately, Jafy couldn¡¦t go with us this time, so Semi-Con went to Beijing without him. During the first three shows, the audiences weren¡¦t so passionate, but during the last few shows, all the people formed a mosh pit and danced together. After that tour, we became good friends with Reflector.After the Beijing tour, we decided to focus more on the music, so we started to worry more about the live balance, the equipment, and the tone¡Kfundamental things that we had never cared about before. We became more responsible about our music. Because our last EP was so poor, we decided to record a new one. This time we went to Kaoshiong and invited Sam (the vocalist of Fire E.X) to become our producer. This EP is called¡X¡§«C¬K¡¨(Youth). ¡§Youth¡¨ represents the second phase of Semi-Con. Sliver had to go into the army in 2004, so Jafy became the bassist again. After 2 years, we had finally found our own style¡X¡§three piece punk rock,¡¨ In the summer of 2004, Semi-Con played ¡§The Formoz festival¡¨ and ¡§Hohaiyan Festival,¡¨ ¡§Formoz Festival¡¨ is the biggest festival in the north Taiwan. We played near the beach in the ¡§Hohaiyan Festival.¡¨ The feeling was so good and we felt like we were in Hawaii with the sunset on the beach.These days Semi-Con keeps the three piece line-up and continues to work on new material. We have never lost our spirit ¡X to play until we can¡¦t move. We Hope all people can feel energy when they hear us. About the future attitude or goals¡K..? ¡§Do the right things, do the things right¡¨¡K.and play music happily!!PS: Stock Rock¡XIt changed its name to ¡§Fei party¡¨ later on. This is the most important activity to the punk rock movement in Taichung.(Even Taiwan!!!) It was held once a month and lots of important punk bands like RPDX , Anarchy , The Nerves, and Salesman played at that time. The show eventually ceased because of lack of money. What a pity!!!!!..
