Rocking the republic

>>Local francophone band
Chinatown go over like monks on fire

MADE IN CANADA: Chinatown

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“It was really special,” says drummer Gabriel Rousseau, commenting on his band’s recent tour. “It had that vibe of 1963, the Beatles coming through and showing people what rock ’n’ roll was.”

An outrageous claim at first glance, yes. But Rousseau is referring to Chinatown’s recent tour of China, an economic superpower perhaps but a backwater when it comes to rock. A vibrant underground exists across the republic, with everything from rock to punk to metal emanating from obscure corners of Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland, yet the mainstream is dominated by pop schmaltz. Even those who appeared to Rousseau to be “the cool kids” were Celine Dion fans, and the only rock band name-dropped within earshot was Linkin Park.

“These young university kids would come up to us after the show and go, ‘This is the first rock show I’ve ever seen in my life!’,” recounts Rousseau. “A 22-year-old kid told us, ‘This is the first time I ever go out. I’ve never been to a bar, and now I’m having a Carlsberg and seeing a rock band!’”

Getting reserved audiences in a faraway land on their feet, dancing and drowning out the music with their screams isn’t something Chinatown does every day. When they’re at home, Rousseau and his bandmates Félix Dyotte, Julien Fargo, Pierre-Alain Faucon and Toby Cayouette are probably better known (certainly among anglophones) for some of the other bands they are or have been involved in: Camaromance, Hexes and Ohs, Statue Park and the Undercovers.

The latter was the band that gave way to the Stills, who have close ties to Chinatown. Not only did the Stills’ Dave Hamelin work on the band’s upcoming EP, L’amour, le rêve et le whisky, but they covered Chinatown’s “Retour à Vega” for the soundtrack of the film Wicker Park, scoring their friends some international notoriety and sweet royalty cheques.

But it was Fargo’s connections in his native France that got Chinatown to China, playing the annual Francophonie festival and working with the Canadian, Quebec and French governments (and a cultural attaché in Beijing) to book a small tour. Rousseau, who’d previously never left North American soil (none of the band members had played abroad) says he’d like to see other local bands explore these little-known channels because it’s easier than it looks and the experience is well worth it.

“Personally, I didn’t believe it until we were actually in the airport, and even then it was unreal. I mean, the people over there were so ridiculously nice to us,” says Rousseau, describing being taken on city tours in vans with tinted windows, dining at fancy restaurants and meeting heads of state.

“The first problem we had was that the concept of guitar amps doesn’t really exist over there. Everything runs through a P.A., and for them, it’s completely normal. So this guy drove around a city of roughly 20 million people trying to find guitar amps, calling every contact he had, and he hooked us up. This guy would have done anything to make us happy, and he owned a bar that was approximately the size of Jupiter Room. It was amazing.”

With Mille Monarques at Zoobizarre
on Friday, June 13, 9 p.m., $5;
cd launch with Black Diamond Bay
at Divan Orange on Thursday,
July 10, 9 p.m.