mao metal than you can handle (part 2)

Tuesday Maya and I returned to the 13 club for the final night of the "Metal Music Festival" with Eveline and our new friend from Seattle, Audrey, in tow. Eveline, it turns out, has been going to an impressive number of metal shows since moving to China, so this was nothing new for her; as for Audrey, though at first she seemed to have no interest in metal or in joining us at the show, she ended up being very easily persuaded to tag along ("So you wanna go?" asked Maya; "Sure," said Audrey).

The club was pretty much the same smokey, scuzzy scene as the day before, except slightly more decked out, care of the enormous Dimebag Darrell (R.I.P.) banner hanging over pretty much of the whole left side of the venue. Pantera may just be the biggest metal band in China, judging from the number of T-shirts, caps, etc. brandishing their name that we saw on both fans and band members at the Fest, and cheesy as it might sound, it was kind of heartwarming to see the late, great Dimebag's face smiling over the night's proceedings.

As we stepped into the club, a band either called Oxygen Can or Maul Heavily (I'm not sure) was bashing out some hilariously derivative but totally (albeit somewhat ironically) enjoyable nu-metal. Think a mashup of Korn, Slipknot, and Linkin Park, plus a couple ska breakdowns. The band even looked the part - from the two dudes with dreadlocks (the lead singer and one of the guitarists) to the drummer and percussionist, the latter banged away at a bunch of oil drums and a keg or two.



Later in their set, they even broke out a radio-ready power ballad, which Maya swayed and emoted along to.

As the next band started to set up, Eveline got a very excited look on her face. "I think this is my band," she said, her eyes wide with hope. See, about 6 months ago she had sent me via YouTube some video footage she'd shot of a performance of this band she thought was called 01. They incorporated Mongolian influences (throat-singing, and an instrument called the horse-head fiddle) into their music, and they dressed like Chinese demons of a sort (the bassist, like a mummy, wrapped in guaze; the guitarist, like a blood-spattered ghost). The clips she'd sent me were grainy and lo-fi, but the band looked and sounded awesome.

Thing was, the band in this spot on the schedule was called Voodoo Kungfu, not 01, and in fact, Eveline was under the impression that 01 had broken up. But as soon as the bassist took the stage - in blood-sprayed mummy garb - Eveline knew that rumors of the band's demise had been greatly exaggerated. "I love the mummy!" she said (the first of many times that she would repeat this mantra through the night). The band started in atmospherically, with the drummer throat-singing while the horse-head fiddle-player pulled a haunting melody from his instrument's two strings. After building the tension to a fever pitch, the rest of the band crashed in with some ferocious doom riffage and feral roars, courtesy of their burly singer, who wore a long, ornate Mongolian robe. Eveline, Maya, and I, and even Audrey - as well as the rest of the crowd - were completely enthralled.



By the end of their set (which ruled), their frontman had stripped topless, had been splattered with (presumably stage) blood, spit on him by the mummy/bassist, and was ranting like a rabid howler monkey. Dude, it was awesome.

Now, the one thing that Maya and I had been bummed about the night before was that none of the bands seemed to be selling merch, and I really wanted some Chinese-metal-band shwag to bring home with me. So when Maya spotted 01/Voodoo Kungfu's guitarist, "the bloody ghost" (though very much out of costume by now), sitting outside the club all by himself, she dragged Eveline along and made her ask him if his band had any CDs for sale. I was standing a bit aways with Audrey so I didn't see this myself, but according to Maya, the guitarist gave them a look like they were crazy (Eveline would later explain that there's so much piracy in China, that a lot of Chinese bands don't really bother putting out official CDs). But he and Eveline struck up a conversation (he didn't speak any English), and the next thing we knew the two of them were exchanging cellphone numbers!

Later in the cab back to our respective homes, Eveline explained that the guitarist/bloody ghost had said that the band didn't have CDs but did have a DVD and that he would be willing to sell one to us, so they had exchanged numbers. Eveline said she thought he'd said something about maybe he could even come by himself and drop the DVD off, but again, she only really understands 30 to 40% of shit, so who really knows. We immediately decided that he must be hitting on her, or that maybe he'd misinterpreted "Do you have any CDs for sale?" as a weird sideways come-on - since everyone knows Chinese bands don't have CDs (see previous explanation). I said, "Too bad you're only going to use him to get to the mummy," and we all joked that she was going to end up being 01/Voodoo Kungfu's Yoko Ono and break up the band.

Then a few days later, I get a text from Eveline: "The bloody ghost just texted me! I cant understand it but hes basically like whats up. It ended w a smiley face. Bwahahahahaha!!!"

Basically they've been texting ever since, and tonight he might even join us for drinks. We'll see. Maya and I have plotted out the 01/Voodoo Kungfu VH1: Behind the Music storyline - Eveline starts dating the bloody ghost, I come back to the States and rave about how awesome his band is to my metal label contacts, the band gets signed and puts out a critically acclaimed debut album. Then on the eve of the band's highly anticipated first U.S. tour, Eveline breaks the news that she actually has had feeling for the mummy all along, the band breaks up. Years later Eveline writes a tell-all memoir called I Loved the Mummy.