Battle of the Er-hu Bands

The metal voice for Taiwan
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER

Taiwanese extreme metal band Chthonic has a major beef. What other band rages against a machine as big as as the world's largest country, population 1 billion?

[Chthonic, left, courtesy of howling-bull.co.jp]

A rock band with a face-paint obsession may not seem like the most likely candidate to advocate United Nations membership for Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. But on their current North American tour "UNlimited" -- which included several shows at Ozzfest -- the members of Chthonic mix the righteous rage of metal with a message of empowerment for their home country.

"Metal fans understand the idea of justice," says vocalist Freddy Lim, who writes songs about the UN situation as well as Taiwanese legends and myths. "Before I sing [tour theme song] 'UNlimited Taiwan,' I always talk a little bit about Taiwan and the United Nations, but always in heavy metal language with a lot of cursing. It's not a very logical dialogue; it's a simple language, just to make the fans get interested."

[Left: Lim without the make-up, courtesy of Chthonic blog Invali]

If fans are intrigued after hearing Chthonic at B.B. King's tonight or at the Highline Ballroom on Sunday, they have a wealth of information available to them with the click of a mouse, says Lim. His own metal obsession began when he realized that Scandinavian metal used old Viking myths to carry explosive musical emotion. "I went to the library quite a lot," says Lim. "But now they can find everything on the Internet."

There's a lot to learn. On the band's Web site, fans can tap into the Taiwanese folk elements of the band's black-and-white Kiss-style face paint, the myths mentioned, and even the instrument that gives them their mournful sound: the erhu, sometimes called the Chinese violin.

At the Highline, Chthonic will be double-billing with another erhu band, Hsu-nami. Fronted by Jack Hsu of Tenafly, the rock fusion band from Ramapo. N.Y., played at the Passport to Taiwan festival in Manhattan earlier this summer and is looking forward to sharing the stage with Chthonic.

"It's going to be erhu fever," says Hsu, who emigrated from Taiwan at age 12. After mastering the violin at an early age, he turned to the traditional instrument and took some intensive lessons in Nanjing. "I picked it up pretty quickly because I had the violin background.''

[Right, Hsu-nami, courtesy of Hsu-nami.com]

Hsu-nami, a veteran of CBGB, the Stone Pony and the Lion's Den in New York, has just finished recording a full-length album and will be shopping it to record labels this fall.

As for the Taiwan connection, Hsu readily admits to being a beneficiary of Chthonic's campaign. "I found out about the UN situation from their online videos," he says.

Lim will be going the extra mile. While the rest of the band prepares for Saturday night's gig in North Carolina, he will be in New York earlier in the day, speaking at a protest organized by the Committee for Admission of Taiwan to the United Nations. Concerned Taiwanese-Americans from all over the country will be demonstrating in hopes that the UN will consider the latest petition for membership.

"It's the responsibility of all Taiwanese," says Lim. "We have to do it; we have no choice. We have to fight for our own rights."

E-mail: shih@northjersey.com

Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.