Asian American Bands: As Diverse as the Cultures

The first Asian American Lollapalooza.

That’s how actor-musician J.Q. Lee describes the concert he’s producing in Monterey Park next weekend featuring six area Asian American acts.

“I want people to know we’re more than just engineers, accountants and pharmacists. We do more than just laundry,” says Lee, a Chinese American whose band the Mad Chinaman will play next Saturday’s festival.

The show will take place on the grounds of the New Chinese Evangelical Free Church. Three stages will feature such acts as Powerplay, Junko, Fool’s Gold and the Christian MCs as well as Polynesian dancers.

The groups vary in style from funk to rap to alternative to middle-of-the-road rock. There will also be various booths set up by groups such as East-West Communications, a gang prevention program.

Lee’s comparison to Lollapalooza may be hyperbole: He hopes to pack in 800 to 1,000 people. But that will be a larger audience than usual for most of these bands, which normally play special events such as the annual Lotus Festival in Echo Park and tiny clubs in their communities.

“I want to highlight some of the bands in the Asian American community,” Lee says. “We represent a lot of different cultures. (The members of) Fool’s Gold are Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and the MCs are Samoan.”

Rono Tse, formerly of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy, and James Iha of the Smashing Pumpkins are two Asian American musicians who have gained high profiles in hip-hop and alternative rock. But the examples are few, and you’re even less likely to find a predominantly Asian American band.

Lee--an L.A. native who has worked as an arranger and keyboardist with Brian Wilson and Don Was, among others, and as a production assistant on Grammy Awards shows--hopes that by starting at a grass-roots level he can encourage more Asian-Americans to form their own bands.

“There are a lot of Asian American musicians that have talent in ‘acceptable’ areas like classical music and jazz,” he says, who chose the name of his band to draw attention to the cultural biases. “But you don’t really see a whole lot of us in bands, let alone outside those areas. I want Asian Americans to see that other Asian Americans can play rock and rap. If you don’t have an example, you don’t really know how to go about it.”

Asian rock bands do exist overseas, but as Lee describes it, they aren’t exactly speaking to all Asian Americans here. “In Hong Kong or Thailand, there are bands making gold records, but they sing in Chinese.”

That’s the void that’s waiting to be filled by up-and-coming or yet-to-be Asian American rock and rap groups. Lee wants to make his festival an annual event, but fears he may have problems digging up enough bands.

“I’d love to do more if there were more Asian American bands around to play. As of now though, I see it as a chance to let these bands shed the restraints of what people think they should do: Play softer, more mellow, don’t move so much, don’t gyrate so much. I want to provide a situation where they don’t have to worry about production, where they can just play what they hear in their heads and let it all loose.”

* Powerplay, Junko, Mad Chinaman and others play next Saturday at the Chinese Evangelical Church, 1111 S. Atlantic Blvd., Monterey Park. 7:45 p.m. $7.50. (213) 857-0274.