A Sichuan Rock Star Takes On America

Baishui's appearance at South By Southwest marks a milestone for modern Chinese music—but don't ask him to speak for anything but his songs.

It's high noon in March and the cluttered patio of Maria's Taco Xpress, the Austin, Texas institution, is gloriously sunny. First-time visitor Gan Baishui is moments away from his band's American debut, but the composer and musician from a fourth-tier city in southwest China you've never heard of looks far from psyched to be playing a gig on the sidelines of the massive annual music festival and industry conference South by Southwest (SXSW). The source of his current state might be mistaken for nerves, but he's probably just confused.

To look at him, Baishui (he and his band both go by his given name) conjures a bespectacled Mister Magoo, the nearsighted little old man of 1950s American television cartoons. He speaks in a thickly-accented Sichuan rasp, employing his entire head and contorting his face into a hard squint behind thick horn-rimmed glasses, a squint that gets harder as he switches from Mandarin to his better-than-he'll-admit-to English. It's like watching someone try, with all his might, both to process his surroundings and simultaneously describe his thoughts.

His pre-show discombobulation is understandable as he scans the mostly-empty picnic tables. In week two of what will stretch into a month-and-a-half in America, Baishui faces questions with no easy answers. Just what kind of debut gig is this? How will the band be received? Luo Keju, whose laptop is the source of the band's digital soundscapes and samples, stands beside him, but where the hell is their guitarist, Gu Dao?

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http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/a-sichuan-rock-star-takes-on-america/281122/