Hanoi Ink – We Are Brothers, We Are Ghosts

Hanoi Ink meditates on Ho Chi Minh City band Giao Chi’s 11 March show with Gibbon Suburbia at Hanoi Rock City

It is 3am on 13 December 2009 and we’re sitting on the sidewalk in Ho Chi Minh City with Beijing post-punk rockers P.K.14. Hard on the heels of their US debut, they have just put down a killer set at the sadly now disappeared Cage Bar, courtesy of the legendary Hanoi-based CAMA Collective in their first foray south. Traveling together with P.K.14 is the manager of D.22, the Beijing club at the epicentre of Beijing’s very active punk and experimental music underground. It is their first trip to Vietnam and they are keen to know about the music scene and what local bands are pushing the envelope.

It is a difficult question to answer. The rock scene in Vietnam has developed a lot over the past decade or so, but even the more original acts rarely venture far beyond the basic palette of metal, nu-metal and the more mainstream varieties of alternative rock. At least in Hanoi, the biggest reference point over the past few years seems to have been American band Linkin Park: just about every show currently includes at least one rap metal moment and a few years ago the country’s most famous rockers Bức Tường even opened a bar called Linkin Pub (facts which have not escaped the music promoters currently in talks to bring the band themselves to Vietnam later this year). A far cry from the art-driven experimental Beijing scene we are hearing about.

Ironically, the one band they absolutely should have met, Ho Chi Minh City’s Giao Chỉ, were that same weekend playing their first ever show in Hanoi at Nha San Studio. We returned to Hanoi to reports of something very different, and very cool. Young iconoclastic art rockers with a punk ethos, setting things alight (literally) with on-stage theatrics and playing a scorching all-original punk/industrial/metal set. I was gutted to miss the show, even in such a good cause.
Fast forward 15 months and Giao Chỉ are finally back in the capital, thanks to Hanoi Rock City and the persuasive powers of Edd and Dom from Gibbon Suburbia who were at the previous Hanoi show in 2009 and have been proselytising for Giao Chỉ in the north ever since. It is around 11.15 pm, and Gibbon Suburbia have set the scene, following up their last outing at HRC’s opening night in December. Many friends of the Gibbons in the crowd are aware that this may be Edd’s last show with the band before heading to Japan for a new job, and there is a whole lot of love going on, with the final song Grinder as always giving the crowd a huge lift. A quick re-set of the stage and Giao Chỉ are underway.

They have trimmed down their lineup since they last played Hanoi, going from seven members down to five, with only one guitarist compared to three previously, and a new bass player. Gone too are the matching black outfits: vocalist Phạm Trần Việt Nam seems to be channeling Joy Division, bare-chested in a military-style jacket complete with medal, while Nguyễn Xuân Nguyên on keyboards is kind of new wave in a high-buttoned shirt and what could possibly be described as parachute pants. After a lot of thought I finally decide that bassist Nguyễn Bá Mẫn somehow reminds me somehow of Prince. Or of, well, a bass player in an art rock band. Guitarist Mai Thanh Nam–still rocking the all black look–gazes impassively at the crowd from under a broad brimmed hat while drummer Trương Công Tùng rapidly strips down to a pair of androgynous, high-waisted black shorts that would not look out of place on a mime artist.

Giao Chỉ open with Ra Đây (Come Here), and within a few bars the whole band is dancing.

Singer Nam and Nguyen on keyboards seem to fire off each other, spinning like tops as the energy of the song winds up.

They certainly deliver a big enough sound as a five-piece, with no obvious weak link.

Listening to the band before the show, I had been trying to pin them down to a specific genre. The same question has generated plenty of heat, though rather less light, on various rock forums. The band themselves cite their influences as Rammstein and Marilyn Manson, and their Facebook page gives their genre as “Punk, Gangs Metal”. The whole punk vs. metal question has been exercising my thoughts somewhat, but live they mostly lay that to rest, with much less of a metal edge than I was expecting, particularly in their vocals. Certainly there are no big metal guitar shredding moments here, just a solid punchy driving rhythm section somewhere in the spectrum from glam rock through early punk and Bleach-era Nirvana to industrial, overlaid by Nguyên pushing keyboard lines in all sorts of directions and singer Nam’s urgent, insistent polemics.

The next song is Ta Là Ma (We are ghosts). This has been my favourite coming into the show, nice and heavy with call-and-response vocals. The song is basically a warning to playboys (người ăn chơi), telling them that their number is up:

Nam: “We are ghosts, coming to get the playboys!”
Band (falsetto, presumably representing the playboys): “Save us, please save us!”
Nam: “Do you think we’re lying, we’re coming to get you!”
And so on.

Giao Chỉ was formed by band leader Nam with a group of mid-20s students at the Ho Chi Minh City School of Fine Arts. It takes its name from the old kingdom of the Hùng Kings in the Red River Delta, considered to be the forerunner kingdom of the Vietnamese nation. Quizzed before the show, the band doesn’t commit to too much of a social message, but they do stress that brotherhood and bridging the gaps between different parts of the country are a key themes, with band members coming from the north, centre and south. Other interviews have also noted the idea of razing or leveling (San Bằng/”Pan Bằng”), which is in fact the name of their next song.

For my money this is the standout song of the set so far: the pure early punk era feel of the opening verse is perfectly complemented by the on-the-spot marching of the singer and other band members. They come forward and down for the chorus, legs spread wide for some serious head banging.

Over the noise, a friend leans in and shouts, “I never thought punk existed in Vietnam.”

It is a reaction shared I suspect by more than a few others in the crowd.

It is probably smart of the band to take things back down a notch with the next tune, swapping instruments (Thanh Nam relinquishes his guitar to the singer and crosses to keyboard, while Nguyên doubles on vocals) and switching to more of an indie rock style. I have been loving the interplay between the vocalist Nam and keyboard player Nguyên, who in many ways is a kind of second frontman for the band, but for mine this song—while quite serviceable—is a little dead. Matters immediately improve when the band returns to the regular lineup and the heavy, driving sound of the opening numbers.

The band keeps the intensity going for the rest of the set, closing things out with Chạy Mau and then I think Không Anh Em. These are both songs on brotherhood, reflecting the band’s own life experiences: “we are students, but still affected by the gangster world”.

Chạy Mau (Run!) starts with keyboard over drums, and sounds like it could be setting up for the most metal tune of the set. The southern accents come through strongly on this tune. Singers in Vietnam, even those from the south, are trained to use a northern accent; Nam explains their style as resulting from having had no training and just singing naturally. In the end it stays more punk than metal, closing with a repetitive extended chorus that is basically just variations on the two syllable name of the song: “chạy chạy chạy mau, chạy chạy, chạy chạy chạy mau, mau mau, mau, mau, mau mau…”

By the time they hit the last song of the set singer Nam is connecting strongly with the very responsive crowd, particularly the group of young Vietnamese artists going somewhat crazy down the front.

One minute he is down dancing with them, the next up on a stage standing on a bench he has grabbed from somewhere, then down again off stage half lost in the crowd.

The band seems a little unprepared for the very noisy demands for an encore. Finally they come out and launch back into their first song of the night, Ra Đây. I’m not usually a believer in repeating songs, but it kind of works here, giving the crowd a sense of familiarity. There is even a little singing (well, shouting) along. It is not enough for the crowd though, who very energetically attempt to wring a second encore out of the band.

The show finally ends, as all good shows should, well after midnight with a buoyant crowd chanting for more, and the completely spent singer hiding in the speaker stacks beside the stage.

Here is a video of the band playing. Shot by Alex Leonard.

Giao Chi from Alex Leonard on Vimeo.