Expat Friends at HRC: No border
From the very beginning of HRC, the expat was the first to open for us since the model of an indie music venue like us was blank to the locals. Ever since they play a vital role in the survival of HRC. Through that amazing 12-year journey, we greet and made great friends with lots of foreign music lovers. It feels like there is no border in this place. People may come from different countries, speak different languages, and have different religions but their hearts beat as one in The Red Room.
We are blessed to have such friends like David Payne, a part of the legendary group ZAMINA since 2010. David has been witnessing every growing step of Hanoi’s music scene for over 20 years.
We want to spend Cộng 5 on Dave’s writing back in 2015 about the music scene’s transformation, wrapping up with beautiful words from our dear Ella Beth and Lâm Vissay.
** Cộng is a blog series which shares a collection of people’s thoughts and memories about Hanoi Rock City and Hanoi’s music scene. Each blog focuses on different groups of people to see Hanoi Rock City from various viewpoints.
Hanoi is a washed up scene that never got started, but now and then some perfect lost soul washes up on the banks of the red river, scrapes off the worst of the mud, and says fuck it lets start a band.
Three minutes later they play their first show. Time slows for a moment, then jerks back onto its rails. Loves lies limp is the only song that ever got me hard. And the hardest thing of all is seeing every band that ever got its shit together fall apart again three minutes later.
The only band I ever wanted to be in? Kaboose – Gibbon Suburbia – Numbfoot – Slo Pogo – the backwards animaZ and one too long to mention. Someone else’s list will be Gỗ Lim – Machete Sex Mix – Xai. Or Projectionist – Racket Riot – Wừu – Toothbrush – Nile Crews – Blind – Mamale and Polemica Pravda – The Offensive – Sky Burial – Tiny Monster – Giao Chỉ – Fake. Not one named after a person. Đại Lâm Linh. No solo acts. It’s getting so cluttered up in here with all these dead and dying moments I don’t know what to do.
Hanoi is a washed up scene that never got started.
But ambassadors’ kids traded bootleg cassettes, and the Beatles cover bands slowly made their way. At some point Abba joined the karaoke playlists forever. Nguyễn Cường found rock in the central highlands, where Y Moan chased H’ren up to the eaten forest. And Michael Learns to Rock began it’s long slow ascent to the absolute pinnacle of national soft-rock adoration.
We used to debate the legitimacy of Lou Reed on the soundtrack of Trần Anh Hùng’s film set in mid-nineties Hanoi. But it fits the mood so perfectly I always believed that someone somewhere at that time woke up and did their morning exercises to those faded tunes under a slowly revolving fan.
Hanoi is a washed up scene.
They say there were rock riots in Hanoi in the early 90s. Breathless articles in the newspapers demonized kids in black t-shirts, with their long greasy hair and possible death cult beliefs. I heard a rumour that after one show fans marched around the lake, setting off flares and smashing windows. Eventually things normalized: Desire Band, The Wall, Sinh Viên ’96 and the first local edition of MTV on the national broadcaster, one hour per week. Patriotic rock. And those whitest-of-white White Eagles.
I only caught the last echoes of all that. In the early 2000s, there was a club for earnest student rockers, with panel discussions and monthly band showcases. Kids formed guitar circles on strips of grass in the middle of main roads, dreaming of Chapi. Afterwards everyone discovered hiphop, except for this one band named after Pinocchio. No one knows this history. In Hải phòng they still set off flares at all the big shows. I have played there, bathed in that warm light. But this is a small band small bar city, at least for the émigrés. When we move here, no one knows our history.
In my completely subjective view, the most rock film ever released here was a horror flic directed by Bùi Thạc Chuyên. A harmless old crazy-haired professor listens to Gạt Tàn Đầy as the body toll mounts. The most rock lyrics the country ever produced were an underground poem by that southern cuckold Nguyễn Quốc Chanh, gyrating, fucking the sand; I guess they were never set to music. The greatest ever Jimi Hendrix cover band only played once, or maybe ahandful of times, in 2004. And the greatest ever band name was Da Vàng (Yellow Skin)
In 2008 an academic in America wrote a carefully annotated article entitled “How does Hanoi rock?”. He confessed to me later that he’d never actually been to a show. Maybe in the end, our sweat is all we have.
Hanoi is a washed up scene that never got started, but every now and then some perfect lost soul washes up on the banks of the red river, scrapes off the worst of the mud, and says fuck it lets start a band.
Time is a tangled thread. It loops away and if you pull it too hard it breaks. Following loose threads patches frayed knees and ragged hems are all I have to cover myself. Year-by-unravelling-year.
Again I prise my fingers away from the things they cling to. Again I open my hands. In the centre of my palm, a tiny bird’s egg appears. The shell cracks, and reveals a blue tortex guitar pick exactly 1.0 mm thick. We were never in tune. I could never hear myself. I broke so many strings. We never got paid. I got my rocks off playing with people with no chops. With people I loved. To people I love.
I never started a band. I was never one of those perfect lost souls scraping off the mud. I just said yes. I met that old composer recently, after miming to a prog-metal version of another old song of his on national TV, to great acclaim. We took a photo together, with the other mimes, and said nothing about those old days we didn’t share.
Hanoi is a washed up scene that never got started, but now and then some perfect lost soul washes up on the banks of the red river, scrapes off the worst of the mud, and says fuck it lets start a band.
Dave Payne. Hanoi, 01.06.15
From Ella Beth:
“My favorite venue on the planet and home stage is turning 12 in December!
Before moving to Vietnam in 2012, I’d googled ‘live music venues’ in Hanoi and came across Hanoi Rock City. I immediately fell in love and knew I wanted to sing there. Fast forward 10 months later and I was a regular attendee at Open Mic Wednesdays, quickly graduating to host the event.
But HRC is more than a venue, it truly is a home for creative people from all walks of life. It’s a sanctuary for music and art and dance and poetry and photography.
I’ve lived a thousand lives within the walls of HRC: made the greatest friends and gained family, laughed till I cried/cried till I laughed, witnessed break ups and make ups, celebrated proposals and weddings and babies and reunions and farewells.
I’ve sung with more bands and written more songs than I can remember at HRC.
I really owe my professional singing career to DA and the HRC team for not only providing a stage to develop my performing and hosting skills but for giving me the opportunities to grow my confidence and musical wings to fly.
Hanoi Rock City will always be home stage and I couldn’t be more grateful or honored to be a small part of the story so far, happy 12th birthday to HRC and the team and staff and the vision of DA and Phu 👏🏼”
From Lâm Vissay:
“HRC is the best venue for original music in Hanoi. I am very happy to be part of its journey and I wish HRC more successful years to come.”
Lâm Vissay is a German actor with Vietnamese-Laotian roots. He moved to Vietnam in 2012 and settled in Hanoi, where he started writing and performing his own songs at Hanoi Rock City.
From deep down our hearts, we want to say thank you to all of our expat friends who have been there for us since the very beginning. In return, you guys will always have a home to come back to in Vietnam. 27/52 Tô Ngọc Vân always welcomes you. Just grab a beer, and jam together, any time.
