Dandi Wind Electrocuted In China

12/23/08 5:58pm

by Sarah Kurchak (CHARTattack)

It's not often that a western band get a chance to play in the far east, and it's probably even less often that you get to talk to one of those groups about the experience.

So when CHARTattack interviewed electronica and multimedia artist Dandi Wind about her latest release, Yolk Of The Golden Egg, we couldn't help but ask her a few questions about her Asian tour with musical partner Szam Findlay. Here's what she had to say about the adventure:

CHARTattack: You toured China, Taiwan and Japan pretty extensively last spring. What was that like?
Dandi Wind: It was like the best time of our lives, pretty much. It was amazing. They treated us really well and everything was so well-organized and the shows were really well-attended and the sound systems were good. They did a really good job. It was awesome.

It's such a unique opportunity. How did it come about?
MySpace. They saw footage of our show and, because we work as a duo, they were able to fly us there and it wasn't as expensive as bringing a five-person band. And we flew from city to city, so it was easier to organize. Like, we don't have much gear, so it was easy for us to fly from city to city.

And also for the promoters, there's been hardly any acts from the west who have come to China, so they wanted something exciting and different to come. We're one of the only bands who have toured all of China. Like, all of these weird cities I didn't even know existed, so it was pretty amazing.

I think we took 3,600 photos. And we made a music video on the Great Wall Of China for the track "Lifetime," which is the second track on Yolk Of The Golden Egg. We also did one for "Powerball," which was done in Chengdu.

You also shot a documentary while you were there, right?
Yeah, but it never really got edited. The guy, our friend Nathan, who came to film it, got drunk every night, so he didn't take very much footage. But I shot a mini-documentary that doesn't have anything to do with Dandi Wind in the market, and I'm going to put it on my MySpace soon.

I understand that you suffered a pretty serious performance-related injury during the tour. What happened?
While we were on stage, someone threw a massive glass of beer on the stage, which I slipped into and the cord hit the beer and I got electrocuted. It was a really intense electric shock.

I actually saw my life flash before my eyes. I saw images of when I was like six years old. And it happened really fast and it was a really strong pain and afterwards I was so relieved that I wasn't dead that I kept performing.

An hour-and-a-half later, I suddenly felt really, really bad and my stomach bloated up so massive that it looked like I was pregnant and I felt so awful. They took me to the hospital in Taiwan, checked me out and gave me some muscle relaxants, painkillers and stuff. I had a weird purple bruise running up my arm, but, after that, I was OK. But that was one of the most intense experiences.