Woodhands Love Chinese Food, Music And Women

06/25/08 4:30pm

by Evan Dickson (CHARTattack)

Woodhands, Toronto's favourite electro-party duo, just got back from playing a Canadian music showcase in Beijing, China. Besides the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, Dan Werb and Paul Banwatt got an intimate look at the Chinese capital's street culture and indie rock scene.

After their showcase gig, which was organized by the honchos at Vancouver's Transmission Festival and also included Buck 65, Champion and You Say Party! We Say Die!, the guys were approached by a Chinese music journalist who showed them around the city.

"She was awesome," says Werb of their unexpected guide, Lua. "She showed us around and got us into the hip, tiny restaurants where you're in someone's living room. She took us for massages..."

Most Canadians experience Chinese cuisine via all-you-can-eat buffets or Chinatown areas in Toronto or Vancouver. For Werb in particular, visiting small, authentic Chinese restaurants was like a religious experience.

"I'm a Jew from Vancouver, and Jews from Vancouver are basically raised on Chinese food," he says. "It was like my Zion. I'm a Sino-Zionist, if you can believe it."

Apart from the food and massages (which the two men insist were G-rated), Lua got Woodhands a second gig at a local venue called D-22, which Werb compares to Toronto's Sneaky Dee's.

"They're really supporting their local music scene at that place," Banwatt elaborates. "On the walls are picture portraits of local bands that are sort of rising up.

"They're doing everything they can. They've got this whole roster of bands that they kind of view as D-22 bands that are sort of building a scene."

That's how the duo who were supposed to share Canadian sounds with the Chinese fell in love with some of Beijing's homegrown talent. Woodhands shared the D-22 stage with a red-clad noise duo and a punk band called Carsick Cars, with whom they were particularly impressed.

"I think what got me about Carsick Cars is they take that music and they just own it," says Banwatt. "I think there's an immediacy to it when you bring all this western culture at the same time very quickly, as opposed to a gradual evolution."

"The scene is really open for that reason," adds Werb. "Maybe it's because there's so much new music coming at them that it's all relevant."

The bespectacled synth player is also enthusiastic about a Chinese electro act called Pet Conspiracy, though not just because of their music.

"Dan liked the girl in a band called Pet Conspiracy," says Banwatt.

"Yeah, she was cute," mutters Werb.

Now that Woodhands are back in Canada, they'll play Montreal's Metropolis on June 29 and the Breaks, Beats & Culture Festival at Toronto's Harbourfront on July 5.