Brain Failure.

CHINESE PUNK ROCK? Sounds kinda gimmicky, no? Truth be told, I learned about Brain Failure because I went to see Roger Merit and the Disasters in Santa Cruz, CA, and Brain Failure was the opening band. I never listen to the openers, but given that I spend most of my life working on ways to prevent actual brain failure, I made up some non-logical argument in my head as to why Brain Failure the band might actually be good. Well, I was wrong--Brain Failure are amazing.

The lyrics are a bit hard to follow at times (English is these guys' second language) and they occasionally throw in phrases in Mandarin between "Oi!"s, but it all comes together as incredibly soulful anthems, melodies, and all around inspirational punk rawk. Seriously, everyone that I've played Brain Failure for seems to like them. Even Lindsey Byrnes (Thrasher's marketing director and most hard-to-convince music critic) was an instant fan of these guys. I've thought a lot about what it is that makes Brain Failure so catchy, and I think it may be in their delivery. In Santa Cruz, lead singer Xiao Rong sang the whole set from the bottom of his gut, staring right at the crowd the whole time. Seriously, I watched--he didn't blink once. If you ever read anything about political propaganda techniques, that's a core tactic for converting the unassured to follow your lead, and apparently it works. It seemed to worked pretty well in Santa Cruz, anyway; everyone started chanting along and going ape shit. That's rare. Unless you're on Warped Tour or the lights are off in a club, most people resent the "Come on everyone, put your hands together!" thing because it makes them feel like an idiot. Xiao Rong, on the other hand, was chanting for himself--no blinks, fist in the air, and it just brought people on board. I confess, it got me too. Since it was in Chinese, for all I knew I was singing "I eat ferret feces and I have SARS!" but didn't care because Xiao was doing it and that made it OK. Fortunately, the lyrics sheet for their album American Dreamer (Thorp Records, 2005) told me later that Xiao sings about genuine punk rock ideals, like freedom and liberty and fear of commercial takeover. Those themes may be old and tired here in the USA, hut it's a true risk to one's own freedom to step up and sing about those ideals if you're from mainland China--which is where each of these guys reside and have families and lives. Put simply, Brain Failure are just super good, no matter where they're from. And if they're any indication of where the world is headed over the next 50 years, then it's true after all: the Chinese are taking over.