Posted by On the morning of September 9th, 2023 I asked m’lady if she wanted to join me for a jaunt into Town* for an afternoon concert in the park featuring XIA-3 with an opening set by Isaac Andrews.
“What’s XIA-3?” she asked.
“I saw a clip online,” I answered. “it’s some lady playing a traditional Chinese instrument with a rock band behind her.”
As I was talking I was simultaneously typing into google. “Ah, here we go,” I said:
The Xia 3 Spinal System is a comprehensive pedicle screw system designed to treat degenerative, trauma/tumour and deformity pathologies…
“I don’t think I’ll go.”
“No, wait…okay, here it is…”
XIA-3 is an emerging instrumental fusion band based in Newfoundland that blends traditional Chinese influences with Western post-rock grooves. The group was formed in 2022 and is fronted by guzheng virtuoso Dr. Jing Xia with support from well-established St. John’s punk rockers Ritche Perez on bass and Brian Downton on drums.”
“What’s a guzheng?” m’lady asked.
This I didn’t have to google. Back in the ’90’s I was selling guitars in a music store. When the owner started dating a Taiwanese musician we suddenly started selling guzhengs too, though I knew the instrument under a different name. “I think I used to call it a kora**,” I replied. “It’s a Chinese zither, sort of like a harp with about a dozen strings attached to a wooden thing that looks like a log.
“They’re pretty cool instruments, and I think it would be neat to hear one in a rock setting. And it’s free.”
She was in. Who wouldn’t be?
This was my second time attending the Music @ Bannerman Park concert series and m’lady’s first. As we were laying out our blanket near the stage I noticed Carbonear-based swing-jazz guitar phenom Duane Andrews sitting on a park bench nearby, clearly waiting for the show to begin. Aha! That’s where I had heard the name before.
“Hey, guess what?” I rhetoricked m’lady. “The opening guy Isaac Andrews-Power is Duane Andrews’ son. I saw him playing with his dad a couple of months ago. He’s great!”
And he was. When I had seen him perform as a sideman to his father Isaac had played several different instruments and he even sang a tune but for this short opening set he stuck to what seems to be his main axe, the violin. Well, he mostly played the fiddle, with a few snippets of violin interspersed throughout***. But just like the last afternoon concert I had seen in the park, the opening set lasted a mere fifteen minutes.
During the introduction for the afternoon’s headliner we learned that bandleader Jing Xia had earned her Doctorate in Ethnomusicology at Newfoundland’s own Memorial University and during Jing’s between-song banter we learned that the bashful, somewhat demure musician was born in Hunan, China and was a relatively new Come From Away-er. But most importantly, it was during the first number that we learned that Xia was total pro on that guzheng of hers, and that she was a quick study on incorporating her traditional instrument into good old three-chord rock and roll.
While I’d say the vibe leaned more towards the Chinese trad side the garage-band undertones were undeniable. It could merely be a byproduct of the instrumentation or perhaps it was the inevitable result of a punk rock rhythm section backing up the uniquely plucked vibrato of the Chinese harp, but really, I think Jeng’s virtuosity kept things around a 70-30 Chinese/punk ratio, despite the petite Asian frontman**** being outnumbered in the group by North Americans by a rate of two-to-one and being outweighed by a margin of at least 8/1.
Anyway, the entire hour-long set was thoroughly consistent and totally great. Though the general feel of the music remained constant there was enough variety in the songwriting to keep things fresh and interesting. Sure, having a guzheng virtuoso up front gives XIA-3 an immediately identifiable “hook” but by no means should the band be dismissed as a novelty act. They are simply an intercontinental Newfoundland instrumental melodic Asian spa-rock fusion band, and they are pretty solid.
*Town = St. John’s, Newfoundland
**Strange, because a kora is an African harp/sitar-like instrument with a gourd. And now that I think of it, after I left the music store with the guzhengs I started teaching at a different music store, one which sold African koras. And the fact that I wasn’t scratching my head back then saying “…but I thought Chinese zithers were called “koras”?” means that I must be misremembering what we had called those guzhengs. But whatever we called the things, it sure wasn’t “guzheng”.
***Yes, the fiddle and the violin are really just terms for different ways of playing the same instrument. If you play straight-up classical music on a “fiddle” it becomes a “violin”. Likewise, if you pull out your Stradivarius violin and start playing Hee-Haw hoedowns on it you’ll instantly find yourself with a very expensive fiddle tucked under your chin.
****Oh, stop it. I’m not being sexist. “Frontman” isn’t meant to be gender-indicative. Rather, the term is an abbreviation of “front manipulator” as in: “one who controls the front of the stage”. Plus, just try typing “frontwoman” into your device and see what spellcheck***** has to say about it.
*****When I initially typed the previous astersked sentence I accidentally spelled “spellcheck” as “spellchack”. Spellcheck was of course very quick to correct me, and with what seemed like a bit of a huffy attitude at that. I know in the grand scheme of it nobody cares about such tiny ironies******, but I figured if you’re still with me this deep into Asteriskville then you would want to know.
******And just like that I created a new tongue-twister: Go ahead, try saying “Tiny Irony” five times fast.
/asteriskville
Todd Man Out 