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GUEST EDITOR TOUR DIARY

From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 4

doa_beijing-lama-temple2doa_shanghaIn January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.

Day Six
The gig in Nanjing has been cancelled. Apparently the gear was crap and nobody showed up the week before at another show (tour manager) Abe (Deyo) had promoted. So we get a day of sightseeing in Shanghai. Spectacular city; on one side of the river are the old French colonial buildings, on the other side there is the new Shanghai. The new Shanghai has skyline that almost rivals Manhattan in size; the amazing part of this is that 20 years ago, that side of the river was a sleepy fishing village. Then after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Deng Xiaoping started China’s economic revolution. It has produced results that are far from evenhanded, but they’re amazing never the less.

In central areas of the big towns, we saw plenty of BMWs and Mercedes, women dressed in the highest fashion, men decked out in new suits and shops stacked full of as many consumer goods as we have in the west. But for everybody you saw that had a lot, there were 10 times as many that were just getting by. You would see a little weather-beaten guy riding a bike with five or six grey plastic bags full of something he might be collecting or recycling, like bottles, cloth, bits of plastic, wood, metal—nothing is wasted in this country. Or you would see a guy sitting on the sidewalk with bicycle-repair materials, and that was his shop, rain or shine or the nastily cold weather we were experiencing. You would see a little machine shop in a storefront eight-feet wide and maybe 15-feet deep; the father was working at the front of the shop, while the mother was there preparing dinner at the end of the metal lath, with their kid playing there as well. You also saw the craziest motorized contraptions everywhere, a little shitty scooter with a mini trailer attached to the back with a plastic tent erected over top of the scooter.

After the sightseeing, Abe left us at a coffee shop for a couple of hours; he had some biz to take care of. So we wandered down to a DVD store, (bassist) Dan and (drummer) Floor Tom purchased excellent copies of movies that were still in theaters back home for two bucks a pop. We went back to the coffee shop to wait for Abe. We had to catch the night train to Beijing at 7 p.m., and we couldn’t fuck up because it was the last one of the day. Abe came back about 90 minutes late; it was about 5 p.m., and we still had to collect our bags and gear from the hotel and make the train. We ran to the hotel and picked up the gear. We started looking for a cab, but there was none to be found. It was Friday at rush hour.

We started jogging at half pace toward the station carrying all of our shit. This went on for about 20 minutes or so; still no taxi, and it’s about 6:15. We finally find a cab, cram in and proceed to get into the biggest gridlock I have ever seen. It doesn’t seem to matter to the motorists what color the traffic light is—they all just jam their cars into whatever open space they can find. So nobody really moves, it’s about 6:40, and by this time, the cursing collectively emanating forth from D.O.A.’s lips would have made a sailor blush. We finally get to the station at about 6:45. We are running full speed at this point. We have to go through a bomb-detection area; when we are through, a Chinese soldier picks up one of the guitars and helps us out by running full steam through the station with us. The soldier gives us back the guitar and heads back at the escalators. Abe picks up the bass and the guitar and starts running at full speed. His Tai Kwan Do training is paying off, as we are pulling up the rear, huffing and puffing to beat the band. I have seen a lot of big train stations in New York and Europe, but Shanghai’s station dwarfs any of those. We finally find our train and our car. Shit that was a marathon! Tough, but good stuff!

The train itself is really new and really nice. I was pleasantly surprised. There was a great dining car; after dinner, we head back to our compartment. As the train is clacking along, I keep wondering if we will get involved in a modern Murder On The Orient Express-type situation; no such luck. Instead Dan and I play cribbage, and I talk him into finishing the last of the rice wine. This makes it easy to skunk him at crib. A capital maneuver, Joe old boy! Capital indeed! After the crib, it’s lights out. I listen to wheels clacking along. I sleep with one eye open on the Orient Express.

Day Seven
We get off the train at 7 a.m. and go straight to the biggest cab queue I have ever seen in my life. There is a back-and-forth gated lineup (like something at an amusement park), as there must have been 800 people lined for cabs. When we got to the front of the lineup, we could see that there were four lines of cabs, each line 10-12 cars deep and waiting. Then we saw the most important man in Beijing: the cab commandant. He would blow his whistle and the people would rush out to the four cabs at the front of the line. If you didn’t, the cab commandant would get furiously mad. Don’t mess with the cab commandant … ever … dude.

We got back to our home away from home, the Home Inn, and dropped our stuff off. Then we hailed another cab and hustled down to Tiananmen Square. Wow, this is history—the massive square, home of the famous failed protests 20 years before. On the south side of the square: Chairman Mao’s tomb. On the west side: the Communist Party headquarters. On the north side: the overwhelming Forbidden City. On the east side: Larry Ho’s Camera And Bag Check And Souvenir Shop. Wow! Well, actually it was not called Larry Ho’s, but we had to check all of our cameras there, as they were not allowed in Mao’s tomb.

We get into the hall just outside of where Mao’s body rests, and it is full of pictures and stories of the leaders of the Revolution. We enter Mao’s tomb, and the rule is that you cannot stop and look. The line must keep moving. Well, there he is. Lying on his back, surrounded by high glass. There is kind of an usher guy hanging out, and two soldiers standing at rigid attention with their bayonets fixed. I whisper to Floor Tom, “Does he look real, or is he wax?” I walk as slowly as I can, and I am the last one in our group. I finally come to a complete stop as I stare at the Chairman; in a split second, the usher has his hand on my shoulder, pushing me along. Well he wasn’t that big of a guy, so I figured I could have taken him out to stay longer, but I had to consider the guys with the bayonets. As you leave the tomb, of course, you come to the souvenir shop. We all bought a souvenir. I purchased a nice key chain. Reasonably priced, too.

We walk across the square to the Forbidden City, home of the Qing and Ming dynasties. Completely incredible, it’s about a mile wide and two miles deep. The emperors had many different ornate temples erected, each one specifically set up to consider all the problems of running China, from farming to war to concubines to weather.

The show that night was in Beijing’s university district. The club was called D-22, and it was run by an ex-New Yorker. Cool show—lots of good original bands opening. I had to use a VOX 30 amp that night, and somehow it worked. The whole Chinese punk-rock scene feels like it did back in about 1982. It’s really fun, new and urgent. It’s cool that we get to be part of it for awhile. That show was a good way to end the performance part of our trip.

One reply on “From The Desk Of Joe “Shithead” Keithley: D.O.A. In China, Part 4”

Great diary- you need a sense of humour in China that’s for sure, glad to see you kept yours!

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