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JENNY CHOI DEFIES A STEREOTYPE BY TURNING PROMOTER
By Nerissa Pacio
Mercury News
Rockers aren’t immune to racism. Jenny Choi found this out the hard way, when music label reps approached her about signing a deal, but only under the condition that she change her last name to something less “Asian-sounding.”
Defiant, Choi chose not only to keep her last name, but also to change Jenny, which she calls “American as apple pie,” to “Sanowan,” the Korean word for “fierce.”
On the same bent, the fiery 26-year-old indie rocker created the Asians in Rock national tour, now in its second year and arriving at Slim’s in San Francisco on Wednesday .
“There’s a thriving Asian R&B, rap and spoken-word culture out there,” says Choi, who also teaches high school English in Chicago. “But Asian-Americans in rock somehow disappear.”
Choi, an adamant believer in the do-it-yourself punk rock ethic, organized and funded out-of-pocket the premiere AIR tour last summer, billing up-and-coming indie rock bands that had Asian-American members in them at college campuses and coffeehouses across the country.
The project, which she marketed through fliers, word-of-mouth and e-mail, created a buzz. This time around, she landed alcoholic beverage company Rémy Martin as a corporate sponsor and has signed on bigger and better bands. She also booked major metropolitan venues including the Knitting Factory in New York and Los Angeles, and signed on internationally recognized San Jose record executive Mike Park of Asian Man Records as a headlining act.
Park says he teamed with Choi to help pave the way for future generations of Asian-American musicians to break into the business, which has seen only a handful of rockers of Asian descent.
Among some of the better known musicians are Tony Kanal, Indian-American bass guitarist of No Doubt; Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who is half Korean, half Polish; Mike Shinoda (part Japanese-American) and Joe Hahn (Korean-American) of Linkin Park.
“We’re talking about a mainstream industry devoid of color — yellow color,” Park says. “We’re a double minority. A minority in the music industry and a minority as a race. There’s not enough role models out there for Asian American kids to relate to. . . . It’s so necessary because you don’t see it. Asians are not
rock stars.”
Similar efforts to organize the disparate Asian-American music community have been waged in the past, but on a much smaller scale, says Kuang Lee, a Chinese-American guitarist of the band HyperCycle in Los Angeles.
For example, Asian bands are often booked as part of Asian-American film festivals, Lee says, but rarely as their own event. PiNoise Pop, which started five years ago as a Filipino-American music festival in San Francisco grew into a high-profile pan-Asian event over the years, attracting acts from out of state. This year, however, organizers did not host a festival because of a funding shortfall.
“What’s great about AIR is it’s sort of a traveling PiNoise Pop,” says Lee, 31, who will perform during the Hollywood leg of the tour. “It’s a chance for artists who have similar backgrounds to get together. We can relate. A lot of these people are the Asian kids whose parents forced them to play the piano. These are the same kids who are now playing electric guitar.”
Tricia Ramos, lead singer of the Bay Area-based The Skyflakes, says she joined the tour to expose young Asian-Americans to music they might not have associated with Asians.
“Not to say Asians are only associated with one kind of music, but we’re saying this is another kind of music Asian-Americans are making,” Ramos says. “And it’s good music.”
But not everyone who has heard of the ethnic-specific tour has been as enthusiastic. Choi says she was shocked when one promoter at a major Bay Area venue blew her off, reasoning that Asian-American bands would not create a draw.
“It amazed me that something like this could still be happening in the Bay Area, where there’s such a huge Asian artists community,” she says. But such challenges have only fueled her efforts as a solo artist and activist. Her new stage name — Sanowan — was created in time to mark the arrival of her fresh sound on this tour, while at the same time paying tribute to her Korean heritage.
“When my parents first came to the U.S., they thought they had to name their babies with American names to succeed in America,” Choi says. “I’ve reached the point in my life where I don’t have to have a full American name in this society or in the music culture to succeed. That’s something to be proud of.”
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Jenny “Sanowan” Choi
Age 26
Hometown Chicago
Education University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Label Double Zero Records
Her sound “Dreamy indie pop”
Musical influences Björk, The Dismemberment Plan, Iron and Wine, Blonde Redhead
Why she started AIR “To empower Asian-American musicians . . . to show the `misfits’ out there that there is a community they can belong and relate to.”
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Asians in Rock
featuring Mike Park, Jenny Choi, The Skyflakes, The Clarendon Hills and Whysall Lane
Where: Slim’s, 333 11th St., San Francisco
When: Wednesday, 8 p.m.
Tickets: $11; www.tickets.com; (510) 762-2277
Information: www.jennychoi.com; www.slims-sf.com;
(415) 255-0333
Contact Nerissa Pacio at npacio@mercurynews.com or
(408) 920-5827.
© 2004 MercuryNews.com
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/music/9465503.htm
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