If Iggy Pop had to be a rocker in Slave China like the guys from JOYSIDE, he'd piss his pants. (Well, more often.)

ABOVE: Members of the Chinese punk band Joyside.


LancasterOnline: 'Wasted Orient': Rockin' in the not-so-free world

In Beijing, the capital of the People's Republic of China, real rock 'n' roll music is hard to come by.

"The music hasn't caught on in China because the government won't let it," said Lancaster County native and filmmaker Kevin Fritz. "I kind of think in Eastern Europe, two things ended Communism -- rock 'n' roll and Pope John Paul II. Rock music has been a rallying cry for a lot of people, so it's threatening to China's government."

Ahhhh...the young artistic genius. (He seems to have forgotten that 50's revival group Ronnie and the Buildup. My old brain remembers how instrumental they were.) How will Slave China survive without folks like Mr. Fritz?

Ha! That's a joke, the whole world is crawling with 'em.

But seriously folks, ignore the filmmaker and pay attention to his subject, Slave China punk rockers Joyside.

But the 27-year-old still managed to find a hardcore underground scene in Beijing. One band in particular, Joyside, caught his eye and inspired his new documentary, "Wasted Orient," which premiered at The Chameleon Club on Wednesday.

"These guys were different," Fritz said. "When things are rough, people in the city either just do what the government tells them, or they rebel and possibly get killed.

"The guys in Joyside are just looking the other way," he said. "They're not fighting the system, but ignoring it. That's their rebellion. Sometimes they get drunk all day and just sit around. They don't measure success like everyone else there does. They just want to play music and get out of China."

They sound smarter than Fritz.

Fritz made the documentary for less than $2,000, with a crew of only himself and a wide-angle lens camera that he rented for $25 a day.

He gets close to the members of Joyside, who are singer Bian Yuan, bassist Liu Hao and drummer Fan Bo. In an almost "Real World" fashion, audiences get to experience the tension between the musicians when guitarist Yang Yang (a Japanese native) is kicked out of the band and replaced with new guy Xin Shuang.

Yuan has a perfect rock star face and swagger that Fritz compares to Mick Jagger. Hao's parents are in the People's Liberation Army and think of their musician son as a failure.

Since only two of the band members have jobs, Joyside usually has $150 to live off of every month.

"They depend a lot on the kindness of friends," Fritz said. "People help them out. When I was there, I let them use my shower. Otherwise, they kind of live like squatters.

"There's references to other Beijing bands like rising stars Brain Failure, an outfit that was lucky enough to be granted visas that permit them to visit America and tour.

"Joyside was invited to play the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, but they couldn't get the visas to go," Fritz said. "They didn't have the connections."

Joyside sings in English -- with British accents, which could be a tribute to the archetypal punk bands of the U.K. like The Sex Pistols. Though Joyside also admires American punkers The Dead Boys and the Ramones.

"We bonded a lot through music," Fritz said. "We listened to different CDs like Anthrax, Skid Row and The New York Dolls. And I followed them everywhere."

Which wasn't always easy, especially since Fritz had to communicate in Chinese the whole time while operating his camera. As a Caucasian, Fritz was always the minority.

"It was fine, but some people there have never seen a white person before," he said. "When those people glance at you for the first time, you kind of feel like an alien from another planet."

Beijing is China's second largest city in terms of population (7.5 million), and home to countless richly historic sites.

It's also a major transportation hub, with dozens of railways, roads and expressways entering and leaving it in all directions.

"I rode the train with the guys -- in fifth class," Fritz said. "When you get between the cities, farmers start climbing on board with their livestock. But that's how you travel when you don't have money."

But the filmmaker already knew what it was like to be a struggling artist before he began shooting "Wasted Orient."

Fritz majored in film at Syracuse University in New York and later snagged a scholarship to study Chinese at Beijing University (often referred to as the Chinese Harvard) in 1999.

"I really liked the country and the people, and I got to learn conversational Chinese," Fritz said. "I can't write it very well, but I learned enough to get my point across."

But his interest in music eventually led him to Beijing's underground music scene.

"I was in several bands when I was a teenager," Fritz said. "So music's always been important to me. I finally discovered something called the Midi Festival, which is like China's version of Woodstock.

"Four years later, he was a film school graduate with a lot of good ideas but no job -- ergo, no steady cash flow to fund his projects.

Lucky for Fritz, Beijing University usually is in need of teachers. He returned to the school in 2003 to teach subjects like film history.

"They had a need, and I was crazy enough to go back," he said, laughing. "I also did some promotional work for an adoption agency that represents orphaned girls and special needs children. I even had some translation jobs on the side."

Check out the Wasted Orient website here. Below is a link to a Joyside video taken from the documentary. The song seems to be called Girl From London, however.

http://www.cookiewise.com/Movies/Girl_From_Nowhere.wmv