I'm not trying to make a big deal out of the race thing, after all I am only half descendant of the Orient. However, I can not tell you how rare it is that talented Asian people make it to the front of anything. And no I'm not talking about the former guitarist for the Smashing Pumpkins - James Iha, or that guy Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park (ick), or that Filipino fella who now fronts Journey, (I'd talk about Rain or Yo-Yo Ma but y'all just ain't classy enough for that). Anyway, these are not good examples.
All I'm trying to say is that Chris Chu and all of his bandmates in the Morning Benders are 31 flavors of awesome. Yes, like ice cream. And yes, I dug them before I knew this righteous racial brownie point... Ice cream, brownies. What a delicious band.
Granted, I know linesthroughlines reported about The Morning Benders already. But I must stress the point. We can draw all the comparisons we want, whether to The Shins or Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin or Aaron Neville* but the fact remains that they currently dominate the first spot on my muxtape and their Daytrotter recordings still haven't been removed from their heavy iTunes rotation in my library. The fact also remains that - Chris Chu** is the Asian indie ambassadorial counterpart to my dear, dear Thao Nguyen.
Anyone else think that Chu looks a little bit like Mitsumura Tatsuya (光村龍哉) of NICO Touches the Walls?
*Aaron Neville and the Benders probably have a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon type connection.
**Mad props to the other asian dude in Benders too, Tim Or, of course who plays a sweet Rickenbacker bass.
Hopefully when my band gets our proverbial sh*t together, we'll have some nice happy tunes likes these fellas to offer.
