For NYC-based Theme Magazine in 2006, I interviewed two prominent Chinese rock musicians who I had met while living in Beijing in 2000. One was XiaoRong, a popular punk rocker who, to my high-maintenance sensibilities, had the charisma of Bruce Lee. The other was Kaiser Kuo, an American-born pioneer of Chinese rock who had been a founding member of Tang Chao and was rumored to have brought the first guitar pedal to China.
Here’s a link to a youtube of a performance of XiaoRong’s when he first emerged. It’s good to be reminded that these things were happening in China at the turn of the millennia: