An epic tour of Scandinavia by Chinese punk band SUBS comes after a visit here by Norway's JEF. What, punk bringing people together? There's more to come

A breezy stage in the mountains of far-north Norway on a summer night is an unlikely launch pad for an unlikely Chinese musical career. But when Beijing punk band SUBS belted out their back catalogue at the Oya Festival under a midnight sun last year they won over hearts and minds across Scandinavia's fjord-carved kingdom. So much so that when the band went back for a second tour this year they sold out some of Norway's top rock clubs. That Norway fell for a punk band that most people in its Chinese hometown never heard of is down to talent, and a rare musical friendship.

Hungry for gigs in addition to a scheduled slot at Oya Festival, SUBS postponed their return tickets to Beijing after a last-ditch meeting with Kjell Moberg, guitarist and founder of Norwegian rock group JEF. Through his October Party label and a network built up throughout Europe from his former band Punishment Park, he secured gigs for SUBS in clubs across Norway. When the Chinese punks delivered rock-solid performances, it was easier to arrange a two-month trek across northern Europe this summer. Traveling in a Volkswagen Transporter van the band played its first gig at the Ilosaari Festival in Finland on July 16 and finished with a final gig on September 6 in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.

Meeting Kjell Moberg was a stroke of luck but the Chinese punks also have those famously enlightened Scandinavian governments to thank for the privilege of being able to scream their Mandarin lyrics off Scandinavia's stages. Having already funded a delegation of Chinese musicians, critics and label managers to attend Oslo's Oya Festival last summer - SUBS played the festival - Norway's state-funded Music Information Center (MIC) sent cash through the Moberg-run October Party Records to fund SUBS' 2006 return to Scandinavia.

Norwegian bands have gotten a share of the largesse too - to help them conquer SUBS' homeland, China. Blending punk, new wave and 1990's indie rock, Moberg's own band, Bergen-based JEF, is one of 18 bands of various quality on the Bergen Rock City Project, a CD collection of Norwegian rock music being distributed for free in music stores and live venues across the country. Bergen's municipal government helped fund the CD, which was pitched as a means of introducing the city's up-and-coming acts to China. Norway's meteorological answer to Seattle, Bergen has also earned comparisons musically to the west coast American city. Bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam emerged from rain-soaked Seattle to dominate America's rock music scene in the early 1990s. A decade later, Bergen has been setting the popular music agenda with the Kings of Convenience and Royksopp.

To promote the launch of the CD, JEF toured China from April 7 to 16, hitting eight cities across the country. Heavy coverage the project scored in the Norwegian press will encourage more Norwegian bands to come to China, explains Beijing-based promoter Jon Campbell, who, along with SUBS, helped organize JEF's tour. "It's a fantastic way to get music not only out of Bergen, but in to China, where music is needed and eaten up," says Campbell. Volume I of the Bergen Rock City Project will be followed by five more collections, says Campbell. The country's most important music television show, Lydverket, broadcast a well-received documentary called Beijing Rock City. "I've gotten several emails lately from Norwegian bands wanting to come to China after seeing the show," he says.

Judging by how enthusiastically Moberg talks about his jaunt through China's rock scene, they'll have a ball. Fronted by bass player and singer Katy and guitarist Moberg, his red hair shaved to a fine stubble, JEF played clubs in a dozen Chinese cities in April. The band went from Beijing Capital airport to a welcome gig on a bill with local favorites Reflector and Joyside. After a 90 minute set on that mild Friday night in early April at Beijing's Club 13 the band left the capital by train, cutting southwesterly to Anyang in central China's Henan Province for an April 8 show. Local bands played support to the Norwegians in each city and helped move boxes of Bergen Rock City CDs that the Norwegians had brought along. "We tried to choose bands that make sense together, and that would help with their drawing power," explains Campbell.

By the time they plugged in their amps at the Vox bar in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China's auto-making capital and hometown of Chinese punks SMZB, JEF had hit their stride. "It was wild, the place was packed and people were dancing and pogoing like crazy to the music," gushes Moberg. "We blasted on way over the time we'd allotted for the gig. Those people really knew their music." Two nights and a few hundred kilometers of train tracks north from Hubei, the band was in Changsha, the capital of humid Hunan province. After a few days playing and relaxing at the Suanle Bar in Guilin, in China's picturesque region of lakes and mountains, the band played Shanghai's Shuffle Bar with local heroes Loud Speaker and Happy Sky.

Having shifted their Bergen Rock City CDs as charged, JEF loaded their gear back on a Bergen-bound plane on April 16 after a blowout goodbye show with SUBS and Café-In at Beijing's Yugongyishan Bar. The band's well-attended shows, taken with local veterans SUBS' appearance on European stages, are proof enough that China rocks. But it's easy to forget that punk rock has had a slow, penurious coming of age. Many Chinese kids got courage to pick up a guitar and start a rock band listening to tapes of punk bands like the Sex Pistols, the Clash and Rancid, sounds picked up off CDs from Western store clear-outs seeping into China in the early 90's. "These bands taught us what real punk rock is and really started to influence the Chinese," says Mai Dian, punk fan and editor of Chaos, an online magazine covering China's punk scene.

At first local punks ploughed a lonely furrow. Pioneers of Chinese punk, 69, rehashed revolutionary ditties from the 1950s and 60s into punk music when they began playing their loud music anywhere they were tolerated around the capital. Band members played in several bands at same time, even on a single night, at Scream, Beijing's first rock club, which has since closed. "The club was out of the way, and in a rough area which smelt bad, with tarts outside," recalls Mai Dian. Contemporaries Brain Failure regularly shared Scream billings with 69, and ultimately outlived the group. "Every weekend there was a punk show. A stream of kids began to wear Mohawks, black leather jackets and wallet chains and hang around on the streets."

There's a way to go. "It's still a young scene and in the whole country there are only bands from Wuhan and Beijing playing gigs," explains Mai Dian. "In other places 'punk' is a word used to describe kids living in poor areas."