Oregon Public Broadcasting

Thursday night a hot young band from Portland releases a new CD. They bill themselves as the sound of Chinatown -- and they are known as the Slants.

Yes.... you heard the name right.  The Slants' first release is called Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts. It mixes electronica & club-rock style  with sly comments about living as an outsider in a white world.The band's bassist and founder is Simon Young. He got the idea for an all-Asian-American lineup, and spent years trying to recruit just the right musicians: People who shared his tongue-in-cheek attitude toward Asian identity, and who could really play.

It's tempting to peg the Slants in some existing Asian genre: Canto-pop, J-Metal, Viet Core....but they're not quite that simple.

Simon Young, and the Slants' lead singer, A-Ron, told me the band itself  is a sort of Asian Heinz 57 mix.

Online:

The Slants on MySpace

The now legendary show at Kumoricon