FRIDAY 27 | Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based sextet who take ’60s Cambodian psyche rock and stuff it through a blender, is chiefly responsible for introducing global audiences to a lesser-known Cambodia; the Cambodia long obscured from international eyes by the pall of murderous Maoists. As Mark Jenkins writes in The Washington Post: “Imagine relaxing in a dive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, circa 1965, brushing elbows with off-duty soldiers, local gangsters and Western diplomats as a hip band plays a mix of rock, soul, jazz, surf music, traditional Cambodian tunes and Henry Mancini and John Barry spy-movie motifs.” Powerful stuff, not just on the global stage but where it all began – as evidenced in the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, which charts Dengue Fever’s first visit to Cambodia as a band back in 2005. During one sequence, filmed in The White Building where the band jammed with residents, a music teacher turns to the camera and says in Khmer: “When I saw them performing with my students I was just in awe. Nothing could compare to it. I knew they were foreigners, but when they played all these Khmer songs there was no class difference. We were all equal.”
WHO: Dengue Fever
WHAT: Sleepwalking Through The Mekong screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 4pm December 27
WHY: “Underground people are getting hip to world music, and the world music side is getting hip to how you don’t have to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool” – Senon Williams (bass), Dengue Fever