Return of the Golden Era

“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.” – Plato

When ‘father of Singapore’ Lee Kuan Yew visited Phnom Penh in the 1960s, he turned to his host and said: “I hope, one day, my city will look like this.” The Cambodian capital, at the time, bore few hints of the Maoist horrors that would soon mar the entire country. Women piled their hair high in towering beehives; men wore flares, the more daring growing their hair long; packed cinema halls screened the country’s reigning movie sirens; heaving night-spots reverberated to Cambodia’s unique spin on the new phenomenon called rock ‘n’ roll.

Dubbed the ‘Golden Era’ of this tiny Southeast Asian nation, the resurgence of which has become the focus of global fascination (not to mention an epic party being hosted by The Advisor on April 5), the ‘60s became synonymous with the ‘new sounds’ floating across the airwaves from US forces stationed in Vietnam to the insatiable ears of young Cambodians.

King Norodom Sihanouk, having liberated his country from French rule, had modernisation foremost on his mind. By the early ‘60s, this most creative of monarchs was leading the capital’s elite in the art of partying hard. On political tours across Cambodia, described by historian David Chandler as “a nation of musicians”, the king was accompanied by an entire musical troupe. As soon as he had delivered his speech, the dancing would begin.

Cambodia’s first gen rock ‘n’ rollers were thus hardly the drug-taking, hotel-room-smashing type. “It would be wrong to see Cambodian rock music as about rebellion – it was pretty much your patriotic duty to don white trousers, hit the dance floor like Cliff Richard, and catch up on the latest dance moves,” writes Clive Bell in thewire.co.uk. “The fluttering vocal line, baroque with strange yodels and ornaments, those gentle saxes and clarinets, exotic organ solos, the crisp beat combo drum kit – there’s a tropical sweetness here that’s hard to resist… Tradition blends with modernity: the flowing hand movements of Southeast Asian dance are readily adapted to contemporary rhythms. The country’s musicians were wiped out and their recordings now evoke a sunnier period

of Cambodian history: a time when Phnom Penh was hopelessly corrupt, lacking in democratic accountability and plagued by graduate unemployment, but at least you could dance to a decent band every night.”

Musician Chum Kem first heard Chubby Checker’s music while he was a student in Italy. When he returned home, he brought with him The Twist – Checker’s 1960 cover of the B-side of Hank Ballard and The Midnighters’ 1959 single, which topped the US charts in 1960 then again in 1962. Guitar bands Drakkar, Baksei Cham Krong and Apsara seized on this extraordinary sound, infusing it with local traditions to create their very own genre. “They knew that rock ’n’ roll was from America, France or Cuba,” Youk Chhang, head of the Documentation Centre of Cambodia, said in a recent VOA Khmer interview. “The music influenced the way they behaved and their way of wearing clothes. It was not just a copy. They made that music more like Khmer, so it was not really harmful to Cambodian culture or identity.”

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock ‘n’ Roll, a new film by John Pirozzi which was seven years in the making, is perhaps the most exhaustive exploration of this ‘Golden Era’. “A big part of why there was so much great rock music back then was that there was a demand for it,” the director said after the film’s premiere at Chaktomuk Theatre earlier this year. “Rock ’n’ roll was associated with modernity, and young Cambodians after independence wanted to be modern.”

DJane Sao Sopheak, a broad-shouldered 30-something filmmaker who throws her head back when she laughs – which is loud and often – remembers being regaled by her mother’s tales of “hippy singers”. An avid collector, with more than 200 songs in her set, she speaks passionately and eloquently. “Cambodians are only just realising the value of their music,” she says, perched on a chair in the Meta House office. “In the ‘60s, all the Cambodian singers composed their music by themselves. Sin Sisamouth wrote not only the words to his songs, but also the music. When you listen to the meanings, it’s totally different than what we have now.

“A lot of the songs in the ‘60s were meant in a literal way; their meanings were very direct. For example, Sin Sisamouth sings a song about Battambang. He talks about everything: it has fruits, beautiful girls, he explains everything. When you listen to the song, you feel as though you are there! You can imagine it in your mind and when you close your eyes you can see everything. Other songs, like ‘I’m not going home tonight,’ talk about staying out all night, partying. But Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t just about that. People also sang about the environment, about religion, about relationships, about politics. And there wasn’t just rock ‘n’ roll; we had hippy music, happy music, romantic music, every kind of music!

“When I first saw the band Dengue Fever, I realised: ‘Wow! They’re foreigners and they love Cambodian music. Why don’t I play it here?’ My husband encouraged me to play, putting me in the Meta House schedule, but the first time I looked, I couldn’t find the right music here in Phnom Penh. I went to YouTube, but the sound wasn’t good and some of the remixes didn’t sound like the originals. Then I found someone who had been collecting music on tape, so I bought from him and converted it to digital. One of my favourite songs translates as ‘All chilis are spicy’, but it has another meaning: that jealous women are like hot chilis! The music’s really good to dance to…” [Erupts in song, jiggling on chair then exploding in laughter]

A manic mash-up of the garage rock, doo-wop, bluesy surf guitar and psychedelic distort synonymous with 1960s America, Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll was unlike anything the country’s ears had ever heard before. “Exposed to Western pop for the first time, Cambodians swallowed it whole – the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Phil Spector, the Beach Boys and the Doors, as well as Latin dance beats and country and Western ballads,” wrote music journalist Nik Cohn after discovering it on the soundtrack of City Of Ghosts in 2007. “They don’t seem to have bothered with categories; their records were the stuff of mad scientists, mixing genres at random… The bathos of the lyrics is contradicted by the music, which tends to be raucous and joyous, with bubbly Farfisa organs, piledriver drums and slashing Hendrix-esque guitar solos… The music’s keynote is mad adventure, a feeling of new worlds opening up, of infinite possibilities. Of course, the fact that it bangs doesn’t hurt.”

From visceral growls and machine-gun drumming on Neary Shork Kley (‘Lady with short hair’) to the honky tonk piano underpinning shrill sax solos and wailing guitar riffs on Srey Srey Alov (‘Ladies nowadays’), Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll is a tripped-out nod to its Western forebears. The fresh-from-the-lunatic-asylum giggling throughout Sva Rom Monkey (‘Monkey dance’) calls to mind The Surfaris’ high-energy anthem Wipe Out, a B-side smash from California 1963. Yos Olarang’s much-loved Jih Cyclo, equal parts bounce and funkadelia, melds the classic wow-wow-wow guitar refrain with a chorus even the least cunning of linguists can grasp. Twist-‘n’-shoutin’ ladies pogoing up and down under towering beehives are the stuff of Rom Ago Go (‘Go-Go Dance’), while Sa Ek Mok Teat (‘Come back tomorrow’) combines rousing Hendrix-esque guitar riffs, warbling organ and a sentiment anyone who’s lived here can surely relate to.

Dy Saveth was the diminutive star of three of Sihanouk’s films in the ‘60s and one of the few artists to have survived the Maoist madness of the Khmer Rouge. Crowned Miss Cambodia in 1960 at the age of 19, she has lost none of her poise, seated with an impossibly straight spine in what for anyone else would be an impossible-to-get-out-of comfy chair in the Bophana Centre. ”I remember every one of the nightclubs, including The Mekong River Club,” she says, smiling demurely. “We would dance like Europeans and Americans; it was a very happy time. There were many ‘dancing girls’ in the clubs, who could do everything from traditional dance to modern dance. I was very modern in the 1960s. Our music at the time took a little bit from Europe, a little bit from America and a lot from Cambodia.

“We were very proud in the ‘60s. We thought hard about where we came from and what we represented. Now, it is starting all over again. We are thinking about this. Don’t forget! If people forget, there will be nothing left; everything will be gone. Davy Chou is a very young boy, but he is thinking about this in his recent film, Golden Slumbers. I love him! I love my country, I love my king and I love my people. That’s why I came back.”

WHO: An epic line-up of Cambodian rock ‘n’ roll stars
WHAT: The Advisor’s Return of the Golden Era party
WHERE: The FCC Mansion, Street 178 & Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 5pm April 5
WHY: “Even if I never come back, my voice still remains” – Sin Sisamouth to his son, shortly before he was murdered by the Khmer Rouge