Byline: Phoenix Jay

Big in Japan

Sailor Moon stomps around in knee-high boots with five-inch platform heels. She has her own TV show and sings horrible pop songs. In strict anime proportion, this ‘magical girl’ boasts boobs the size of volleyballs and eyeballs the size of compact discs – and if you were 16 again, you’d probably want to date her or even be her.

Such is the awesome power of Japanese cartoon culture, which is finally finding a foothold here in Phnom Penh. Four months after the Japanese Embassy hosted the country’s first cosplay party at the Cambodia-Japanese Friendship Kizuna Festival, what claims to be the city’s first manga/anime/cosplay cafe is poised to open its doors in Golden Sorya Mall.

Here, among the comics, films, costumes and plastic figurines, entry into a fantastical realm is for sale – a realm Japan, notorious for its restrictive culture, has excelled in exporting to the wider world. In 2006, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation, manga sales in France and Germany totalled more than $212 million, making Europe the largest consumer of manga outside Japan. Manga versions of both the Bible and Shakespeare were launched by British publishers in 2007 and by 2009 anime clubs had spread to every continent. Two years ago, a search entry ranking by China’s biggest search engine revealed that ‘Naruto’ had been searched for more than 15 million times. Today, The Manga Guide series, on school subjects such as statistics, electricity and molecular biology, is a big hit for making science easy to swallow.

As the Washington Post noted at the turn of the 21st century, “In the modern commerce of a vinylised culture, it’s hard to know for certain whether we tell the Japanese what to do or they tell us. Lately the dialogue has collapsed giddily into a driving, sonic beat and the war whoops of mutant, cartoon samurai. It snuggles up to us with names like Pikachu.”

After years of waiting on the fringe of the sci-fi/fantasy universe, the world of Japanese animation – ranging from Pokemon to the blatantly pornographic – is now big with the neo-nerds. From roots in the explosion of artistic creativity in post-Occupation Japan, it has grown to support a more-than-$6-billion-a-year industry in the US, where manga sales increased at a rate unprecedented in the publishing industry – 350% from $60 million in 2002 to $210 million in 2007 – before the economy began shrivelling in 2008.

“Manga is very popular now not just in Japan but around the world,” says Kenji Hozawa, the former insurance worker behind the new cafe. “I have been reading manga since I was a little boy, but they are not just for children.” He hands me a 1986 copy of Buddha, by Osamu Tezuka – the artist’s unique interpretation of the life of the founder of Buddhism. The cover of another comic book, which could be a public service broadcast from 1950s Britain, reads simply: The Good Housewife.

It could be worse. Manga’s highly sexualised nature can be downright seedy, if not illegal. In 2007, 13 comics – including Rape Me In My School Uniform and Paedophile’s Banquet II – were branded ‘harmful books’ by the Kyoto Prefecture for featuring excessive sexual acts involving girls under the age of 13.

Anime and manga also tend to perpetuate negative images of daily life in Japan, according to International Manga Award winner Madeleine Rosca, an Australian artist and author: “Japan comes across as a bit scary culturally – terribly formal and deeply strict,” she told the Wall Street Journal in 2007. “Most of the stories we get tend to be stereotypes showing heavy workloads and strictness and a super-adherence to tradition.”

As if to underscore the muted horror, there is a caste of Japanese youth called hikikomori: mostly young men who lock themselves away in their bedrooms for years at a time. Fearful of society’s expectations, they retreat instead into a world of fantasy. “That’s why I want to open this cafe, because there are some young people who would otherwise lock themselves away alone,” says Kenji. He nods sagely. “I want them to come together; get to know each other over a rented anime movie or a manga comic.”

Patrick Samnang Mey is the author of graphic novel Eugenie, a title Kenji is helping enter into this year’s International Manga Award. “I do like the Manga style of animation,” Patrick says. “I started to draw ‘seriously’ when I saw some episodes of Saint Seiya as a child. I’d say that my style is a blend between Japanese manga style and American comics. I am a child of globalisation, after all. I think that young Cambodians will like manga, but everything comes down to money. Will there be enough Cambodians spending money on something related to culture? I’m not sure, but I think that it’s worth trying – and he’s the only one to do it in Phnom Penh.”

WHO: The wildly imaginative
WHAT: Manga Samurai Cafe
WHERE: Golden Sorya Mall, Street 51
WHEN: From June 20
WHY: Manga are “like the release of the id” – Frederik L Schodt, author of Dreamland Japan: Writings On Modern Manga

The house that zen built

THE SPECKLED FEATHER woven into her hair has a certain hypnotic effect. When she speaks, a sound like waves lapping against a shore, the feather dances a delicate dance between beach-burnished blonde and brown strands. Before you know it, your very DNA is exhaling deeply – the stresses and strains of normal existence snuffed into silent nothingness.

Am I on drugs? Not right now, no; although the atmosphere here is intoxicating aplenty. For here in the soporific suburbs of Sangkat Boeung Tumpun, in a white boat-shaped house filled with nautical paraphernalia, is a place designed to help both the creatively inclined and the existentially damaged navigate their way through life’s oft-stormy seas. Inspired more by humanity’s potential than by any formal belief structure, Ragamuffin Boathouse is ‘a sanctuary in the heart of the city for arts therapy, creative innovation and social change,’ says co-founder Carrie Herbert (she of the hypnotic feather), and it’s opening its doors to similar spirits with the launch of a new ‘creative hub’ on World Music Day.

Beyond the bougainvillea at its gate are heart-shaped ponds filled with rainbow fish, portholes in place of windows, and crunchy pebble paths. And everywhere greenery: vines, palms, blossoms. Inside: curved walls, long loops of nautical rope, aqua-hued cushions, an ‘intimate garden cafe’ and not a single sharp corner in sight. Brought into being by British art therapists Herbert and Kit Loring, Ragamuffin also has a base in Russia and has recently worked in Mexico, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, Thailand and India. Its maxim: Here in Phnom Penh, this pseudo ship’s resident creatives include everyone from an environmental writer to the ‘innovation human design team’. Arts therapy? Wilderness therapy? Music therapy? Check, check and check. Drop in. Join the choir. Rent a workstation. Become part of the crew. As Ragamuffin Boathouse readies for launch on World Music Day, co-founder Carrie Herbert talks wings, jamming with whales, and the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

This month marks not only the launch of the new concept, but also the start of Euan Gray’s Ragamuffin Lighthouse Studio on the top floor.

We’re looking for 10 Cambodians who write original songs and we’re going to take them through the whole process here. The outcome will be to have mastered 10 songs, then record and launch the album. It’s a very therapeutic process: it’s about enabling people to go deep within themselves; to write really solid songs. That’s the real strength of what Euan does and the whole process we have here, our philosophy: allowing people to access the depths of their creative potential in a safe environment. We’re seeing that already in some of the kids who come here and the quality of their stuff. We have a little rock star who’s only about nine. She’s amazing; you should hear her sing! She’s really cool.

The word ‘safe’ fits well in this space.

It’s interesting you point that out: it’s not just safety in terms of the environment and the atmosphere; it’s safety on every level of being. I don’t like the word ‘psychic’, but it’s a kind of spiritual, emotional and environmental sense of creating safety and that’s at the essence of what we do and who we are. If I’m not able to be that, then I can’t replicate it and instil it in others. By modelling being safe and being a therapeutic being, which is fully human – and what I think is so liberating; not the denial of our vulnerability but the embracing of it – that gives people permission to be themselves and to discover who they really are and to feel safe. When someone feels safe, they have the possibility they can be themselves or at least begin to learn how to trust again.

Here’s a leftfield question for you: tell me about your childhood.

[Laughs] Do I need a couch? I grew up in South Wales, about an hour from Cardiff and 20 minutes from a beach in a little village. I grew up among a lot of nature: I surf, I do sports. There’s this thread of spirituality that’s woven through in all sorts of shapes and forms since I can remember; that’s always there. I know that’s taken me through all sorts of journeys in life and fostered something of what it means to be safe.

And you met your partner, Kit, when he moved from London to Wales and you got involved with a care centre he was rejuvenating.

I said to him: ‘What was the original vision? Show me.’ And he brought out all these old deeds from the 1950s and set them up in the ward and invited people who’d been orphaned or traumatised to come. It was really radical: the vision was to train them up in this new world order and they would go to France and build new villages. The core belief for the whole centre was ‘healing broken minds and shattered souls’. I just cried. It completely touched me in the deepest place. I said: ‘When can I start working for you?’ That was it; that’s what I’d been looking for. We had a great synergy. It just felt right. And it was after that we set up Ragamuffin.

Where do you hide your wings? Do you take them off during the day?

[Laughs] That’s a secret! I love wings, actually. I’d love to fly; that would be amazing. It would save a lot on flipping air tickets, wouldn’t it? I went swimming with whales recently in Maui and it felt so harmonious: midnight, incredibly coloured water and deep, deep, deep, these whales.

Experiences like that help reset the soul.

Totally! And out on the sand, when we got out of the water, these musicians were playing and the whales were playing back.

There’s a book called The Beluga Cafe: My Strange Adventure With Art, Music And Whales In The Far North, by Jim Nollman. Read it. This guy drops waterproof speakers into the ocean and whales actually harmonise with live musicians.

This is what happened to me! People were saying ‘Let’s jump in!’ They put microphones in the water and I’d never heard whale song in real life. It was so loud because we were surrounded by pods of whales. I was streaming! I picked up my soprano saxophone and played and they were playing back! It’s one of the most transformative experiences. I was flying out to Korea just at the time they announced the war and as I was leaving I thought:s ‘What are we doing in this world?’ When you’ve had something that’s in such harmony with nature, to see how all over the world there is the opposite. There was a sense of being in harmony with the universe and the natural order of things and how that can create the potential for us to realise – and be conscious about – who we are and how we can be in harmony with everything. So much distress and suffering and pain is caused by everything that’s in conflict with that. I feel we could learn so much from the natural order of the world. Then I went from Seoul to work in Kazakhstan, which was like another planet in terms of creativity. They’d been through so much, just like here, and it was fascinating to see how much creativity exists in that country. Of course there’s destruction in nature too and how can that live in the natural order? It’s all out of kilter… What was the question?

What’s the answer to life, the universe and everything – in 25 words or less?
[Laughs]

But seriously, walking into Ragamuffin Boathouse feels a bit like walking into a giant hug.

That’s such a nice thing to say! Kit often talks about a ‘giving hug’ rather than a ‘taking hug’. That’s what it feels like. Imagine if you could build houses like this all over Cambodia. That would be so cool! I’d love to see that happening, where the environments we live in ‘receive’ people in a way that’s really restorative. It creates the possibility for anyone to find creativity. When I was talking to the builder about the kind of energy we wanted to put in each room, he got really into it. He said: ‘Carrie, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ He’d carved a lotus flower of concrete in the bathroom. I just love what it brings out naturally. When we work very deeply with traumatic issues, it can hold that range: both the sheer joy of creating and a celebration of that, into the darkest parts of humanity. You joke about wings but that’s why we’re using ourselves as an instrument of this work. We’re using all of our humanity: ‘If I haven’t gone into the darkness myself, I can’t walk with someone else.’ It’s challenging: the art of being human and creative and open in an environment like Cambodia where I too hate the traffic, like everyone else, and there’s so much suffering. It’s corrosive to our resilience – everyone, not just expats. People ask when we’re going to run a course on dealing with stress brought on by traffic, which I think would be fantastic – a very cathartic experience. I’m thinking baseball bats and bean bags.

[Laughs] Nice! Now, how would you describe the hub in a nutshell?

We’ve renamed the centre the Ragamuffin Boathouse: it just felt really smiley. Come and join our adventure! It’s got a playful feel to it. A friend said: ‘It’s a learning lab. Write it up and take it to Oxfam. If you can articulate the model of what you’re doing, it could really captivate all sorts of organisations to rethink how they’re going to survive, because funding is drying up.’ It’s strong snd it could really ignite people. What I really want is to awaken people, to get them thinking about how they’re going to be sustainable. The BBC came here and they designed a whole programme in sand trays during a creative dinner. Now it’s a reality. Teams can come here and tap into this creativity and then who knows what?!

So what would you say is at your core?

Recognising that vulnerability isn’t a weakness, which we’re often so conditioned to believe – whether it’s an emotional state that we judge as being not strong, like tears or anger, but also that sense of being OK with going into the unknown; OK with looking at what’s within our deepest fears. Learning to feel safe enough – there’s that word again – to go into those places, knowing there are things to be found there. There are lost things to be reclaimed and there’s energy and light and beauty and a sense of peace and freedom so often beneath the energies we’re avoiding. When we first got here we were told – interestingly by a lot of expats – that ‘Cambodians don’t do emotions.’ Having worked with refugees before, I thought: ‘I’m going to find out for sure.’ What we found – again and again and again – was that as soon as people feel safe, as soon as they have permission and feel a sense of not being able to go wrong, it liberates them. What was so important when we came here was not imposing our own culture and that’s what’s so brilliant about working with the arts: when the arts are totally owned by the artist, you can’t interfere with it and it gives such scope for people to express themselves in a way that’s true to themselves, with all the cultural reference points and symbology they want. I love that. The way we train people to work, you’re removing yourself to make space for the other – and at the same time you’re in a dynamic relationship.

Bloody Hell! Can you draw that in a diagram?

[Laughs] It’s like not interfering by imposing who you are; creating this space so that a person can find out who they are.

Or, to borrow from The Eagles, Learn To Be Still.

Absolutely, yeah! This sense of stillness, it’s like meditation; a sacred space. The human soul, spirit and being within us wants to grow and the less we try to impose something on that but rather create the environment, the energy and the safety that supports and understands that, the better – whatever dark alley, back alley, or locked room you need to go to in order to create a sense of freedom of being. I’ve learned it especially from people in extreme situations. I’ve worked with people from really serious conflicts, but I’ve not been through that experience myself: this place of utter despair, where everything is black. No hope at all. I can’t make it better; I can’t say: ‘Turn the light on and everything will be OK.’ I find the times when you’re fully present, even when you can feel the energy of the disturbance, these little miracle moments happen: the creative process ignites someone’s hope again, even in the tiniest form. You absolutely have to stay with them. It always blows me away; it touches you so deeply.

What’s wrong with humanity and how are you going to solve it?

We’re so conditioned to think we’re separate. As soon as we realise that we’re bound by the same energy… I don’t think we’ve gone anywhere near the possibilities. I was listening on the radio about brain research all over the world; it’s really fascinating, a lot of money going in. It’s like the human genome project, but a brain version. We’re not really tapped into the full potential of humanity because we’re so conditioned to think in these ridiculous ways. I’m curious as to what it’s going to be like for those working here: we’ve got an animator, we’ve had a filmmaker, we’ve got this I-Lab who are all overseas at the moment doing innovation in design and technology stuff. It feels like, wow! What are they going to get from being in a place with this ethos? How can we help expand their creativity? How can we find out what that looks like? The idea for this hub is to create the concept not just of people coming and working here, but coming into this ethos and the energy of Ragamuffin and benefiting from the community that’s moving and evolving and growing here. I’m fascinated by what it’s going to ignite in them.

How do you find people, or do they find you?

At the moment it’s a word-of-mouth thing, which is why we’re publicly launching this month. ‘This is what we’re doing. Do you want to come and join our adventure?’

‘We will take over the world and turn it into a jolly nice place, whether you like it or not.’

[Laughs] I should do that, shouldn’t I? We’ve got our Ragamuffin projects; our Kaleidoscope Collective – four people who have a creative affinity, so it’s a chance to both work independently and collaborate. Then we have the broader hub which is open to start-ups, people running things like this I-Lab – they do creative engineering for tangible needs, such as ceramic water filters. Then we rent out extra space. We’d love a community playground and an organic cafe, too; they’re on the list of possibilities if we can find a benefactor. I just wrote a book chapter on this very thing: psychological safety and what that means. How do we foster that and how do practitioners sustain themselves when they’re working with victims of violence and trauma?

Being exposed to such horrors must take its toll. Can art really alleviate that?

I was talking recently to a photographer who is – and knows many others – working in war zones. We do a lot of work debriefing people working in really heavy situations and helping them to look at how they care for themselves. Without that, it’s not possible to sustain working in these difficult areas. Who cares for carers, the staff working in the field? There has still not been any research on this in Cambodia. Wouldn’t it be great if we got together in a stadium everyone who’s helping others in some shape or form? Think about how many people that must be. If you got that group together as a collective, almost as an antidote for media that constantly talks about suffering – that’s why I like The Advisor, it’s like medicine – it’s amazing what these unsung heroes are doing. These universal languages – the arts, science – it’s humanity; it’s what brings people together. That’s why I love working with refugees. We had a project in the UK working with people from border areas such as Iran-Iraq; India and Pakistan; tribal areas in the Congo – all in the same room, with four or five translators. It was mayhem because of course they’re bringing all their conflicts with them. At the start I thought: ‘How is this going to work?!’ But the creative process – not quite magical, but unexpected – these two women from the India-Pakistan border, who’d lost everything and everyone, were drawing pictures and we put them on the floor. We talked about them then we joined them up – and the mountain ranges literally joined up. There was this moment of stillness; it spoke for itself. They both realised and they both cried. We’re all the same underneath, under the skin; we’re human. It brought them together; it was a really healing moment. It’s like reconciliation.

Concrete cowboy

BY PHOENIX JAY

Stetsons and spurs are hardly common sights in the British midlands, yet the post-industrial landscape of Stoke-on-Trent – more commonly associated with football hooligans – has somehow spawned this thoughtful, softly spoken country singer clad in jeans, plaid shirt and, yes, a slightly battered cowboy hat. Joe Wrigley, the 33-year-old former bass player from “now moderately successful indie band” Fists, talks quiffs, cowboy credentials and writing odes to Johnny Cash.

As a small child you were sent to your aunt for singing lessons, but she nixed the whole idea on the spot. And yet here you are. Have you considered suing?

[Laughs] I love my auntie! To be fair, I couldn’t sing – in a normal, classical sense. Over time I managed to evoke some kind of voice which ended up being quite different. The songs I like and can sing happen to be country songs, because they lend themselves to a thin, nasally voice: Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Johnny Cash. I wrote a song about Johnny Cash, that simplicity and rawness; that’s what I always wanted to sound like. I knew I could do simple, direct songs, stuff from the heart, but not flowery songs. Definitely Hank Williams.

When did you start wearing the cowboy hat? You’d get beaten up for that in your native Stoke-on-Trent, surely.

[Laughs] I did have cowboy boots and a hat when I was 18, studying in Nottingham. I dropped politics to do an HND in music. It was a war of attrition: 26 people started the course; six people finished it! But the decision to make music my mainstay didn’t happen until after I arrived in Asia. I started gigging in Thailand on Koh Samui, but there wasn’t much of a music scene there, so I Googled ‘music scene in Asia’ and up comes Phnom Penh – with a rockabilly band called Tango & Snatch, and Grass Snake Union? That sounds interesting. I came for a week and people kindly gave me gigs, just from an email, so I decided to stay. That was it! This is more than just a good place to be: it’s the reason I’m happy now.

Have you rubbed Stetsons with some of the other roots-Americana artists here yet?

I got here too late to see [the now defunct] Grass Snake Union or Tango & Snatch, but I really like Ziad [Samman] and his Two Shots & A Chaser. They’re really good. The guy who connected us is RJ Marshall, who’s very much country and sings in a country voice. They call it ‘Americana’, but it’s a postmodern mixture.

And we have The Wanderlusters here this weekend, too – 21st century hillbillies from New Orleans via Saigon, no less. The Wild West seems to be picking up and moving wholesale to Asia – and everyone loves it.

It’s because everybody recognises it, it’s fun for random people who want to see live music and it’s quite easy music to play. Same for punk; not the same for jazz. My ratio of covers to original songs is two to one, but I’m getting more originals. A lot of the covers are things people wouldn’t recognise anyway, like a Jimmy Rogers song or a Hank Williams song. I found out I can sing Buddy Holly as well, so I’m looking for people for a Buddy Holly tribute band! [Laughs] Unfortunately, though, I’ve cut all my hair off. I used to have a quiff.

Me too! Let’s talk about your original stuff.

I’m starting to learn more about where I am, so I’ve started to write about that a little bit. I’ll play you one in a sec. I wrote a song called Shiva recently, which is trying to get at some of the darkness of this place. My writing’s quite figurative; a little abstract. There is a lot of love songs, a couple of funny songs and a couple of songs that are so vague I don’t even know what they’re about yet, to be honest.

STOP! Are you really wearing a cowboy hat with a plaid shirt and white plimsolls?!

[Laughs] Where can I get cowboy boots in Cambodia?

I bet you’ve never chewed dip, either.

Sorry?

Chewing tobacco! Cowboys keep a wad of it jammed between their cheek and gum, periodically spitting on your shoes, from what I remember of my time in Oklahoma.

Umm… No.

Driven a pick-up truck? Lassoed a horse? Kept your boots on in bed? Good grief. So how would you define a 21st century cowboy?

A throwback to a more simple, direct way of being: it’s just music; nothing else for me.

And finally, where DID you get that hat?

[Laughs] I bought it in Siem Reap about six years ago for six dollars! Do you want to hear some songs? I’d never say this was a song about Cambodia, but it’s inspired by the darkness you find here… [Picks up Ovation guitar and launches into Shiva]

Moonshine & mountain men

‘A Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him.’ – New York Journal, 1900

When the American frontier ploughed West following the Civil War, it left in its wake a region frozen in time. The Appalachians – until that point on a par with the rest of the country, socially and technologically – fell into a deep slumber, becoming synonymous to the outside world with backwardness, inbreeding and the kind of ultra-violence depicted so chillingly in 1972 thriller Deliverance.

This hillbilly stereotype – fuelled by stories of murderous mountain feuds, such as those between the Hatfield and McCoy clans in the late 19th century – was also synonymous with something else: the toe-tappin’, fast-fiddlin’ folksy sound that would eventually become country music. And from obscure roots in the mountains of 19th century Appalachia that sound – the sound of the Wild West – is today being shipped wholesale to Southeast Asia.

The Wanderlusters, here for a two-night tour, are Ho Chi Minh City’s resident hillbillies. Founded by Davis Zunk, an Ohio-born drummer who spent his formative musical years in New Orleans, they’re a glorious knee-slapping nod to bygone times. Dressed in sombre frontier garb, these would-be mountain men – distinguishable from their forefathers by noticeably better dentistry – eschew the fripperies of the global age in favour of good ol’-fashioned values. Provided it’s after 6pm.

“I don’t look like a hillbilly around the house,” says Zunk. “Only after dark. I get clothing made over here – that’s one of the beauties of living in Asia. I pull stuff off the internet – turn-of-the-century cowboy stuff. In Asia if you say ‘bluegrass’ that doesn’t really mean anything, but if you’re wearing a cowboy hat, everyone knows what a cowboy is. That’s the reason for the hats, to have some kind of identity. Otherwise you say ‘bluegrass’ and people are, like, ‘What?’ But point to the hat and you get ‘Oh, yeah: cowboy!’”

But American roots music, despite its faraway beginnings, is taking firm hold. “A lot like the original music was, hillbilly is kind of new here because it’s been repressed for so long. Since I started coming to Vietnam in 2005, the differences I’ve seen – there’s a little more freedom; people are expressing themselves more. And the energy of the young people in Asia is really cool. We’ve been playing at this one club and it’s full of 20-year-old Vietnamese. While you’re playing they just kind of sit there and stare at you, but then when you’ve finished they start clapping and cheering. It’s still conservative – the government’s very conservative – but it’s starting to turn the other way. The people aren’t like they used to be.”

Touching on everything from jazz and gospel to blues and rock ‘n’ roll but with their hearts belonging to bluegrass, The Wanderlusters have so far produced two albums, the first being 2011’s Midnight Breeze. The latest will be ready by the time they land in Phnom Penh and is called Khong Say Khong Ve, a Vietnamese expression which translates as ‘Don’t go home until you’re drunk.’ On it, traditional Vietnamese instruments weave between piano, accordion and drums. “The dan bau is my favourite: a one-stringed instrument with a sort of whammy bar and a cool, surrealistic type of sound,” says Zunk. “Next is the dan nhi, a two-stringed violin. Third is a bamboo xylophone. And we used a famous musician, Thuy Nguyen, from an all-girls traditional Vietnamese band called Mot Troi Moi.”

Lyrically, both albums draw heavily on The Wanderlusters’ ‘ragtag expat lives in exotic Southeast Asia’. “The inspiration for Bamboo Hotline came from a buddy of mine who has lived in Southeast Asia for some 20-odd years,” says Zunk. One day he gave the secretary from his office a ride home from work and before he arrived home to his wife 30 minutes later she’d already heard the news. This was pre-cell phone or even house phone days. Bamboo Hotline describes the speed in which information (mostly gossip) spreads among the community. As big, goofy-looking white guys who stick out like turds in a punchbowl, we’re a constant source of intrigue, scandal and gossip for the locals.

“Troubled Man is a bit more serious of a tune. A lot of friends of mine died unexpectedly and way too young this year. I sing it from a male point of view but I was actually thinking of how my friend’s wife will feel a year from now on the anniversary of his death. He was only 36; he had a heart attack while hiking and leaves behind two young children. He was a boisterous, fun-loving guy who was always the life of the party and a great friend loved by many. The hallucinating part was inspired by my grandma, who used to call my dad by her husband’s name when she was very old. Even though she outlived my grandpa by 20 years, she still thought of him daily. Drinking to the point of hallucinating is one way of coping with loss.”

Underpinning every tune is skilled musicianship, the kind Zunk attributes to his time spent in New Orleans. “I wouldn’t be the same person – or the same musician – if I hadn’t gone there. Nowhere else, at least in America, has that music culture. In New Orleans, if someone gets married there’s music. If someone dies there’s music. If there’s a holiday, there’s music. You can walk down the street and there’s kids waiting for the bus, playing drums on the mailbox. There’s this radio station that plays only New Orleans music all day, every day. I had a radio in every room of my house and I’m not the only one; most people in New Orleans are like that. When you live there, the rest of the world doesn’t matter; it doesn’t exist.”

As you might expect of cowboys, the band – allegedly the only one in Vietnam to have killed someone with a shovel , although this has yet to be confirmed – comes with a caveat: “Some members are wanted by the law, others by jealous husbands and some have just plain ‘gone missing’ over the years. Be forewarned: lock up your daughters and wives!”

Ghosts of films gone but not forgotten

The gods of cinema must be smiling: just days after a Cambodian documentary won the second-most important competition at the Cannes film festival, Dengue Fever is to headline at the Memory Heritage Festival here in Phnom Penh – the first of its kind anywhere in Asia.

Rithy Panh, 49, used small clay figures to tell the story of how his family was murdered by the Khmer Rouge in his winning Cannes entry, L’Image Manquante (‘The Missing Picture’). The filmmaker, whose work focuses on the brutality inflicted on his homeland between 1975 and 1979, told Reuters: “For a country that has emerged from its difficulties and years of war, it is important to say we are still alive.”

His words could not be more poignant: of the 350-plus films produced during the revered ‘Golden Age’ of Cambodian cinema in the 1960s, before Pol Pot brutally dialled the country back to ‘Year Zero’, only about 10% have survived. Of the casts and crews, fewer still escaped the Killing Fields. Now, in a bid to resurrect the ghosts of films gone but not forgotten, Cambodia’s foremost audiophiles and cinephiles are joining forces to produce Asia’s first celebration of film heritage.

Dubbed the Memory Heritage Festival, the event – entry to which is free throughout – spans nine days (June 1 – 9); more than 40 classic films from around the world (all subtitled); two exhibitions; a special tribute to film by the late King Father Norodom Sihanouk; a cine-concert with Dengue Fever; conferences and encounters with international cinema heritage experts; a dedicated youth programme and the showcasing of original 35mm screening equipment at Chaktomuk Theatre.

“After the Khmer Rouge, they sometimes replaced films with these little photo novels, which we’ll show at the Bophana Centre during the festival,” says Marie-Josée Blanchard, a volunteer at the centre which, along with the Technicolour Foundation, organised the celebrations. “They were very popular during the ’60s and ’70s. Sometimes they’d have pictures; other times they just drew the images and they’d have text to go with them. It’s like an old comic book, you know? Right after the Khmer Rouge, we didn’t quite have the technology or the resources to produce films. For a few years, people at least had these to replace films, but there’s still so little left.

“We aim especially at the younger generation of Cambodians. We want them to discover a new type of image and sound that they’re not used to – they’re always on iPhones or iPads, you know what it’s like. That’s why we have 35mm dual projectors being installed at Chaktomuk. You don’t see those very often these days, and they’re going to stay there after the festival. We hope to train people in how to use them. We want young people to discover this type of film: the quality and the sound is not quite the same as they’re used to.”

Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based sextet who take ’60s Cambodian psyche rock and stuff it through a blender, are today the stuff of music legend. The Kinks’ Ray Davies hailed them “a cross between Led Zeppelin and Blondie”; Matt Dillon asked them to record a Cambodian version of Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now for his directorial debut City Of Ghosts, and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett picked One Thousand Tears Of A Tarantula – homage to Ros Sereysothea, forced by the Khmer Rouge to strip naked and sing under the merciless Cambodian Sun until she dropped dead from exhaustion – for the number two slot on his Rolling Stone magazine Best Music Of The Decade ballot.

On June 5 at Koh Pich (‘Diamond Island’), the band will perform alongside French VJ Alexandre Elkouby. “The really cool thing about Dengue Fever is we’re having a cine-concert,” says Blanchard. “The VJ will mix classic films on a giant screen while they’re playing.” Dengue Fever are also due to present a special screening of Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, a documentary by John Pirozzi that charts their first visit to Cambodia – the native home of lead singer Chhom Nimol – as a band back in 2005.

 

Roll over, Beethoven

Julian Lawrence Gargiulo has what is perhaps one of the most unpronounceable biographies in history. This magnificently coiffed Italian-American composer/pianist/stand-up comedian studied at the Verona State Conservatory with Aureliana Randone; the Mugi Academy in Rome with Aldo Ciccolini; the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Mezhlumov and under Veda Zuponcic at Rowan University in the US. Today, having performed everywhere from New York’s Carnegie Hall to the Singapore Esplanade, Gargiulo is once again setting a course for Cambodia. Here, alongside Satomi Ogawa – who in addition to being a celebrated soprano also happens to be Miss Universe Japan – he will headline at the Catch A Cambodian Star concert: a classical concert, but not as we know it. Expect an evening of enchanting music by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov and Puccini infused with fast-paced humour from this most irreverent of classical musicians (proceeds from the concert, tickets for which are $20 in advance and $25 on the door, help fund international scholarships for local talent; call 016 892377 for reservations). The Advisor caught up with Julian in his adopted home of New York City to talk afros, not getting kidnapped by Russian agents and how hard it is defining yourself in 25 words or less.

Obvious question: how’s that magnificent mane of yours?
My hair is still growing, mysteriously! I cut it myself. I cut it sometimes right before I play, which Samson for sure wouldn’t do. When you cut your hair, sometimes it looks better. Well, it doesn’t look better, especially if I’m cutting it, but I think the hair gets a little fresher or something. So I cut it and then I wash it and then TA-DA!

And then it precedes you on stage by a full five minutes. Does it have its own passport? Do you have to book an extra seat for it on the plane?
I have to book extra overhead space…

So the other big news since last we met is: baby. Congratulations, daddy.
Thank you. I’m very excited. That’s why I’m surprised I haven’t lost my hair yet. I just had a dream that someone was shaking my baby. I’m not a violent person, but in my dream I punched this guy. I think I overreacted in the dream.

We had a dream alchemist here a few weeks ago. I’ll hook you up. Most dreams are your brain processing whatever has happened during the previous 24 to 48 hours, I’m told.
It was probably the guacamole.

So how does it feel being a dad?
Do you want to see her? She’s sleeping right now… [walks laptop over to crib]

No afro! Are you sure she’s yours? Have you checked?
I actually have serious doubts because not only is the hair not there, but she has these big blue eyes.

If she can play piano, you’re safe. Try her with something easy; some Rachmaninoff, perhaps.
[Laughs] There you go.

We’re very excited you’re coming back.
I’m excited! Last time was my first visit. There was this very cool editor that I met, from The Advisor. You don’t know her… [Laughs] I just remember that when I was there, there was a whirlwind of stuff organised and everybody I met was super-friendly. I did get the feeling I was much more important than I ever thought myself to be.

I think we all fell a little bit in love with you.
No, no! It’s just me! Relax.

That’s rather the point. I found a marvellous quote about you in the St John Times from 2004: “A marvellous tour de force… Somewhere between a lecture recital and Saturday Night Live, but with the added benefit of the highest calibre piano-playing between skits.” Pretty much sums you up, wouldn’t you say?

Um…

Oh, come on. I’ve seen Beethoven recitals at The Sydney Opera House; I’ve seen orchestras conducted by Andre Previn. Never have I seen anyone make classical music quite so wildly entertaining as you do – apart, perhaps, from British comedy duo Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise.
I have no idea who that is. Send me a link! It was also nice in Cambodia to see how many people came to see the show. That’s one of the challenges with classical music: nobody comes. And if people don’t come, it’s more difficult to create the excitement. Maybe what I’m trying to do is rebel. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m a rebel. I’m really just doing what I like to do and what I feel comfortable doing, which is very much connecting with people. I do it through the way I play – I express everything I want to express – but then I also want to talk and I want it to be done in a different way.

Few classical musicians share the same high-energy tempo you’re now famous for. You’re essentially a hype man with a wicked hair cut.
Hey, that’s a good quote! I love ‘wicked’.

Now, what else is new for you?
I’m working on a new album but it won’t be ready by the time I get to Cambodia. I still haven’t figured out the title; it’s going to be me playing just my own stuff. Is it going to be ‘Julian Playing Julian’? But that sounds very weird.

How about Julian Squared? It’s you, by you.
That sounds good! And I can be on the cover with a little ‘2’ beside my head… [Laughs]

And New York has been treating you well?
Very! I’m sad we’re not here more. We’re moving to Paris in September. Elektra [Julian’s partner] got into a fabulously difficult simultaneous translation programme at the Sorbonne University, where they take 12 people out of 350. We’re going to be there for two years. It doesn’t really matter where I am, so long as I’m near an airport. At the moment I’m writing a lot; playing a lot. I’m meeting with my agent tomorrow to discuss my future.

It’s going to huge – just like your hair!
[Laughs] We’ll probably just discuss the restaurant menu and what we’re going to eat, but we might discuss a concert or two along the way. Has Cambodia changed much since I was last there?

There are parts of it you won’t recognise.
I remember feeling a good, positive thing going on. Something like the San Francisco Renaissance. So anyway, the CD idea is Julian Plays Julian – or Julian Squared – and it’s all my music, but it’s also collaboration with friends. I’m still finishing a sonata for piano and trumpet. There are going to be a few pieces for piano and voice and then just piano.

Is music something that just kind of happens to you? Do you have some sort of musical Higgs Boson in your brain that makes it pop into existence?
Maybe it’s similar to when you write a story. There are different sides to it. Maybe the idea comes to you in a moment, or maybe you have to sit there and write and then it becomes clear.  I really enjoy composing but you have to be completely focused. I’ve found that one of the difficult things with having a baby is that part of your brain is always on the baby. If you want to write music you have to get into the piece; it’s like a separate world. It takes a little bit of time. You can’t just go in immediately. If you don’t have three hours in a row to do that, that’s definitely one of the challenges. She’s even coming into my dreams now! But I’m so excited about everything right now: Elektra, the baby…

And you’re coming back here for the Catch A Cambodian Star concert. No shortage of hot young talent here at the moment.
They’re hot; they’re sweaty; they’re dying to get to cooler temperatures! [Laughs] I’m excited about this. The last concert I did in Cambodia was for children orphaned by the Japanese tsunami. This is a completely different thing, raising money for kids who want to pursue their music. It’s a great thing, especially in a place like Cambodia. It must be so difficult if you want to reach the next level in music. Usually that’s leaving the place you’re from. It’s always about leaving, even for me: I was raised in Italy; I studied in Italy; I went to the conservatory for 10 years of training and work, but where was it I really developed as a musician? When I left and went to Russia. That was an incredible experience: it was 1993 and everything was super cheap. I got a copy of all 32 Beethoven sonatas for about 85 cents. Beethoven wouldn’t have been impressed.

And you managed not to get kidnapped by Russian agents.
[In broad Russian accent] Actually, vot I vonted to tell you today… My name is actually Boris and I play ze tuba. Ze piano voz a cover.

Speaking of mysterious disappearances, remember the album you gave me last time you were here: No Smoking? My favourite track – and perhaps the greatest track title of all time – is Dismembering You.
Oh, really? It was a dream. I dreamed very vividly that I had killed somebody and it was very, very vivid. I woke up in the morning and felt terrible because I’d killed somebody. I went to the bathroom and I couldn’t look in the mirror because I felt so bad. I guess that feeling somehow comes out a little bit in the song. There was that side of it then there was also the poem, which I guess is more about identity in a way: what you are and where that is located. It’s not in your eyes; it’s not in your arms. Where is the source of Phoenix Jay? Where is the source of Julian Gargiulo?

Here’s an idea: how would you define you in the length of a Hollywood film pitch – that’s 25 words or less?
Hey, I thought that was your job!

Look, I have to fill at least 2,500 words. You’ve only got 25. Must I do everything?
It’s very difficult to speak about yourself. You should know that. I think I would do much better interviewing people. This is my true calling in life.
You certainly write well. I was reading one of your columns earlier; the piece about writing – or rather, not writing – a masterpiece. One of my favourite bits was the biography at the end. Perhaps that could be your Hollywood pitch, although we might have to cut a couple of words: ‘Julian Gargiulo is a pianist and composer who divides his time between wishing sabre-toothed tigers weren’t extinct and making paper pirate hats out of his old bios.’ Twenty-eight words. We’ll cut your name out.
[Laughs] That’s perfect! I think I need to update that. I wrote it late at night.

Speaking of which, what can we get up to this trip? We took you for your first Khmer BBQ last time. Come to see my punk band?
Good idea! Do you provide the earplugs? ‘Earplugs sold separately.’ That would be a good title for an album…

Walking with beasties

The artist takes delicate hold of a paintbrush that’s been dipped into a big pot of metallic green paint. With a gentle inclination of the head, as if to say ‘Wait until you see this,’ she takes a graceful swipe at the canvas, depositing an arc of bright, wet colour. She snorts, returns the brush to its pot and selects another, this one slick with red. Another swipe. Another splash of colour. The canvas instinctively leans back, giggling. The canvas in question is me. The artist: an Asian elephant.

Having a t-shirt painted by an elephant called Lucky while you’re wearing it (the shirt, not the elephant) is one of the comedic high points of the new Close Encounters tours at Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre. Here, to help meet the staggering costs of feeding and caring for upwards of 1,200 weird and wonderful rare beasties, the doors are being thrown open on a world to which only professional zoologists are usually privy.

And what a world it is. Scaly things; winged things; things sharp of tooth and claw: no animal in need ever gets turned away, according to Wildlife Alliance, the result of which is an ever-evolving menagerie housing some of Southeast Asia’s rarest creatures. Here, for a donation of $100 or more, you can spend the day behind the scenes as a keeper under the watchful eyes of the experts, holding hands with gibbons; playing with infant macaques; dining alongside the world’s only captive hairy-nosed otter and even swimming with elephants (at least one of which does a nice sideline in abstract art).

If such a chance seems rare, the things you can expect to encounter are even rarer. Take the wonderfully named hairy-nosed otter, for instance: it was believed to have been snuffed out altogether until 1997, when one of the elusive creatures – once widespread throughout Southeast Asia – was found killed by a car in Brunei. More than a decade later, in 2010, experts were able to confirm that an image captured by a camera trap the previous year in Malaysia’s Sabah state was in fact a live specimen – the first spotted there in more than a century.

Then there’s the pygmy slow loris. Deceptively doe-eyed, it’s a solitary night-walking primate which can fit inside a large coffee cup. But don’t be fooled by its come-hither look. “Lorises have a gland near the elbow which oozes a strong-smelling substance whenever the loris feels threatened,” says Vietnam-based loris expert Dr Ulrike Streicher, of Fauna and Flora International. “The loris licks this liquid, which, when mixed with saliva, turns toxic. Because of this, the loris’ fierce defensive bite can induce anaphylactic shock in its victim.” Funnily enough, the gates to the loris enclosure at Phnom Tamao stay firmly locked during our visit.

What doesn’t stay locked, however, is the keeper’s side of the tiger enclosure. Here, where saner mortals might fear to tread, these magnificent predators lie prone on cool, shaded concrete barely a whisker’s length from your face. Hot breath rolls over skin as each overgrown puss strikes an at-leisure pose no different than that of your average house cat. On the other end of the feline scale, in their temporary home at the centre’s nursery, two orphaned leopard cat kittens squeak as they nibble your fingertips.

One of the most surreal moments of the day comes when a cream-furred gibbon politely requests a massage. Presenting her thick, lustrous mane and occasionally peering over her shoulder to monitor progress – imagine the product of an unholy union between Star Wars’ Yoda and Chewbacca – she leans back against the mesh, moving only to change which part of her it is you’re massaging. Rehabilitation is a core part of the regime here and another gibbon, this one a male with cataracts and awaiting surgery, gently reaches out to take my hand in his, not letting go for a full ten minutes.

There’s a reason creatures such as these are eyeball-to-eyeball with extinction: the illegal trade in endangered species is believed to be worth up to $30 billion a year, 25% of which passes through Southeast Asia. In 2011, Noor Mahmood almost achieved the unthinkable: about to fly first class to Dubai, the 36-year-old United Arab Emirates national calmly deposited his hand luggage on an x-ray scanner at Bangkok Airport. As the case trundled past security, not a single member of staff noticed the marmoset, gibbon, Asiatic black bear and four leopards – all drugged and less than two months old – packed tightly inside. And the volume is increasing, according to the World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s regional office, but so are efforts to stop it. Among those efforts is this sprawling 2,500-acre ‘safe house’ for exotic creatures rescued from the clutches of would-be smugglers.

Prostrate next to a large inviting pool, a row of Siamese crocodiles with jaws slightly ajar soak up the sunshine like prehistoric solar panels. Believed extinct until Phnom Tamao discovered several pure-blood specimens within its own perimeter, they have a special place in Khmer history and can be seen carved into the ancient walls of Angkor Wat. A few enclosures on, enormous pythons have curled themselves into giant coils. Back in the elephant enclosure, we watch as Chhouk’s prosthetic foot is given the once-over in a series of gracefully choreographed manoeuvres.

“Whether we’re making a global impact or not I don’t know, but certainly we’re touching Cambodia,” says Wildlife Rescue Director Nick Marx, who oversees Phnom Tamao. “The people that know us, they know we’re doing a good job. They can see what can be done with a little bit of money and a lot of hard work and passion. I have always loved wild animals and always will. What people are now doing for wildlife populations is catastrophic: reducing many, many species to extinction. This has to stop. If I can play my little part in helping to stop that, then I reckon my life’s been worthwhile.”

WHO: Aspiring wildlife experts
WHAT: Close Encounters Wildlife Tour
WHERE: Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Centre, south of Phnom Penh; 095 970175; evansv@nullonline.com.kh
WHEN: Now
WHY: This may be your last chance to see these magnificent beasts alive

The voice

Striding onto the catwalk in an emerald-green dress crafted from recycled water bottles, a seemingly endless train of fabric spooling over the stage behind her, Rhiannon Johnson embodied the very essence of Glamazon 2.0. Born in Barbados to English parents, and having spent her formative years in Kenya before graduating from London’s much-admired Central St Martins University of the Arts, this elegant chanteuse cuts quite the dash on the runway. But it’s what’s underneath – namely, her vocal chords – that really quickens the pulse. The Advisor cornered Rhiannon offstage to talk Caribbean culture, crippling shyness and what it’s like fronting Cambodia’s rowdiest funk band.

Where on Earth did you get those vocal chords, madam?
Music in Barbados is a big deal. In the Caribbean, it’s a huge part of their culture. Once a year, we’d have this big festival to celebrate the end of the crops and sugar cane; it’s called Crop Over. Listening to the radio and singing was always a huge part of my life, but it wasn’t until I got to school in Kenya that I got the chance to focus on it. It felt great: it was me coming out of myself. I’d only ever sung by myself in the shower. I’d get really nervous doing open mics in shopping centres and my best friend, who’s here in Cambodia with me now, would listen to me sing in the toilets before I went on and say: ‘It’s OK. You’re going to be great!’ Now she’s here in Cambodia, at the front of a Durian concert, clapping and shouting. It’s so serendipitous. And I feel very grateful to have parents who have always said: ‘You have to do whatever it is you love.’ Both of my parents are very creative.

How did you come to find yourself here?
I had no concept of Southeast Asia or Cambodia at all, but my mother and best friend – who are all here – were on Skype saying: ‘If you come here, you’ll find something. Why not just come along?’ I said OK, quit my job, shipped all my stuff, brought my brother with me and now we’re all here. What are the odds?

That’s the universe telling you something.
I took a while to figure out what I was going to do here. I remember singing at a few open mic nights and I was so shy. I sat on the chair with my legs crossed and kind of went like this… [mimes curling up into the foetal position]. It took a while for the music thing to kick off and then it took a while for me to get comfortable and into the groove of the whole thing. Then a friend took me to meet Euan Gray and GTS. Euan’s very good and very practiced at encouraging people to come out of themselves and to sing and be musical and try different things. I think he can see it in people. He’s very good at getting them to own this gift they didn’t realise they had and to use it. It was very easy for him to get me singing again. He was doing a duo at The Quay and asked me to step in while Louise Norup was away for six weeks. It was a really nice way to get started; to get accustomed to the sound of my own voice out loud.

From civilised beginnings at The Quay, you’ve since gone on to front Cambodia’s dirtiest, low-down funk band, Durian.
I’ve gone through all these phases. I started out with Euan, which was mostly pop/soul stuff, then Phil & Ritchie got in touch and we did a gig together at Red Apron. They’re both hilarious; great company. That was mostly jazz. Then there was the trio with Euan and Charlie Corrie. Then Chris Rompre approached me, saying they were thinking of putting Durian back together.

Funk: that’s a very different sound than what you were doing before.
It’s fun! It’s very melodic, good fun. At the time, it was just what I needed. I’ve gone through a lot of changes with music. I was terrified, because I’d seen their last gig and the energy. I’d seen Jess [Knowles, former lead singer] just throw herself into the gig, with sweat flying. That energy! I love funk music but I’d never really sung any before. Then I realised I’d never really sung any of the other stuff before either. The earlier stuff was very laidback, very mellow. The sheer amount of energy I had to put into funk music really intimidated me, but feel the fear and do it anyway, right?

Absobloodylutely!
I already knew I was going to be surrounded by great people who were going to be really supportive and it just carried on. I put so much into our first gig that I sweat more than I ever have in my life! I went into Equinox’s toilet to change my dress and actually wrung it out. It was stuck to me! I was totally spent at the end of it but it was great fun. I’m really sad that it’s come to an end for a while, if not permanently.

What’s the story?
Our trumpet player and our guitarist have left Cambodia for good, and everyone else has gone away for two to six months. They’ll be back, but we’ll need to find new members. But we didn’t even know there was going to be a Durian 2.0, so we’ll see. I am going to miss it. What do I do now with my Monday nights?! Monday nights are long. What do you do?!

So what’s next for you?
Greg Lavender, the drummer, who’s a very dear friend of mine and plays with Durian as well as everyone else, he said ‘Why don’t we put a thing together?’ Our quartet has now done a few gigs at The Village.

And this quartet is called…
 [Laughs] The Rhiannon Johnson Quartet! I’m so sorry. We struggled for so long on that one. Stephane is a genius with the word play and he came up with so many fantastic names, but we didn’t want to come across as pretentious. It’s so hard with these things, as you know. You come up with a name and you’re like, ‘This is brilliant!’ Then you look at it again and it’s, like, you just can’t.

Pun fail!
And my name is WAY too long for a band name.
I was going to ask you whether it’s a stage name.
Are you kidding?! It’s WAY too long!

It’s an awesome name. You just kind of sigh it: ‘Rhhhhiiiiaaaaanon Johhhhhnson’…
[Laughs] You’re so full of it! So that’s the quartet. We’ll see. The funny thing is, for the past year… stuff just comes up. When I first got here I panicked because it was so new and I fell in love with singing. I hope it continues. That’s the wonderful thing about Cambodia: you can do anything.

Howzabout a funk-punk duet?
[Looks nervous] Yes. Absolutely. Um… Cambodia has taught me to trust that things will happen and to trust myself and others. I work with amazing, talented musicians and they’re wonderful. They’ve taken the time to sit down and teach me things and made me feel I do have something to offer. I get really nervous, but then I get out there and it’s wonderful.

What do you listen to during your down time?
Musically, I don’t listen to anything like what I sing.
Metallica? AC/DC? You’re listening to Slayer, aren’t you?
[Laughs] Not Slayer, no, but I do love a huge range of stuff. There are a lot of jazz songs I would hum or sing on my walk to work in London and now I’m performing them. I remember standing on stage singing Cry Me A River and thinking ‘I can’t believe that a year ago I was singing this on my way to work and in my bedroom and doing the laundry.’ I recorded it one night when I was at home on a Saturday on GarageBand, only because there was no one else there to hear me. All of a sudden I’m singing it in front of people. And they’ll turn to you with a big grin on their face and start mouthing the words along with you. At home, I listen to stuff like Lord Huron and James Vincent McMorrow. It’s mostly easy listening; pop and rock. It’s very mellow, but then I put a play list together for a party on Saturday night and it was all Earth, Wind and Fire; Motown, funk. I love that stuff and can listen to it all day if I’ve got my groove on.

WHO: Rhiannon Johnson
WHAT: Silken vocals, from jazz to funk
WHERE: Various exotic locations in Cambodia
WHEN: We’ll let you know, so Watch This Space!
WHY: If you weren’t at Glamazon 2.0, ask anyone who was

 

Wanderlust

Scott Bywater blows a loud raspberry. “Don’t go writing about me being a beautiful soul! That would be extremely embarrassing…” This musician/writer/ nomadic spirit is nothing if not a trifle shy, especially when it comes to his poetic musings. “I had great parents. I still have great parents! Mum has lived in Cambodia for more than 20 years; they were both librarians. The house was always full of books and music and cinema. I was lucky enough to be brought up in an environment where these were the important things. We didn’t have a television while I was in high school; it broke and we didn’t get it fixed. I wasn’t too impressed at the time.”

Now sporting hair flecked with silver, the Tasmanian author of two recent volumes of poetry – A Certain Flow and One Sky, Many Skies – has since had a change of heart, spurred on by his first experience of poetry-as-performance – an experience about to be repeated. “There was a poetry evening organised at Java at very short notice and some friends of mine were playing music in the background. I said: ‘Look, I know we haven’t rehearsed this, but why don’t you just sort of play in behind what I’m doing? That could be interesting.’ And it was actually an epiphany for me, to be playing with live music being improvised behind me. There was a guitar, bass, tro (traditional bowed string instrument native to Cambodia). I thought: ‘Gee, I’d like to do some more of this.’ The original intention was to have Khmer instruments, but then I thought about more soundscapey stuff – big synth pads, things like that.”

And so it is that Bywater, with a little help from his friends Warren Daly, Alex Leonard and Hal FX, will be bringing his poetry to life against a backdrop of live music and visuals at Equinox for Triptych this week. “Three major themes have come out of the work I’ve done over the past couple of years: there’s Phnom Penh; there’s what I call ‘the art of travel’ and what I call ‘the art of living’, which is the more philosophical stuff. Triptych seeks to draw out these themes and images through sonic, harmonic, rhythmic and visual expression: collaboration at once structured and improvised.”

Here, Bywater shares a few of the poems that will feature on the night and what each of them means to him.

The last night at Snow’s

it was always worth crossing the bridge. 

for the lights and the bells

and the mirrors and the masks

the pinks and the blues, the shimmering silver

on the balcony for the last time

what became a familiar view

of the riverside turning incandescent as the night falls

to the rhythm of the floating life, the ferries and barges and dredges.

They will continue

but unobserved from this railing

it will be different

they dance swing to the blues

pushing tired feet against these wooden boards

because they won’t get these boards dusty again

the ghost of gigs past

in a place where each and every gig was a good one

(which is hard to say of many places)

the white shirt resplendent

his body willing but fatigued, the smile still as wide

it’s been a long few days

and then the announcement, for the last time:  out of beer

for the last time,

the lights and the bells

and the mirrors and the masks

the pinks and the blues, the shimmering silver

it was always worth crossing the bridge

“Snowy managed to find himself at the centre of these major events over the last ten years. One was the bar itself, which was actually called Maxine’s – named after his daughter. It was across on Chroy Changvar; an amazing building, really quite something. The poem seeks to bring the essence of what it was like to be in the place. There were lights and bells and mirrors and masks and art. Without being a pretentious arty kind of place, it just was an expression of him and that leads onto one of the other major things: when Dengue Fever first came to Cambodia, there was a famous gig played at Snowy’s and you can still see photos of them there from time to time. There’s some footage of that in the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, which was about that tour. He wasn’t an arty farty type. The place was just full of things he liked: the interior, what went on, who went there. It was the right place at the right time, for a number of reasons. On Sunday afternoons, they used to have swing dancing there, which was really nice. The gigs were always good there; the sound was always good there. You’d have crappy equipment, but there was something about the configuration of the room that would work. I played there a couple of times with the Cambodian Space Project. The place was always in danger of falling into the Tonle Sap, so people had to wait outside for other people to come out. I was there on the last night and that’s what this poem is about: Bayon Blues had played and the swing dancers had been there. Then there was an open mic and I think I played a few songs. I had a sense it was all going to disappear. It’s one thing for it not to be there any more, but there’s a certain sense that you got going there – everything I have to say about it is all wound up in the poem.”

Berlin in February

Andie McDowell in a public bubble,

David Beckham in his undies,

Whitney Houston in the news,

Cambodia in the cinemas,

Tobacco smoke and Sweet Home Alabama in the bars…

snow/snow and grit/wet grit/more snow and grit/more snow, with tough, flash, sensible automobiles,

and rampant bears and subzero joggers,

and sledding and skating on Sundays like Bruegel biscuit tins.

a metro with no gates;

a town with no hills;

a vertically flattened world that pushes for the sky.

“This is also a funny one because it has a Cambodian link in it. I was living in Montpellier at the time, in the south of France, and I got it in my head that I would go to Berlin for the film festival because Davy Chou’s film, Golden Slumbers, was playing there and I’d just been to see the premiere in Phnom Penh but I was extremely jetlagged and saw maybe a third of it. So I got on a bus and travelled for a day and a half and arrived in Berlin. This poem is an impression of what that moment was, not having been there before; not having been that cold for a very long time. Whitney Houston in the news: that was her death. It was this surreal experience of figures like Andie McDowell and David Beckham and Whitney Houston, but at the same time it’s freezing cold and I’m watching all these crazy, weird ‘60s Cambodian films late at night and then walking out into a snow shower. Very strange.”

and let us

and let us

allow each moment

to build on

each moment,

creating the next instant,

for an instant

(and repeat)

and let us

hold in our hearts

the places we could also be,

without wishing away where we are

in favour of where we were

(there are so many places to be,

and yet only one)

and let us

move, or drift,

with poetry in our soul,

the better to understand;

(and logic in our pockets,

for emergencies)

“This is about the food part, which is what I call the art of living; that thing that poetry is supposed to do: ‘Why don’t you think about this?’ This is also something that’s quite pertinent to the theme of travel and movement. There’s no great trick to unlocking this one: it’s talking about being in the moment, and particularly trying to enjoy what it is you have in front of you without thinking: ‘Oh, gee. I wish I was somewhere else.’ Living in this spirit, but also you’ve got to keep the logic in your pocket, just for emergencies – you can’t discount all that stuff. Yin and yang: fly, but take a map!”

A Certain Flow and One Sky, Many Skies are available from Monument Books or from under Scott’s arm on the night. Read more of his poetry at thesilverpepperofthestars.wordpress.com.

WHO: Scott Bywater, Warren Daly, Alex Leonard and Hal FX
WHAT: Performed poetry in soundscape
WHERE: Equinox, Street 278
WHEN: 9pm May 10
WHY: “Yin and yang: fly, but take a map!”

 

Splice meister

His mission: reconnecting culture and art. His medium: everything from cooking to comedy. And he’s here to entertain you. Robert Farid Karimi, whose spoken word has featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, took a brief moment between belly laughs to talk orange juice, Monty Python and poems about mosh pits. 

 

Rubber-faced poet/actor/artist/cook and Iranian-Guatemalan humourist: how on Earth do you find the time? And how do you fuse them all together?

It’s about this idea that you are who you are and all these things intertwine. I use my poems to take the ideas I’m thinking about and make a kind of orange juice concentrate: my ideas in concentrated form so that when I need them for bigger projects, I can add some more water to them and ‘Poof!’ they expand. I see myself as a performative cook and it’s all just ingredients. I can take the same ingredients and feed you an appetiser or I can feed you a whole meal. It’s all about the amount, the mixing, the experimentation: that’s how it all comes together.

Excellent splicing, Sir. Now, let’s dial the clock back. You’re a rather exotic creature: Iranian-Guatemalan. How much does that influence what you do?

A lot! I’ve been travelling Latin America and Asia for the past two months and what started that quest was how people perceived me. No one ever perceives me as Iranian-Guatemalan, or as American. People still have to think about what I am. In Bali, people thought I was from Bali until I opened my mouth. If I was mute, no one would ever know. I’ve always had to shape shift; I never quite fit in any culture. Rather than lament that – that’s what my teenage years were – it’s more about the gift it is and the power it is to have a consciousness of many cultures. In that comes a way to dance around things. I did a night of storytelling and poems and someone said: ‘How can you do a political poem, then do a sex poem, then do a poem about being in a mosh pit?’ That’s me! That’s my life!

Hold on a second: a poem about being in a mosh pit?!  

Yes! I’ve been through disco and I went through hip hop and punk rock and they all represent a certain sensibility. Music has always been very important to me. I’m from the area that birthed The Dead Kennedys, for God’s sake. In the 1990s I realised the mosh pit was the best metaphor for identity because it’s complicated. It’s collisions and that’s exactly what’s going on globally.

What’s your most outstanding mosh pit memory?  

I was in LA and I was knocked on my ass and these two women picked me up and were like: ‘Let’s keep going!’ It’s like being in the ocean: you feel like everything’s going to take care of you. I remember the first time I just went for it – just wanting to get hit, wanting to collide. In the weirdest way you want to collide and then when you do, and you’ve done it a few times, you just bounce. It’s a really good feeling. I always liked to get on the inside. I even had an earring get stuck on this bass player’s guitar while I was moshing, which was very painful. That’s why I don’t wear earrings any more.

You’ve performed in a few unusual places, too: grocery stores, backyards…

I believe the majority of the human race doesn’t go to the theatre any more. We’ve done cooking shows in grocery stores, where we do a man-on-the-street sample table and there’s the host of the cooking show right there, feeding you and making you laugh while you’re shopping. I’ve dome poetry readings in people’s backyards. It’s trying to find different ways to bring it to the people. I’ve done a poetry reading in a hotel bedroom where all the poets were on a bed and the crowd was around us. [Laughs] My favourite performers could take it anywhere. My favourite was whispering a poem into someone’s ear.

That sounds a little risqué.

But it’s not! Poetry and performance are out there, but how do you create intimacy? How about four of you get together and you just tell it to them, like a conversation, or whispering a poem in someone’s ear while they look out over a skyline and you describe to them the entire skyline in a haiku? I’m trying to blur the division between audience and performer. At Angkor Wat I was amazed at how many intimate moments are lost. I would love to get a group of poets together and have them make poems about Angkor Wat and then for people to be read these poems while they’re looking at the temples. Are you familiar with Monty Python?

I’m English. Cut me and I bleed Monty Python. 

Monty Python had this great sketch where it was a static view of the horizon and people walked past and said silly things every few minutes. I kept wanting that to happen because it would have been hilarious and it would have woken up the tourists. They were just so slumbering, as if they were viewing the temples the way they’d view the TV, in such a passive way. I want to bring back interactivity so that the artist is the spark for human-to-human interaction and reduce passivity in art as much as possible.

Live wire. What did you grow up wanting to be?

[Laughs] I wanted to be a comedian, but then I met all these stand ups who had really horrible lives. I also have a really low tolerance of cocaine, so I couldn’t do as much as they did. [More laughter] I could do the weed, but not the cocaine. But I really love physical comedians: I study comics and I study laughter. It’s very hard for me to sit down, too.

Who inspires you?

Whoopi Goldberg, Lily Tomlin, Richard Pryor: those kind of comics because they were very physical performers. If you look at really good Richard Pryor stuff – there’s an audio tape not many people have heard in which he does the entire Romeo and Juliet in prison. He’s in a Santa Monica nightclub and plays every role of inmates doing Romeo and Juliet… in a prison.

Holy crap!

Holy crap indeed. That’s awesome! A lot of my other inspiration comes from music: watching people like Prince and Freddie Mercury, people who could really take the room. And all the great San Franciscan poets who inspired me while I was growing up. That’s what I strive for every night: that I can create a relationship with the audience so that, if nothing else, we know we danced together and that dance together was memorable.

So what can we expect on Thursday?

A remix of different pieces of mine put together. It’s like a VH1 storyteller’s night: I’m going to tell a story while I tell a poem. There’s a very famous Iranian comedian in the UK, Omid Djalili, and he’ll tell a story then sing a Smiths song or Eye Of The Tiger. I’m going to do something like that but the song will be a poem. Sometimes the song will be a song and sometimes the audience will have to sing in order to get me to go on.

WHO: Robert Farid Karimi
WHAT: Rubber-faced poet/actor/artist/cook and Iranian-Guatemalan humourist
WHERE: Java Arts Cafe, #56 Sihanouk Blvd.
WHEN: 7:30pm May 2
WHY: See ‘what’