Category: Night & Day

FRIDAY28  | For six months, peripatetic photographer Michael Klinkhamer has prowled the streets and alleyways of the Cambodian capital, camera in hand, dispensing to those who care to listen the ‘wisdom of the lens’. “‘You can’t go wrong here’ is a sentiment often expressed by photographers in Cambodia,” says Klinkhamer of his adopted home. “This exhibition is dedicated to all that has appeared in front of my lens over the last six months. My theme is very simple: common people, illusive monks, playing children, the vibrant and resilient Khmers in this time and place working towards a better future, welcoming, open to opportunities, keeping their dignity and their own identity.”

WHO: Michael Klinkhamer
WHAT: You Can’t Go Wrong Here photography exhibition
WHERE: FCC, #363 Sisowath Quay
WHEN: 5pm February 28 until March 31
WHY: You really can…

TUESDAY 25 | Hear the haunting lilt of the chapei dang weng, Cambodia’s traditional long-neck guitar (played perhaps most famously by Master Kong Nay, pictured), in tonight’s debut performance by the cream of Cambodian Living Arts’ musicians (tickets: $3). Here, the sounds of Khmer yore will be fused with electric guitar, other traditional instruments and stirring lyrics made up on the spot. No pressure there, then.

WHO: Cambodian Living Arts
WHAT: Traditional Cambodian music
WHERE: Doors, #18 Streets 84 & 47
WHEN: 8pm February 25
WHY: The sound of Khmer yore

SATURDAY 22 | Chhan Dina and Warren Daly are daring to tread in some of history’s most well-heeled footsteps. The duo – one a Cambodian artist; the other an Irish DJ – are redefining the complex relationship between sound and vision. Dina and Daly merge electronic dance music with live instruments and artists and audience participation to create a multisensory experience – a trip without a trip. Led by Daly, who in 2000 co-founded online record label Invisible Agent, they’re building on the work of 1960s San Francisco arts collectives that used disco balls and light projections on smoke to produce trip-like sensations (The Brotherhood of Light, who toured with The Grateful Dead, were inspired by the Beat generation and Ken Kesey’s ‘expansion of consciousness’ Acid Tests). In Swagger, Daly fuses pop culture, high culture and low culture by hooking painters, musicians, graffiti artists, digital artists and DJs into one psychedelic show.

WHO: The sonically and visually open-minded
WHAT: Swagger party
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd
WHEN: 10pm February 22
WHY: A trip without a trip

 

SATURDAY 22 | Formed in 1964 and regrouping exactly 20 years later, Jamaican ska band The Skatalites, of Guns Of Navarone fame, laid the foundations for modern reggae. Mixing their danceable rhythms with popular jazz tonight are Sebastien Adnot (bass), Greg Lavender (drums), Euan Gray (saxophone) and Alexandre Scarpati (trombone). Known collectively as Jahzad, they promise an evening of ‘infectious beats and tasty horn lines’.

WHO: Jahzad
WHAT: Jamaican ska meets jazz
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm February 22
WHY: Infectious beats and tasty horn lines

 

FRIDAY 21 | The seeds of punk’s anarchic politics, far from being American or British, in fact sprouted from mid-20th century French philosophy – philosophy that continues to shape punk to this day. The theory is most famously laid out by Greil Marcus in Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century, in which the author examines punk in the context of everything from Dadaism to Guy Debord. For as Andrew Hussey, head of French and Comparative Studies at the University of London Institute in Paris, once told the BBC: “…without the French, without their big ideas and their politics and fanaticism, punk rock in the UK would’ve been nothing more than growly old rockers with shorter hair”. This is not lost on Didier Wampas, lead singer with French punk band Les Wampas. He’s rare among his brethren, refusing for three decades to resign from his job as a public transport electrician despite having produced 11 albums and a top 20 hit. Where the Sex Pistols were famous for spitting at fans, Didier – more famous for singing off-key and in a high-pitched squeak – prefers to climb into their midst and kiss as many cheeks as possible. But just how long can he keep it up, after a punishing 30+ years as a punk frontman? “If you don’t want to stop, you don’t stop. I eat peanut butter sandwiches, like Elvis! Yes, yes, yes. It’s the secret of rock ‘n’ roll…”

WHO: Didier Wampas
WHAT: French ‘Ye Ye Punk’
WHERE: Sharky Bar, #126 St. 130
WHEN: 9pm February 22
WHY: French philosophy inspired punk rock. No, really.

 

FRIDAY 21 | The reggae train rolls on with the arrival of New Delhi’s Reggae Rajahs, India’s first sound system of its kind, fresh from opening for Snoop Doggy Dogg. Representing Cambodia tonight are Dub Addiction, voted best band in the capital in our 2013 Advisor awards, and the crew from Wat A Gwaan, the Phnom Penh-based collective which debuted last month. The action starts at Slur and moves to Pontoon, where the Rajahs take the decks at 1am.

WHO: Reggae Rajahs, Dub Addiction and Wat A Gwaan
WHAT: Dub Temple I
WHERE: Slur, #28 Street 172, and Pontoon, Street 172
WHEN: 9pm February 21
WHY: Big ting a gwaan!

 

TUESDAY 18 | He’s been declared “the new Dave Allen” by Britain’s Ricky Gervais and tonight Johnny Candon, one of Ireland’s most wanted stand-ups, takes the stage alongside Dave Johns (UK, pictured), a Geordie expert in being ‘in-yer-face’ funny, for the latest instalment of the Comedy Club Cambodia (tickets: $10). Rocking the mic between sets will be the legendarily long-limbed Sam Thomas, of the PP Punchliners.

WHO: Johnny Candon and Dave Johns
WHAT: Comedy Club Cambodia
WHERE: Code Red, opposite Naga World, next to Koh Pich Bridge
WHEN: 8:30pm February 18
WHY: It’s the best medicine

 

SATURDAY 15 | Male and female. Fire and water. Dark and light. Life and death. Many natural forces that might at first seem contrary are in fact complementary, a concept embodied in the yin yang of Chinese philosophy. Together, such forces interact to create a sum far greater than their parts. Such is the case with Krom (Khmer for ‘the group’), quite possibly the most reclusive band in Cambodia. Public performances are rare; interviews even more so. In Krom, whose Neon Dark was declared album of the year by the BBC’s Mark Coles last year, East meets West. Mournful delta blues guitar mingles with celestial Cambodian vocals. Tales of human atrocities are tinged with the slightest suggestion of hope. Angelic opera singers Sophea and Sopheak Chamroeun are backed by Australian guitarist Christopher Minko, a man onto whose features more than a thousand lifetimes have been etched.

WHO: Krom
WHAT: A rare public performance
WHERE: Doors, #18 Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 9pm February 15
WHY: They’re elusive, reclusive and exclusive

 

SATURDAY 15 | Twice World Champion DJ Woody, who has shared the stage with everyone from the Beastie Boys to Snoop Doggy Dogg, presents ‘a completely original, eye-popping and crowd-rocking audio/visual DJ performance using 100% bespoke material’.

WHO: DJ Woody
WHAT: Live AV & DJ set
WHERE: Code Red, opposite Naga World, next to Koh Pich Bridge
WHEN: 3pm February 15
WHY: If he’s good enough to win the DMC not once but twice…

 

SATURDAY 15 | The vodka-soaked rantings of a Finnish madman high on acid and crumbling under the pressure of meth-induced paranoia wouldn’t sound nearly as disturbed as Phnom Penh’s oldest, loudest, craziest and by far and away most freakishly entertaining noise monsters, Bum N’ Draze. Joining them tonight are newly reformed indie rockers the Teaner Terners, plus the Stiff Little Punks. Brace for a hurricane of untamed, angry screams that assault the senses and insult the intellect.

WHO: Bum N Draze, Teaner Terners & Stiff Little Punks
WHAT: Noise monsters
WHERE: Sharky Bar, #126 Street 130
WHEN: 8pm February 15
WHY: It’s going to be scandalous