Category: Night & Day

SATURDAY | Unofficial music lore puts responsibility for tribute bands on Australia. A million miles from nowhere, the great outback was too remote to attract big British or American acts, so she was forced to make her own copies. Aussiebands.com lists no fewer than 70 tribute groups, from the suicidally awful Bjorn Again (ABBA) to the expected ACCA/DACCA (ACDC) to the suicidally awful The Absolute Kylie Show (Kylie Minogue). But the real history of the genre begins elsewhere. If any band can lay claim, that’s The Beatles, whose tribute act The Buggs released their first (and only) album, The Beetle Beat, in 1964. Then sometime around the turn of the century, tribute bands evolved into a viable genre of their own. For Las Vegas native Kace King, a punk-rocker in his youth and now the lead singer for The Knockouts, a Social Distortion tribute band, the transition was driven by necessity. “Fast forward from my punk rock band days to trying to make money, because local bands don’t usually make money,” King recalls of his days in Pimp and Never Was, both successful Las Vegas punk acts. In Las Vegas at least, the answer was clear, if not entirely satisfying. “You jump into the casinos, but you can’t play your own music, because people don’t want to hear it… this was the start of the tribute band movement that you see in Vegas every single day. It’s just tribute band fuckin’ fever… I always wanted to put together a tribute band to Social D because I just love the band. And I didn’t care if I made money or not, so that’s what I did on the side to have fun.” That was 12 years ago and in fits and starts The Knockouts have been playing together ever since. Two of the original members – including King – are currently killing time in Cambodia, backed by the terrifyingly talented power drummer Marcus Tudehope.

WHO: The Knockouts
WHAT: Social Distortion tribute band
WHERE: Sharky Bar, Street 130
WHEN: 9pm July 13
WHY: It’s all about the tributes, baby

Poet of the bar room, thoughtful musician and ceaselessly rolling stone, Scott Bywater is probably one of the most extraordinary ordinary guys around. That’s not what he tells people, of course; ‘(kind of a music guy)(writes a bit)’ his card advertises apologetically. “I got sick of reading on everyone’s cards ‘CEO this, Master of the Universe that,’” he says in explanation. “That’s what I am, and it doesn’t get anyone’s hopes up too much.” His musical style is multifaceted enough to encompass different gigs, redolent of chansonniers like Jacquess Brel as well as Anglophonic troubadours Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Bywater of course sidesteps such laudatory comparisons: “It’s not like I see any link at all between what I do musically and Dylan. People see the harmonica rack and the guitar and assume my stuff is like Dylan, but I don’t think it’s anything like him.” And like Dylan he delights in not playing by the rules, experimenting with electronica and dub, then going back to his acoustic roots before jumping off into spoken word poetry. “I’ll give everything a shot; there aren’t any rules. I’m just as comfortable playing solo at Riverside Bistro as I am playing rhythm with the Cambodian Space Project.” Joining Scott for tonight’s acoustic session is fellow Phnom Penh-based muso, Andre Swart.

WHO: Scott Bywater and Andre Swart
WHAT: Acoustic night
WHERE: ARTiller, Street 240½
WHEN: 7pm July 12
WHY: Scott Bywater is a poet of the bar-room, thoughtful musician and ceaselessly rolling stone

In 1983, lanky New England actor Spalding Gray arrived in Cambodia to play the role of the US ambassador’s aide in Roland Joffé’s film The Killing Fields. Over the course of the following two years, Gray perfected a monologue about his experiences in Southeast Asia and in 1986 Jonathan Demme, who found fame directing Silence Of The Lambs, filmed it at New York City’s Performing Garage. The set of Swimming To Cambodia consists of little more than a table, a pair of maps and a background painting of sea and clouds, but Gray’s ramblings encompass everything from journalistic egos to a curious row with his New York neighbour. Interspersed with harrowing details of Cambodia’s history are tales of marijuana binges, sex shows in the bordellos of Bangkok and Gray’s own neurotic fear of sharks, remembered only when he finds himself swimming in an uncharted sea.

WHO: Spalding Gray
WHAT: Swimming To Cambodia screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 4pm July 12
WHY: “Who needs metaphors for hell or poetry about hell? This really happened, here on this earth.” – Spalding Gray

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, was once told by his aunt that he couldn’t sing. So much for all that. “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. I’m starting to learn more about where I am, so I’ve started to write about that a little bit… 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.”

WHO: Joe Wrigley
WHAT: Country originals and covers
WHERE: The Village, #1 Street 360
WHEN: 7:30pm July 11
WHY: British bloke in a cowboy hat!

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 for the number two slot on his Rolling Stone Best Music Of The Decade ballot. Dengue Fever, the Los Angeles-based sextet who take ’60s Cambodian psyche rock and stuff it through a blender, are at risk of becoming accustomed to such high praise. The LA Weekly declared the band Best New Artist; Mojo counts them among its Top 10 World Music Releases; their songs have featured on everything from CSI: Las Vegas to True Blood. The band’s beginnings on a dusty road en route from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in the late 1990s have long been the stuff of legend. And today, this extraordinary ensemble is chiefly responsible for introducing global audiences to a lesser-known Cambodia; the Cambodia long obscured from international eyes by the pall of murderous Maoists. As Mark Jenkins writes in The Washington Post: “Imagine relaxing in a dive in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, circa 1965, brushing elbows with off-duty soldiers, local gangsters and Western diplomats as a hip band plays a mix of rock, soul, jazz, surf music, traditional Cambodian tunes and Henry Mancini and John Barry spy-movie motifs.” Powerful stuff, not just on the global stage but where it all began – as evidenced in the documentary Sleepwalking Through The Mekong, which charts Dengue Fever’s first visit to Cambodia as a band back in 2005. During one sequence, filmed in The White Building where the band jammed with residents, a music teacher turns to the camera and says in Khmer: “When I saw them performing with my students I was just in awe. Nothing could compare to it. I knew they were foreigners, but when they played all these Khmer songs there was no class difference. We were all equal.”

WHO: Dengue Fever
WHAT: Sleepwalking Through The Mekong screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 4pm July 11
WHY: “Underground people are getting hip to world music, and the world music side is getting hip to how you don’t have to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool” – Senon Williams (bass), Dengue Fever

THURDAY 29 |The ancient Khmer art of ikat, which translates as ‘to tie’ or ‘bind’ and is synonymous with Takeo province, is perhaps one of the most painstaking ways of declaring a fabric fetish. It’s believed to be one of the world’s oldest methods of textile decoration, and villagers begin by resist-dyeing the threads before weaving the fabric by hand on narrowv looms. Tiny bits of plastic are tied around each thread; they’re then dropped into pots of lively coloured dye. The end results are vast, elaborately patterned cottons and silks, on which village life and local beliefs are depicted in glorious technicolour. Patterns are traditionally passed verbally from generation to generation, but local design house Push Pull Cambodia is fusing ikat’s ‘historic handmade techniques with modern design aesthetics’. Designer Hor Sokbol’s debut 2012 spring collection, Nautical by Nature, will be the highlight of this month’s Fashion Connections night.

WHO: Push Pull Cambodia
WHAT: Fashion Connections
WHERE: Queen Boutique Hotel, #49a Street 214
WHEN: 6pm March 29
WHY: 11th century fabric meets 21st century couture

 

FRIDAY 30  |The deceptively doe-eyed pygmy slow loris possesses a defensive bite so toxic that it can induce anaphylactic shock in its victims. You might think this would be enough to put most predators off, but this tiny mammal is being hunted to the point of extinction. And it is not alone. Cambodia’s flora and fauna – and, by extension, its environment – are today coming under ever-increasing pressure from the twin forces of climate change and rapid development. Discover some of the innovative methods being used to combat the threats at Meta House’s Green Night. Eco-friendly products, talks, and organic DJ sets are the order of the evening.

WHO: Eco-warriors
WHAT: A night out for environmentalists
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd
WHEN: 6pm March 29
WHY: The planet can’t save itself, can it?

 

SATURDAY  31  |The ancient Khmer art of ikat, which translates as ‘to tie’ or ‘bind’ and is synonymous with Takeo province, is perhaps one of the most painstaking ways of declaring a fabric fetish. It’s believed to be one of the world’s oldest methods of textile decoration, and villagers begin by resist-dyeing the threads before weaving the fabric by hand on narrowv looms. Tiny bits of plastic are tied around each thread; they’re then dropped into pots of lively coloured dye. The end results are vast, elaborately patterned cottons and silks, on which village life and local beliefs are depicted in glorious technicolour. Patterns are traditionally passed verbally from generation to generation, but local design house Push Pull Cambodia is fusing ikat’s ‘historic handmade techniques with modern design aesthetics’. Designer Hor Sokbol’s debut 2012 spring collection, Nautical by Nature, will be the highlight of this month’s Fashion Connections night.

WHO: Push Pull Cambodia
WHAT: Fashion Connections
WHERE: Queen Boutique Hotel, #49a Street 214
WHEN: 6pm March 29
WHY: 11th century fabric meets 21st century couture