Got riddim

FRIDAY 15  | The thought of endorsing roots reggae groups founded by Frenchmen can trigger apprehension in reggae snobs, especially when such groups have never set foot on Jamaican soil, but what Vibratone lack in geographical legitimacy they more than make up for with enthusiasm. Between them, Ben and Leonard (guitar), Julien (bass), Vibol (keys), Luis (drums) and Maia (vocals) boast an eclectic background, with musical roots from Brazil to France to the Philippines, yet their all-original reggae genuinely rocks. Keep your ears peeled for Dreams, of which Maia says: “Dreams talks about just that: dreams. The wants, needs and desires that we all have. When I wrote it, it began on a really materialistic note – be it money, a house, a car – then Julien and I spoke and I realised it needed more substance, so there is this transition between the first and second verses. It talks about being at peace with oneself and gaining happiness through fulfilment. We have another song called Who Are You Fooling? and it’s very political; it criticises the status quo and speaks about injustices.”

WHO: Vibratone
WHAT: All-original reggae that rocks
WHERE: Slur Bar, Street 172
WHEN: 9:30pm November 15
WHY: See ‘What’

 

Burma by name

THURSDAY 14  |  A rare look at the second most isolated country in the world, novelist and filmmaker Robert Lieberman’s They Call It Myanmar: Lifting The Curtain raises the veil on life in Burma, held in the iron grip of a brutal military regime for almost 50 years. Scoring 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film – which includes interviews with Aung San Suu Kyi – was described by the Chicago Sun Times as one of the best documentaries of 2012. Writes the paper’s Roger Ebert: “They Call It Myanmar is a thing of beauty… a documentary with all the virtues of a great feature film; its cinematography, music and contemplative words make it… a hymn to a land that has grown out of the oldest cultures in Asia.”

WHO: The culturally and politically inquisitive
WHAT: They Call It Myanmar: Lifting The Curtain screening
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos Blvd.
WHEN: 7:30pm November 14
WHY: A tale of hope in the face of adversity

 

A rare, road-dusted talent

It sounds a bit like an old blues song: I went from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh to Vientiane/I went from Phnom Penh to New Hope, PA. Keith Kenny is taking a break from his Big Red Suitcase tour, which crosses the US from his home base in Asbury Park, NJ to California, for a very special event: headlining a UXO (unexploded ordinance) benefit concert in Vientiane, Laos. Then he swoops through Phnom Penh to bring his high-energy acoustic sounds to Equinox. Here’s what he had to tell The Advisor.

Would ‘mindblowing’ accurately describe your invitation to play at the We Are Kind concert? Did it come completely out of the blue? 

Absolutely! I was floored to hear that event organiser Phongsavath Souliyalat (Pong) was a fan of my music and was completely blown away when he invited me to headline the concert. I know that it will really hit me when the trip begins in November.

Your live show seems deceptively simple: acoustic guitar and kicked percussion yet the range of sounds is astonishing, as is the energy. Did you jump out of the bedroom at 16 like this?  

[Laughs] I wish that I just jumped out of the bedroom ready to go, but it has been a slow evolution into the live show today. I started doing the solo show in Asbury Park around 2005 and spent years playing locally, performing new material and making tweaks to the songs. Also, obsession with guitar pedals has changed a lot of the tones and sounds that I can get from the acoustic guitar. I am still tweaking and making adjustments at every show trying to get the sound BIGGER!

Do you road test new material, or record it first and let it find its stride? 

I’ve actually done both, but most material is tested out in front of an audience before it’s recorded. Sometimes I feel like I can approach the songs better in the studio if I’ve played them on the road for a few months. I can usually get a better feel for the dynamics of the songs that way, but then again there’s always that studio magic that happens when you just record something off the cuff and it turns out to be a fan favourite.

The choice of cover versions often uncovers influences and when I checked a cover of the Led Zeppelin song Bron-Y-Aur Stomp on YouTube it put the folky/bluesy feel of your material in perspective, where you veer away from the country/Americana style. 

That tune just seemed to have all the elements for a perfect one-man-band performance and I have loved their whole catalogue since I heard it back in high school. My influences have been all over the map, from heavy metal to finger-style acoustic guitarists to singer/songwriters and old blues artists. That might be one of the reasons I’ve had a hard time finding that defining category for the sound that I’m after.

WHO:Keith Kenny
WHAT: Singer/songwriter and acoustic guitar hero
WHERE: Equinox, #3a Street 278
WHEN: 9pm November 15
WHY:Witness a road-dusted, multi-influenced talent tweaking and searching for a category

 

Caribbean soul, fantasy and mythology

When Marcos Guerra laughs, he does so with great gusto – and he does so often. Born in Santo Domingo, this stocky ever-smiling Dominican immortalises the rich textures of life in the Caribbean using everything from ceramic paint to stuffed crocodiles. His vast, colourful canvases are spread liberally around the world; his lively Caribbean modernism described by critics as bringing to mind elements of primitive African art and Picasso’s cubism. “I’m from the Dominican Republic – in this incarnation,” he declares with the kind of jollity that spreads even quicker than a case of pink eye. Caribbean Soul, Fantasy And Mythology is the title of his first exhibition in Cambodia, opening this week. “The message,” according to a review by Lydia Keck in German newspaper Koelnische Rundschau, “is that there are no barriers between cultures and religion.” The Advisor met Marcos Guerra at Chinese House to talk ancient goddesses, stuffed crocodiles and drinking wine with Amy Winehouse.

Would you describe yourself as religious?
Not really, but I have a lot of faith. I believe in man first and then the creator, but by that I mean the universe. My journey really began because I have a lot of friends all around the world in the artistic community.

What’s your philosophy? Do you have one?
To think about the evolution of man and respect all cultures. For me, one person is linked to another. It’s the only way for the human race to survive, whatever colour we are: yellow, black, white. We’re all the same. If we went to Mars, the entire population would be considered Martians. Here on Earth… [Laughs uproariously]

I sometimes think I belong on Mars. ‘Oops, wrong planet!’ That should be on my tombstone. Tell me about your technique.
Are you recording this?! [Laughs]

Of course! I’m a bloody journalist!
[Still laughing] Why is it when people laugh that others think we are crazy?

Your art seems to celebrate the best of humanity, rather than document the worst of our craziness.
That’s human life: the vision or idea of a wonderful civilisation. Who is the bad guy? It depends which side of the world you’re on.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter?
Yes! It took me a year to prepare this exhibition. We chose very carefully which pictures we wanted to include. I work a lot every day, do a lot of painting. Until now I have painted around 3,000 pictures.

That’s pretty industrious. I thought you Latin American types were supposed to be laidback. No wonder you left. Manana? ‘No, NOW!’
[Still laughing] I like very much this one [approaches painting]. It’s dedicated to Amy Winehouse; the name of this one is Amy And Me Drinking Wine. [Laughs] I was very sad when she died. I understood that people like her, like Janice Joplin, they’re crazy bitches! [Laughs more] In a good way, an amazingly good way. [Laughs hysterically] Artists like Amy Winehouse are passionate; they don’t last for so long because they burn so bright and they suffer a lot.

But look what they leave behind them.
Yes! That’s why I painted this. She was a passionate woman. [Approaches another painting] You see the red? It’s passionate: the Caribbean sun, the beach; everything is very lively and colourful. You can understand why Caribbean people are passionate like this. And you are invited! I have an apartment in front of the sea and you are invited.

Done! So, lively and warm…
I like to play with the composition, the perspective. Things aren’t to scale – and look, here’s a little red door for me to run away through! [Laughs] And here a flower: flowers are very spiritual for me. I wanted to build the paint up so that it grew out of the canvas. I learned from [Dominican Master Painter] Guillo Perez how to use ceramics, powder and varnish. I prepare myself the pigment I want to use; it’s all organic.

I love the cherubs.
[Laughs] See the planets? The stars? I got this idea because I did a design for Grey Goose vodka. I did the box – and here’s a grey goose. On this one [Gestures to another painting], what do we have? Red Riding Hood and the wolf! And this one is based on an exhibition I once saw in Barcelona about ancient goddesses. This one, with her long neck, is a goddess of fertility. I interpreted it and put an element of the Caribbean in it.

That explains the long neck. I like that she’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt. What do the planes in your paintings represent?
Landing, being grounded.

Is that an actual crocodile glued to a painting?!
[Laughs] It says: ‘I can’t read.’ It’s a prophecy. This particular painting I made in Africa about four years ago; it’s a protest. You have these people from the Third World; Americans say they’re the First World.

Come on. Where did you get the croc?
London, from my grandmother! [Laughs again] She gave it to me. She had had it for 25 years. When I discovered she was going to throw it away, I asked her to give it to me and decided to put it in a painting. It’s amazing that people will kill an animal like this just to be a souvenir. That’s why I did this.

And what do you hope folk will take away from this exhibition?
I don’t know. I’ve done my work! [Still laughing]

WHO: Marcos Guerra
WHAT: Caribbean Soul, Fantasy And Mythology exhibition opening
WHERE: Tepui @ Chinese House, Sisowath Quay (corner Street 84)
WHEN: 9pm November 8
WHY: Ancient goddesses, stuffed crocodiles and drinking wine with Amy Winehouse!

 

Dancing with shadows

If prose is written or spoken language in ordinary form, without metrical structure, and painting is an expression of a moment, a memory, an emotion, then poetry is the bastard child of the two. It maintains the emotion of each, but displays it in a very different way. Novelists spend hundreds of pages trying to describe a situation; poets do it in one. Painters present a captured moment; poets paint it in front of your eyes.

Gustave Flaubert once said: “Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.” Despite Flaubert’s nationality (French), I’m inclined to agree. A book of poetry is like viewing a collection of paintings: worst-case scenario, you appreciate the effort; best-case scenario, they touch you somehow. They make you feel something familiar, perhaps something you’ve forgotten or something you want to forget. You connect with them. Poetry is like a memory asking shadows to dance and in Scott Bywater’s most recent collection of poetry, they do.

Scott is best known around town for his snazzy hat, solo act and the seven-something bands he’s in. His newest collection of poetry, Presence: Volume 3, is self-published. Scott’s a formerly recovering poet who fell off the wagon. “I wrote poetry a lot when I was in high school and then in my early 20s then gave it up altogether. Music as well, actually. The music came back in my late 30s; the poetry not until about two and a half years ago, when I turned 44. I was always a little inspired by the line from a poet called Joel Oppenheimer: ‘If you’re a poet at 20, it’s because you’re 20; if you’re a poet at 40, it’s because you’re a poet.’ Is that a self-fulfilling prophecy?”

All the poems in Presence: Volume 3 were written between January and September of this year. Many were also used in WASH, an eclectic group of four sound wizards for whom Scott provides the spoken word. All of them hang with the weight of living as an expat in Cambodia and have an accent you’ll find very familiar.

As Yevgeny Yevtushenko notes, “A poet’s autobiography is his poetry. Anything else is just a footnote.” Despite his nationality (Russian), I’m inclined to agree.

WHO: Scott Bywater
WHAT: Presence: Volume 3 poetry reading & book launch
WHERE: Baitong, #7 Street 360
WHEN: 7:30pm November 7
WHY: “Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth” –Pablo Picasso

 

Kaleidoscope of emotion

Poet, writer, photographer, drawer, painter, performer. She is all in one, is 56-year-old Belgian Bernadette Vincent, and she uses all of her talents to create her art. Now, for the first time, she is poised to share that work with the public: “This exhibition – Once… – is a kaleidoscope of emotions,” she says.

When Bernadette talks about her art, her face lights up. “I am so passionate about this! Two years ago I suddenly realised that people liked what I make. I was asked to participate in the Mask project, during which different artists made a piece of art out of the same mask. Through a silent auction for charity my mask got sold for $575. I remember sitting in front of my computer, looking at my screen and seeing the bids going up and up. That gave me the boost of confidence I needed.”

Her artwork is a composition of different forms: photography, painting, drawings, poems. “I find it difficult to tell my stories through only one medium, so most of my paintings are layered artworks with a mixture of media and textures.” Layered artworks? “Layers of photos; photos of painting or drawings; photos of photo transfer collages on canvas: I choose the technique that fits the feeling I want to show. My pieces are always ‘in progress’: I don’t know how to get to the end until I get there. It is the same with cooking: you have to keep seasoning until you find the perfect combination of flavours.”

Bernadette insists she may not be the best photographer: “As a street photographer, I don’t have any rules. Some pictures are too dark or too light, but it’s not my goal to make perfect pictures. I want to show feelings, so I mainly I photograph people who don’t pose! And people’s eyes, because they show people’s soul. That is why they repeatedly come back in my work. I am not a storyteller, I am a teller of stories.”

Stories are based on her emotions, from her past as an abused child to her present life in Cambodia and everything in between. “My art is personal: it is the story of my lifetime, but at the same time it is universal. Through my work as a volunteer photographer for an NGO here, I’ve seen and heard a lot of stories that inspired me. I feel a connection between the Cambodian stories and mine.”

The story continues with the opening of Once… “This site-specific performance in the staircase of Feel Good Cafe will be a travel through my artwork, through a lot of different media. A combination of everything I love: dance, poems, paintings, music. Two performers, one dancer and a musician lead the visitors alongside my artworks from the dance studio upstairs to the ground floor… It will be 50% structured and 50% improvised, so even for the performance there will be an element of surprise.”

WHO: Poet, writer, painter, dancer and performer Bernadette Vincent
WHAT: Once… performance & exhibition
WHERE: Feel Good Café, #79 Street 136
WHEN: From 7pm November 12 to December 5
WHY: “Once… is a kaleidoscope of emotions” – Bernadette Vincent

 

House of the rising sun

We blinked and it happened. Like the teashops that pop up in every corner, the cafes that dot our town, there is no roaming about BKK1 these days without a new Japanese dive seemingly rising up from nowhere. And unlike the usual Japanese chain that serves a little bit of everything, these new haunts are reminiscent of little Tokyo joints, where just one specialised kind of Japanese cuisine is served. And oh, lucky, lucky us!

Toritetsu, Street 302 & 63

Unless you know exactly where to look, it’s unlikely you would stumble upon this gem. In a nondescript house on a quiet stretch of Street 302, you will have sped past Toritetsu a dozen times. Stop. Do go in.

The tiny grill by the front door is the only clue they serve yakitori – grilled skewered meat and veg – mostly from chicken parts. Skin, thighs, heart, gizzard, liver: grilled, glazed with Japanese flavours, skewered with veg. You’ll feel like you woke up in a Tokyo back street.

There are less than ten tables which fill fast and the speed of service is not for the famished, but if you’re up for long and leisurely and can manage a table on a weekend, consider yourself fortunate. Every stick is well priced at a dollar apiece. Try it all and ask for the special dipping sauce on the side.

Kazu, #2A Street 302

There are already a few Japanese/Korean BBQ places in hopping PP – think the ever-popular Uratei and less known Jin – but Kazu is definitely the most current. Just two months old and the offspring of a Tokyo restaurateur with its sparkling walls, modern interiors and state of the art copper grills, Kazu is already more inviting and infinitely more exciting.

Cosy black (p)leather booths fill Kazu’s white space, but what’s really interesting are its distinct grills, so different from the ones we are used to (those built into the tables). At Kazu, exhaust tubes hang from the ceiling, aimed perfectly towards a copper grill in every table. This is a winner: meats are charred perfectly, while the smoke and smell are kept at bay.

When we dined the only other guests were Japanese, who clearly knew their meat. Everything we tried was delectable. Short ribs were soft and tender, hanging perfectly marinated and so soft that a knife to slice the meat was superfluous.

Generous plates of US meat start at $7 while Japanese meat starts at $25. Lunch specials are a steal with most sets between $6 and $10.

Maru Shabu, #231 Street 352 & 63

Every new Japanese haunt is initially quite mysterious, but Maru Shabu proved to be the most curious of all. Good shabu shabu – a Japanese style of cooking where top quality beef, seafood and vegetables are boiled in flavoured broth – is not easy to find and we were excited by the promise.

Yes. Maru Shabu makes good on its promise to deliver top quality shabu shabu and much more. This was the surprise: Maru Shabu, the PP branch of a quickly expanding Korean chain, is actually a buffet that includes not only shabu shabu, but also many other thises and thats.

White, bright and with lovely decorative lamps, Maru Shabu is bound to become a lively lunch hangout. Weekday lunches have the best deal: for $12, you get a generous portion of sliced beef ($15 for seafood) to boil in your own pot on the table, plus unlimited access to an interesting buffet spread that includes seafood balls and noodles for shabu shabu, plus sushi, pizza and pasta, Japanese kebabs and dessert.

Despite it being a buffet, the meat and seafood plates for shabu shabu are limited to one serving, which ensures consistently good quality. Beef is fresh and soft, and a bowl of steaming broth is warm and comforting. We finished one generous serving quite satisfied, not needing any more… but ice cream from Blue Pumpkin, included in the buffet, was the icing on the cake.

Old roots, new voices

What’s in a name? ‘Cambo’ provides a location. Examine for a moment the noun/verb ‘jam’: to wedge in tight; a sticky spot; sweet and spreadable, and gathering together to make music. Are these some or all of the reasons Cambojam is one of the longest-running international-style music outfits in Cambodia, particularly in their home base of Siem Reap?

In the middle of 2012, two key members returned to their homelands – a singer to the Philippines, bass player to France – allowing the French/Belgian/Japanese core to take a rest. Not much of a rest: before long a new wave of Siem Reap musicians appeared to fill the gaps and the caravan is now rolling again.

The reformed 2013 line-up for this year’s high season boasts eight players: drums and percussion; bass and guitar; keyboards, a trombone and a suitcase full of singers, plus an engineer and stage technician, carrying Asian passports from Cambodia to Japan, and across Europe from Russia to the Netherlands.

Fabien (boss; lead guitar; wine expert; made in France) explains the development of the band: “When we formed in 2007 with two guitarists and a singer, all acoustic, there were no bands to be found playing in Siem Reap. Now we play acoustic/electric/eclectic, covering jazz; folk; pop; reggae; funk, rock and hard rock.”

Along the way they’ve gigged in bars, restaurants, hotels and even a Pub Street residency where the bar’s stage was the front of a travel agency after it was closed for the day. “We started with fun as the main concept and that is still the main guideline. It’s a small town and almost everyone wanted us for a night, so we play more, we play better and then we play and play.”

Philippe (drummer/percussionist; hypnotiser; made in Belgium) remembers the earlier days of the band, when the small population in Siem Reap meant that musicians who wanted to play with others had to have an open mind: “It was the only way to play with other people! And it means everyone has brought along their own songbook. We now have a very, very large and adaptable repertoire and we can play for garden parties to hotels to Pub Street.” Fabien adds: “We have changed the song list so often that we are able to adapt ourselves, at a snap, to whatever the audience is after.”

And what of the transience of the audience? There are pros and cons, says Philippe. “Of course the high turnover means there is no pressure or need to constantly re-invent. We play night after night and every night the audience is different.”

A dramatic difference this time around is the presence one of the new singers, Thea (living apsara; made in Cambodia). “We’ve always wanted to include Cambodian musicians, but they were hard to find. We are excited to welcome Thea. She sings in English, but we now have the exciting opportunity to add Khmer songs to the set list.”

WHO: Cambojam
WHAT: Acoustic/electric/eclectic jazz; folk; pop; reggae; funk, rock and hard rock
WHERE: Shintamani Made In Cambodia market, Siem Reap
WHEN: 4pm – 9pm (exact time TBC) on the first Saturday of every month
WHY: “We started with fun as the main concept and that is still the main guideline” – Fabien

Calling all swingers!

TUESDAY 12 | When more than a dozen khaki-clad dancers air-stepped, jitterbugged and boogie woogied their way through a 30-second commercial for global thread-peddlers Gap in 1998, they unintentionally turned a new generation of rug cutters not onto affordable casual-fit pants but a certain something called ‘swing’. Called upon to define this Harlem sound by Bing Crosby on national radio, Louis Armstrong replied thus: “Ah, swing. Well, we used to call it syncopation then they called it ragtime then blues then jazz. Now it’s swing. White folks, y’all sho’ is a mess.” Today, swing having been immortalised for the 21st century masses first by JXL in the video to Little Less Conversation then by Robbie Williams’ Swing When You’re Winning and later by Marilyn Manson in Mobscene, it’s even on the rise in the steaming urban jungles of Asia. “It’s massive in Korea and China, especially Beijing,” says Richard, a psychologist and long-dancing member of local dance club Swing Penh. “I got called as a reluctant stand-in and felt a bit awkward, but then it became like a problem to solve: how do you do this? We don’t do too much of the ‘throwing around’ stuff. We’re middle aged, you know…” Janice Wilson, Swing Penh’s resident instructor, has performed, choreographed and taught dance in 11 countries, touring with Michael Buble and Wynton Marsalis and once opening for Bill Cosby at Disney World. “Swing allows for full immersion. You’re not just listening to the music, you’re living it; breathing it,” she says.

WHO: Hep cats and hipsters
WHAT: Swing dancing
WHERE: Doors, Street 84 & 47
WHEN: 7pm November 12
WHY: “Swing allows for full immersion. You’re not just listening to the music, you’re living it; breathing it” – Janice Wilson

 

Beeizebub travels in a Bedford

There is no question as to how Tom Vater came up with the title to his novel The Devil’s Road To Kathmandu: the sheer mix of danger, drugs and salacious exploits transports the reader straight to the gritty underbelly of the Hippie Trail to follow four friends on the road to chaos. Venturing through space and time, this story pursues a mystery from a drug deal gone horribly wrong in 1976 to the consequences that surface more than 20 years later as the men retrace their steps to Kathmandu.

Dan, Thierry, Fred and Tim endeavour to leave their Western ways behind their beaten-up Bedford bus and get lost in the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle of Asia. If they only knew just how lost they would get. When a supposedly simple drug deal in the Swat Valley erupts in mayhem, the men escape the bloody feud with their lives and the drugs, and violence imprinted on their minds. Unable to escape their provocative world, various mishaps, drug trips and women pave their way to Kathmandu, only for Fred to then disappear with the drug money.

Twenty-five years later, Dan’s son, Robbie, is on his own mission of self-discovery in Kathmandu when his father and the other two remaining men are lured back there by a mysterious email and the promise of seeing their drug money once more. The men, discovering that much has changed in their absence, soon find themselves wrapped up in a tangled web of deceit, corruption and violence as the story spirals towards one final showdown with the ghosts of their past. With the narrative skillfully weaving between past and present, the pieces of the puzzle slowly come together and shed light on a mystery that spans over a quarter of a century.

For anyone who has ever dreamed of a dark adventure, or gotten lost in one of his/her own, this pulp thriller will quickly captivate your inner daredevil. Vater successfully manipulates his personal knowledge of a fast-paced life in Asia and masters the rhythm of the road, his colourful descriptions and drug-induced inner monologues creating a world both palpable and intoxicating:

“His life was a dream. There was no need to sleep to escape anything. He would turn his neurotransmitters into free-range activists. He’d stop to dream and start to live. He’d transform himself into a shining entity of love and principle, of curious undertaking and generous self-destruction.

“He couldn’t remember the moon over London. The city absorbed the heavenly bodies into its whirl of coloured economic frenzy. Now, keeping an eye on the road, another on the yellow sickle, bobbing up and down with every dip in the land, he was being sucked into a vortex, mysterious and exciting. He’d broken free.”

So for those seeking a wild ride through the hellish roads of Southern Asia, cosy on up in the backseat of this Bedford bus… and hold on tight.

The Devil’s Road To Kathmandu, by Tom Vater, is now available for Kindle at $4.99 on Amazon.com.