On a big weekend for farewells, with the final performances of Little Thieves and the Uncomfortably White Brothers, it can be seen from a brief glimpse at the gig guide there are new or morphing bands rising up to fill the gap. One such is the new outfit Blender, and LengPleng sat down with bandleader Will Canuck to discuss his new venture.
Late in 2020, Will’s first Cambodian band First World Problems made its appearance. From initial encounters at the then Sunday night jam at Oscar’s on the Corner, songwriter and bass player Will, drummer Ricky Haldeman and guitarist Pavel Ramirez rolled into a Wednesday night Oscar’s residency that they kept up, with the familiar interruptions of our age, for six months. Last month Pavel pulled stumps and headed back to Sweden, but plans were already afoot to evolve FWP into something different.
“Blender is a new band, built on the foundation of the rhythm section of First World Problems, Ricky and myself, and the original songs and covers that we had integrated into FWP during our Wednesday residency,” says Will. “To some degree, Blender is where FWP was meant to be going. I always wanted to add a second guitar player, a rhythm guitar. And I hoped to have a third singing voice; it suits the material I write, I like the big chorus.”
First, though, some time was spent casting about for the lead guitar position. On Oscar’s recommendation, they tried out Khmer guitar hero Suon Vutha, with great results. “He’s everything I was told he was – a superb musician, wonderful guitar player, really understands how to find his right place in the song. There’s some language barrier, but in the end we’re talking music. We managed two rehearsals with Vutha and Pavel together, and Pavel was really great about showing Vutha the licks with his little bit of Khmer, and charting songs out. That was a huge help.”
Bona fide Khmer guitar hero: Suon Vutha, seen here sitting in with K’n’E
Australian guitarist Martin Sutch answered a “guitarist wanted” post on Facebook. “He came out for a try, and immediately there was the rhythm guitar that was missing from the power trio,” explains Will. “Now we’re definitely a rock band, which feels great. Martin is about my age, we have a lot of musical likes in common. He also adds a powerful second vocal that really lift the choruses.”
The FWP experience, and the demands of a residency, where a band has the flexibility to slip songs in and out of the repertoire over time, has also had an influence on how Blender is being sculpted. “Over the time I went from a position of I will only play original songs to thinking that we perhaps need a couple of covers, but only two or three, to now accepting it needs to be something like 50/50. We aren’t play covers that everyone automatically knows, but they’re at least vaguely familiar, and they some continuity with the original songs so they don’t sound out of place. We’ve added Johnny Thunders’ You Can’t Put Your Arms A Memory, Billy Idol’s Dancing with Myself.”
As they were: First World Problems
The addition of Vutha has had unexpected consequences. “I’ve rarely found as good a fit happening as quickly as it did in all the bands that I’ve been in before. He has spent a lot of time with the studio recordings of my originals, and is copying them to the point where I’m hearing licks that were on the record but I never heard with the live band. So on old songs from the late 80s like Human Drama I’m hearing him play things that I’ve never heard on stage. I’m thrilled he’s on board, I’m so excited about how we’re sounding – same songs, but we sound like a different band.
The mix of a Khmer player into a barang band also creates new possibilities. “We maybe have an opportunity to play venues that we’d never thought about – having a Khmer guitar player, is it possible that we’re playing festivals, taking gigs in Vietnam or elsewhere in the region. There’s now something special about the band: his presence.”
And where to go from here? “Probably in the next few months we’ll take this group into the studio and knock out a couple of tracks, to see what that’s like. I love the studio. And with these guys I have no worries at all about going in and laying down right off the floor bed tracks, then some overdubs of vocals and harmonies and guitar work. Not with any commercial interest, particularly, but just to see what we can do. And I’m looking at the Radio Oun Top 100 poll for the end of the year, we need a track in there.”
Blender debuts at Oscar’s on the Corner on Friday night, with The Extraordinary Chambers to follow.