Penh Pals was formed around a table at Tacos Kokopelli, the site of many a band formation, and will play their farewell gig there on Friday night. The Pals – Ariane Parkes, Liam Garth Jones and Mike McCann – were good enough to sit down with LengPleng before their penultimate gig, opening for Shake 79 at Oscar’s on the Corner, to reminisce over the last 18 months and discuss the ups and downs of making a band work.
M: The Tacos Kokopelli Sunday open mic changed my life, really. Before that I had never sung in public ever before. And the first time I quit half-way through the song, I walked off.
L: I wouldn’t say Tacos Kokopelli has changed my life, but I think since I was 21 I’d probably been on stage only once before moving to Phnom Penh, and that was at Tacos, where I began to relax and start doing it again.
M: I saw Ariane sing first. My friend Marc brought me to Voodoo Lounge, downstairs at Oscar’s, when they had an open mic going on. Ariane got up and sang with Scoddy and I thought, hell no, I’m not going up after her. And I remember Liam would normally stroll into Tacos late in the session, the most laid-back person ever, and he’d do a couple of awesome songs – incredible, he’s never nervous. The opposite of me.
L: And get nearly all the words wrong. Not as cool as it appeared.
A: When I came back from summer in Germany two years ago, in my absence the two of you had established yourself as regulars at the open mic. I was wondering: who are these people?
L: To the extent that when you came back, as a veteran of five years, it felt like you were a newcomer. So we were all coming to the Sunday Sundowner Sessions, playing vaguely similar music, drinking vaguely similar drinks.
M: One night we all got drunk and a song by The Pogues came on and we all started singing. The last time we ever agreed on music.
LP: You’ve mentioned in stage chatter sometimes that originally the idea was to make an Irish folk band; now you describe yourselves as playing acoustic alternative pop. How did that change come about?
A: We kicked off with a folk song – I’m a man you don’t meet every day.
M: I discovered I can’t play in 3/4 time, so that kind of killed the Irish folk idea.
A: We also discovered that we really don’t like the same Irish songs.
M: So we went from the Irish idea to alternative 80s and 90s songs pretty quickly.
L: Not by design, though.
A: Those were the songs we could agree on. Usually one person would suggest a song, and then a second would say yes cool, and then the third says never ever will I play that song.
M: We started calling it The Void – in our group chat someone would post a song and then… nothing.
LP: Ariane, you’ve been in bands for years and years, but for both Liam and Mike this is the first serious time around, right?
L: I played a little bit when I was a teenager, but nothing that went anywhere. We did play the occasional gig.
M: This is the first real band I’ve been in. For me it’s always been a few expat teachers playing at a bar or an open mic, or a school event. I’ve moved around a lot as a teacher – Asia, Africa, South America. So I’m seeing how much work it is to be in a band, to actually practice to get good enough, and the emotional work of trying to agree on things. Seeing the forming of formulas – okay, I know that this is not going to work, and this will, but then every once in a while – what? How could you like this song? You don’t like this, this and this!
L: I think we played a few at the open mic without really rehearsing.
A: We made a band chat on WhatsApp to get some songs together, but we said we’d never practice together, we’d just meet at open mic and play.
M: And then our first gig was at Kokopelli.
Penh Pals: Liam, Ariane and Mike, at Tacos Kokopelli, 20 October 2023. Photo: David Flack
L: It was really hard at the start to get arrangements together, as well. Trying to work out how work the two guitar parts out. At first we chose relatively ambitious ones like 99 Luftballons, over time things started to come together.
A: Quite naturally now. And with a new song the two guitars find their roles almost immediately.
L: Just copy what they do on the record now and it works.
LP: Has the setlist changed significantly over time?
M: We keep adding. I think during the last six months it’s become more challenging to agree on songs, and the number of new songs has slowed down a bit, but in the last month we’ve had a bit of a resurgence as we get towards the end.
L: It’s evolved fairly steadily over the period. The first set we played is quite different to what we play now.
LP: You’ve had a very Phnom Penh experience, playing gigs where everything worked as well as finding yourselves crammed in corners, suffering demoralisingly bad sound and or apathetic audiences.
M: Every time we’ve played at Tacos Kokopelli, I’ve loved those ones.
A: One outstanding gig was at Back Street Bar, when we played only originals as part of the Originals Sessions. Crystal clear sound and an attentive audience, that was nice.
Penh Pals at Back Street Bar, 22 October 2023
L: Then some gigs where we’re jettisoned all the originals on recognising that the Friday night audience was not going to be interested. Let’s give them the “hits”. There was a kind of bittersweet gig at the Welsh Consulate where for once I decided not to get drunk before we went on, and Mike decided to take a Xanax and get hammered. It made a change from him being too nervous and me being too relaxed. It was just my luck to be the guitarist in the band whose creativity is not fuelled by drugs. A teenage dream dashed.
LP: Mike’s next step is Senegal, what then for Penh Pals? Calling Friday’s gig a farewell suggests an ending.
L: Ariane and I might go forward, but not with the same name.
M: Originally I was encouraging them to keep the name, but I started getting more sentimental and thinking, no, that’s us three. Now I’m fine either way.
L: I have checked for replacements but there were no other Mike McCanns in the city.
M: In the last few weeks somehow I’ve been labelled the tyrant of the band.
A: You have been Veto Mike before.
M: My kid is going to university in Hong Kong, which will give me a reason to come east and pass through Phnom Penh. And have reunion shows.
A: Reunion in Hong Kong! Yes, that’s a plan!
L: The band would also like to extend thanks to Scott Bywater for his encouragement and support.
Penh Pals will play their final show on Friday 10 at Tacos Kokopelli at 7 pm.
Oscar’s on the Corner, 24 January 2023