***for full gig listings jump to the bottom***

Greetings,

Things kick off tonight, Thursday, with Geography of the Moon playing a new art/music concept evening Thursday Club at Sra’Art gallery, while Phil Javelle, Cécile Dahomé and Ilya Konstantinov are at Elephant Bar, Gareth Bawden is at Botanico and The Extraordinary Chambers go late at Oscar’s on the Corner.

On Friday and Saturday in Phnom Penh, Sofitel hosts a two day Spring Festival.   Day one features Joe & the Jumping Jacks, Miss Sarawan, 12me, Japan Guitar Shop, while day two has Drum Circle Cambodia, Havana Nice, Geography of the Moon, and Checkered Past.

Also on Friday in Phnom Penh, find the Sound.wav concert at Factory Phnom Penh, Arome Khmer at Craft, Possum Bush at Villa Grange, Geography of the Moon at Odom Garden, an Opera and Dine event at Green Pepper, Gareth Bawden at The Box Office and Machiko & Takeshi at Cloud.  Later on, The Broken Cymbal are at Rukkha Sky Bar, and K’n’E are at Oscar’s on the Corner.

In Siem Reap, Jam-Cha are at The Harbour, and Giuliano Turello Trio play late at AMBAR.

On Saturday in Phnom Penh, Oscar’s on the Corner has a 13th anniversary party with four bands: blender, The Extraordinary Chambers, Cambodia Country Band and K’n’E – note the early start at 9 pm – free entry and a welcome drink.  Our friends at Khmer Nights can tell you all about it.

Elsewhere, 12me plays a farewell show at Cloud, The Blue Souls are at The Glasshouse and Alli G & the Free Tequilas are at Central Café.  In Siem Reap, Alpaca Lips are at Arin’s. 

Coming soon to Kampot is an exhibition by Markus Dixon – Street Knowledge: The Kingdom of Hustles, which will also feature the live performance of Golden Era based music put together by Mute Speaker – The Kingdom of Hustles Mixtape.  Read all about it here.

**For the rest of the gigs check out the listings at the bottom of the page**

What We’re Still Making a Fuss About This Week

Released last week, more goodies from the lab of Professor Kinski – a farewell EP from The Schkoots.  Seems like this time it’s serious, though – within a month all three will be back in various different parts Europe.  Their parting gift is Forever Insoumis, four tracks of 11 solid minutes of Schkoot goodness – tight and lean and hard.  And it includes a French version of a Sex Pistols song – what’s not to like?

While you’re at Bandcamp, also check out a six-track mini-album Public Announcement from Phnom Penh’s own ska band, Checkered Past, and Penhsteady, a Professor Kinski collaboration with Phil Javelle, along with the many other local acts to be found there – from the Kampot Playboys to Doch Chkae to Scott Bywater to Ernie Buck to Vibratone.

Passing Chords:  a few things you might not know about…

Photo: David Flack

Jyoti Felix, Tasmanian ukulele enthusiast and major contributor to the Phnom Penh Ukulele Circle.  This Tuesday the bi-monthly PPUC theme night will feature songs from the 90s.

Do you have a pet musical hate?
Definitely.  People (usually guitar players, but not always) telling ukulele players “you really should switch to guitar”.

A private musical indulgence:
It’s not entirely private, but I love karaoke.  I’m a horrible singer, but I lived in a small-ish town in Japan for a couple of years, and karaoke was one of the few things to do on the weekend.  I love getting together with a small group of friends in a private room, having a few drinks, and choosing songs that everyone sings along to (badly) at the top of their lungs.

The year you first came to Cambodia :
2004, when I came for a whirlwind 3-week visit.  I moved here in 2009 and have mostly been here since (with a couple of years popping in-and-out a few times a year while I was working in Afghanistan).

An early music memory:
Being in the backyard at my grandparent’s place, singing the Happy Little Vegemites  song (Australians, you know the one).  And one of my relatives, instead of responding “this is a kid who loves music” – which seems like it would have been appropriate – said “she’ll probably go into advertising when she’s an adult”.  How wildly wrong they were.

The last thing you had to eat:
Coffee.  My breakfast is sitting next to me, but it’s too early to eat it

A country you want to visit:
China – specifically Gansu province in the northwest.  There’s a Chinese food documentary on Netflix called Flavorful Origins where one of the seasons explores the region’s food, and it (the food and the place) looks amazing (and very different to how “Chinese” food is usually perceived).

A book or movie you keep going back to:
It’s very very rare that I re-read or re-watch things, but I did just re-read Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series (which I’d originally read in my early 20s), and found them both almost as unputdownable as the first reading.

What languages can you speak?
English.  Khmer (but nowhere near as well as I should be able to, given how long I’ve been here – I understand much more than I can say).   A bit of Japanese (it used to be better).   And hellos, thank yous, and (randomly) a few words specifically related to food and agriculture in various other languages from across Asia – I used to spend a lot of time talking to farmers for work.

Your primary instrument, and when you started playing it:
Ukulele!  I started playing in 2017 when I spontaneously decided to go along to the Phnom Penh Ukulele Circle with a colleague after a couple of post-work drinks and pretty much immediately fell in love.  When I was a kid though, I played piano for about ten years, flute for maybe eight, and had a brief flirtation with the bass in my teenage years.

Something people might be surprised to know about you:
Erm…  Given that most people reading this are probably wondering who on earth I am and why I would possibly be contributing to Passing Chords, I’m sure that literally anything about me would be a surprise – haha!  So, aside from pretty much everything else in these answers, I absolutely despise bananas.

You have a time machine and a magic ticket to one gig or festival in the past.  What do you choose?
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s 2009 Royal Albert Hall show.  They invited the audience to bring their ukuleles, and more than 1,000 people from the audience played along to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.   The ukulele is such a happy, friendly, inclusive instrument, and that show would really have captured that spirit.  The grins from the audience members (and the band!) must have been gigantic!  (As a wise friend often says, it’s pretty much impossible not to smile while playing the ukulele.)

A question from the last participant:   Name three musicians, living or dead, that you’d like to form a band with.
George Harrison, Eddie Vedder and Cyndi Lauper (all ukulele enthusiasts, maybe surprisingly to some people)

Steve Porte Photo of the Week

 

Superfan Louise Grimmer enjoying Sunday Acoustic Sessions at The Vine on Sunday, 20 March, 2022.

Our revived sister publication, kumnooh.com, aims to provide a lengpleng.com service for the wider arts – painting, sculpture, literature, dance, architecture and classical music – across Cambodia.  Check it out every Tuesday – to subscribe send a subscribe email to fabianhipp@kumnooh.com.

Note:  LengPleng.com has returned to its weekly email service.   If you wish to receive LengPleng in your inbox every Thursday please send an email saying Subscribe to gigs@lengpleng.com.   And tell your friends.

Musicians, venues, punters:  if there are things that you know that LengPleng should know, please tell us and we’ll do our best to tell the world.

See you around the traps.

 

your correspondent,

 

Guillermo Wheremount

LengPleng.com

gigs@lengpleng.com (mailto:gigs@lengpleng.com)

Weekly Gig Guide – week commencing Thursday 24 March 2022

** residency/weekly

For DJs and clubs, we recommend Phnom Penh Underground

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Coming soon:

Coming later:

 

  • Big Tay Out Festival with Japan Guitar Shop, Geography of the Moon and Visa Runs, 8 April, Sam’s
  • Miss Sarawan, 8 April, Craft

 

 

 

By Weekly Wrap