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

Greetings,

It’s a relatively quiet weekend in Phnom Penh, particularly with Son Sabor Trio having to cancel their mini-tour – notably, however, there’s a sudden spurt of gigs in Siem Reap and Kampot.

For an early start to the weekend, in Phnom Penh check out The Broken Cymbal at Trattoria Bello, Poca de Feo at Botanico and/or The Extraordinary Chambers at Oscar’s on the Corner.  In Kampot, Fishtix and members of the Kampot Playboys are at Tiki Garden and Roberto Salgado at The Plantation.

On Friday in Phnom Penh,  the highlight is The Goldilocks Zone playing a farewell show for Jack Dodd at The Deck.  Elsewhere one can Opera and Dine with Mikhail Ryu, Seo Ji Young, Namjoo Lee, Sor Sinarath & Issei Sakano at Green Pepper, or find Los Primos at Duplex and K’n’E at Oscar’s on the Corner.  Meanwhile Japan Guitar Shop are at Laundry Bar in Siem Reap, and in Kampot, Roberto Salgado hosts an open mic at Karma Traders and Graham Cain plays Roxy’s.   

On Saturday in Phnom Penh, AmCham Summerfest at DIBClub features Joe & the Jumping Jacks and Three Country Drunks .  Later on Woody Dares is at Botanico and K’n’E are at Oscar’s on the Corner.  In Siem Reap Arin’s has the triple bill of Adam Marsland, Sokunthea and Paul Mackie, and Geography of the Moon are at The Harbour.  In the south, Kampot Playboys play at Villa Vedici and The Kampot Geezers are at Kampot Cafe.

Come Monday there are 4th of July events in Phnom Penh at Botanico – Scoddy Acoustic Trio with special guest Colin Grafton – and in Siem Reap at Star Bar – Joe & the Jumping Jacks.  And in the end of an era, Sundance Inn & Saloon is pulling the plug on their open mic – there will be one last night on Tuesday, come have a play with Dave Zdriluk.

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

Dan Davies.  A frequent visitor to Cambodia for performance, at least up until two years ago, Darwin-based Dan is back for a quick rest & recreation break.  Over the years he’s toured in Cambodia with Jigsaw Collective, The Bloody Marys, The Epic Fannies, Gleny Rae Virus and The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum, who morphed into The Oscar Bar Lunatics with Srey Ka to record Candy for the Cambodian Iggy Pop tribute album Angkor Pop.  In Australia he’s played a lot with David Garnham & the Reasons to Live, and many one-off bits and pieces with folks such as Neil Murray and several Top End Aboriginal bands, and a few Australian gigs with the Cambodian Space Project.

Above, Dan is pictured playing one of the last pre-COVID gigs in Phnom Penh, 14 May 2020, with The Bloody Marys.  On this trip he’s a little different, currently rocking a handlebar moustache to everyone’s surprise.

Do you have a pet musical hate?
Relying too much on technology for live performance – a singer reading off an iPad or playing to backing tracks.

A private musical indulgence:
I listen to so much more country music as I get older.  Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, old people’s music.  As a teenager or even in my 20s or 30s I would be going what are you doing?  I love putting it on and dancing and flaying my arms around to it, which I think is why I enjoyed myself at Oscar’s on the Corner on Monday night so much listening to the Cambodia Country Band.  That’s what I do when I’m by myself but I was doing it in public.

The year you first came to Cambodia:
2015.  I came to play with Leelo Murumagi from Estonia, to do a gig with her at the Kampot Writers and Readers Festival. She’d been living in Australia, and hadn’t really pushed herself as a songwriter before, but I worked with her on her songs, and we started doing gigs that went quite well.

An early music memory:
Discovering my mother’s secret stash of EPs that she kept in the back of a cupboard.  The only music we had easily available in the house was a lot of classical music.  Finding Little Richard and Elvis Presley at eight years old was: what’s this?  What are these sounds?  It was just amazing.  Through most of my teenage years I used to listen to a golden oldies radio station that played Chuck Berry and other early rock’n’roll stuff.  In those days before the internet it was difficult to discover the really cool stuff that was going on at the time, but if you turned on mainstream radio in the 80s it was pretty bland.

The last thing you had to eat:
Fried ginger with pork.

A country you want to visit:
Patagonia, a large region in Argentina.  Rene Griffiths, a friend of one of my aunts, grew up there in one of a number of small Welsh colonies.  In the 1860s a guy called Michael D Jones set sail for the new world to try to preserve the Welsh language, which was under quite intense pressure from the English.  A movie, Separado, was made about Gruff Rhys from the Super Furry Animals tracking down Rene, who was a distant relative of his.

A book or movie you keep going back to:
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.  A fantastic book.  I joke that it’s the reason I bought a motorbike – maybe it’s not a joke.  But that’s only a very superficial layer of the story.

What languages do you have?
I grew up speaking Welsh.  My mother is Australian, my parents migrated back to Australia when I was a child.  My first kindergarten teacher was a fluent Welsh speaker, so she would speak English in the classroom and speak baby Welsh to me in the playground.  My dad also taught Welsh in Canberra.  Then I went back and did a full immersion course at university in Cardiff in 2002 – at the end of that I was speaking pretty well, but of course I don’t get to speak to too many people in Welsh in Australia or Cambodia.

Your primary instrument, and when you started playing it:
I played the guitar way before I played the bass, and did a classical guitar degree.  I was playing in bands as a teenager on the bass, and I took up the double bass as a second study during my music degree.  I get way more gigs on the bass than I do on guitar.  There’s part of me that still thinks of myself as a guitarist, but to be honest it’s much easier for me to step into a gig playing bass than to step in playing guitar.

Something people might be surprised to know about you:
I got through the pandemic without drinking alcohol, including when I was in Cambodia in March 2020.

You have a time machine and a magic ticket to one gig or festival in the past.  What do you choose?
Where to start?  Igor Stravinski in Paris conducting The Rite of Spring for the first time?  Literally a riot.  Or Live Aid?  Woodstock?  One of my mother’s records that I discovered was The Concert for Bangladesh, the three record set, and I listened to that a lot.  I actually did get to see Ravi Shankar before he died, which was a pretty amazing performance, one of the most incredible I’ve ever seen.  The audience were gasping as he played, I’ve never been in a room where the audience was collectively gasping.  So Bangladesh, with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Billy Preston as well.

A question from the last participant, Big D Walker: if you could learn something about music from anyone that ever lived, who would you choose?
I did a degree on the classical guitar, and I’ve kind of hacked jazz together, mostly by being a double bass player, but I’d like to go much deeper into the world of jazz and jazz theory.  Quincy Jones – he’s unbelievable – for his deep knowledge of jazz harmony and his incredible ability to compose and arrange music.  Even stuff that I don’t like that he’s had a hand in I still go – I wouldn’t listen to this, but it’s amazing.

Steve Porte Photo of the Week

Jack Dodd of The Goldilocks Zone (formerly Complicated Business), who is playing his last with the band on Friday at The Deck, seen here at Oscar’s on the Corner on 14 November, 2020

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See you around the traps.

 

your correspondent,
Guillermo Wheremount
LengPleng.com
gigs@lengpleng.com (mailto:gigs@lengpleng.com)

Weekly Gig Guide – week commencing Thursday 30 June 2022

** residency/weekly

For DJs and clubs, we recommend Phnom Penh Underground

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