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

Greetings,

Those vague traces of Christmas that show up in Cambodia are starting to creep in, with odd festive spirit gigs here and there, and more to come.  And slowly tentative preparations are being made for New Year.  Next week look out for the return to Phnom Penh of Geography of the Moon (from far away) and Son Sabor Latin Trio (from Siem Reap).

For your Thursday night in Phnom Penh, there’s the open mic at Cloud, Gaby Courroux by candlelight at Botanico, the jazz at The Attic (Intan & Friends) and the Elephant Bar (Delicia, Gerard Evans, Joe, and Phil Javelle), Cuban at Sora Sky Bar, and rock’n’roll with The Extraordinary Chambers at Oscar’s on the Corner.  Note that the Bosporus jam session is paused at present due to noise complaints.

In Phnom Penh on Friday night there are celebrations at Tacos Kokopelli for their 16th anniversary, featuring The Brexiteers, and the reopening of The Vine on St 244 with The Uncomfortably White Brothers.  Other Friday night highlights include Poca & Gonzo at Odom Gardens, First World Problems at Cloud, Little Thieves and Rob Sixstrings at Sunset Boulevard, and K’n’E at Oscar’s on the Corner.

In Siem Reap Star Bar host Jam Cha on Friday, while Alpaca Lips return to The Harbour on Saturday.  Meanwhile the inaugural Angkor International Festival of the Arts (incorporating the Angkor Writers and Readers Festival) is being held this weekend with all manner of events lined up.

Saturday in Phnom Penh the big show is at Oscar’s on the Corner, with Spiked Gravy, Burning Swamp and Ozymandias & the Phnom Penh Pythons taking the stage for a metal/punk night.  For something a little quieter, Delicia & Phil are at Lantern earlier.

Sunday sees Two Jacks at Botanico in the afternoon, then later on the Sunday Sundowners open mic with guest host Gareth Bawden at Tacos Kokopelli, zargz at Little Susie, and Joe & the Jumping Jacks at Oscar’s on the Corner.

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

Now open for nominations is the annual Radio Oun (formerly Kampot Radio) Top 100 Songs Of All Time.  Voting takes place in the second half of December, and there’s a countdown at International New Year.  Leng Pleng is mounting a campaign (see this article at KhmerNights.com) to make sure local recordings and releases take centre stage, so be sure to make your nominations count.  Local musicians of all stripes are encouraged to get nominations in.  Get to their Facebook page or send an email to studio@radiooun.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.

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

The familiar story: Sam (AKA Ozymandias) got back into playing music once he came to Cambodia.  Since then he has appeared with The Schkoots, and is now fronting Ozymandias & the Phnom Penh Pythons at Oscar’s on the Corner on Saturday night.  He also has a three track EP recorded with Professor Kinski available on Soundcloud.

Do you have a pet musical hate?
The idea of the working class hero has always rubbed me the wrong way.  If you’re going to go up on stage then the whole idea of being proletarian in any way has already gone out the window – it’s glamorous, it’s decadent, it’s hedonistic.  To pretend that it’s not is a lie.  In my opinion.

A private musical indulgence:
Electronic cyberpunk.  I take a hard line about punk, and everything that’s not punk is to be discarded.  The thing that no one’s allowed to know – but now everyone will know – is that I love Lady Gaga.  I think she’s one of the greatest talents of our generation.

The year you first came to Cambodia:
In 2015 I came here for a week, and there was something about it – I knew I was going to live here.  I just didn’t know how long or when.  In 2020, during the pandemic, when America had 100,000 cases a day and Cambodia had ten – I thought maybe now is the time.  So I moved out here for ten months, and then when there was the outbreak here I managed to get back to LA for six months, and then things got worse out there, and so I came back here.

An early music memory:
My mother is a classical pianist and she used to take me to the Hollywood Bowl for classical concerts when I was a little kid – Beethoven, Mozart, Shostakovich, and especially Bach.  I saw Ray Charles perform live at the TV Land Awards when I was a kid.  In the late 90s, early 200s, when I was a little kid I was going to Ozzfest, I was already way into Ozzie and Black Sabbath and Slipknot, all that stuff.

The last thing you had to eat:
The small breakfast at Villa Grange – eggs, toast, bacon, sausage.

A country you want to visit:
The Netherlands – Amsterdam.  That’s next on the agenda.

A book or movie you keep going back to:
Apocalypse Now – for personal reasons because I live in Cambodia, and the whole movie is about going to Cambodia, but it’s also about losing your mind in Cambodia, which is also fun.  For books, The Prince by Machiavelli and Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.  The original self help Tony Robbins books of their day.

What languages can you speak?
Obviously English, and I also speak Hebrew.

Your primary instrument, and when you started playing it:
Guitar.  I’ll sing when necessary.  I started playing in sixth grade, so I must have been about that ten, eleven years old.  The thing that made me want to play rock’n’roll was Back to the Future – when I saw Marty McFly on stage introducing rock’n’roll to the 1950s he also introduced it to me, and it just looked like so much fun.  I want to do that, I want to dance around on stage with an electric guitar and be that good.  And that’s how I also found out who Eddie Van Halen was, because he puts in the Van Halen tape to scare his father.  And that began a lifelong obsession with Eddie Van Halen. I was at his final show before he passed away; I saw Van Halen go offstage for the last time.

Something people might be surprised to know about you:
I don’t have social media.  While 99% of people my age have social media, I refuse.  I think it’s the worst thing you can do for your mental health.  Also that I write cartoons for television – like Drawn Together and Sonic the Hedgehog.

You have a time machine and a magic ticket to one gig or festival in the past.  What do you choose?
CBGBs, 1977, to see The Ramones.  When I lived in New York City I lived right above CBDBs, but it was already turned into a clothing store.  It was cool to say I lived above where it used to be.

A question from the last participant:  If you could go anywhere in the world to see any band right now what would you pick?
I would go to the UK to see Wargasm UK.  They’re a new act that’s recently come out of the cyberpunk genre that I’ve recently discovered; they’ve also got heavy electric guitars.  They’ve got a sound right now that I haven’t quite heard before.  They do it very differently.  And I would love to see them live.

Steve Porte Photo of the Week

Stiff Little Punks (and friends) belting it out at the open mic memorial for Peter Doyle, Villa Grange, 5 December, 2021

 

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

Weekly Gig Guide – week commencing Thursday 9 December 2021

** residency/weekly

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Coming soon:

Son Sabor Trio at Yiqi, Bouchon Wine Bar, Azure and PREI
Little Thieves at Sunset Boulevard
The Sock Essentials and The Brexiteers at Cloud
Geography of the Moon at The Vine and Oscar’s on the Corner
Japan Guitar Shop at Sam’s
A Taste of Africa at The Sharky’s


Coming later:

Christmas jazz with Phil, Gerard & Danielle at Green Pepper
The Extraordinary Chambers for International New Year’s Eve at Oscar’s on the Corner

 

By Weekly Wrap