Singer close to her Khmer roots

Long Beach resident Chhom Nimol, is the lead singer for Dengue Fever, a band that is putting Cambodian American psychedelic surf rock on the map. Chhom, took a break from a crowded touring schedule to visit home for Cambodian New Year before she and the band embark on a West Coast Tour to promote their new album "Cannibal Courtship." (Brittany Murray / Press-Telegram)

MUSIC: Voice of Dengue Fever prepares for release of latest album, band tour.

04/14/2011

By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer

Long Beach Press Telegram (California, USA)

LONG BEACH - As Chhom Nimol sits at Sophy's Restaurant, it's a rare slow day for the Cambodian lead singer of Dengue Fever, a unique band with an ever-growing fan base.

The Signal Hill resident has been in a whir of activity as her band prepares to release of its latest album, "Cannibal Courtship," which hits the shelves Tuesday, the same day the band begins a West Coast tour at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.

"My schedule with Dengue Fever is so full," says Chhom, who brings along a friend to interpret but rarely needs help. "Today is my day to relax."

It being the first day of the three-day Cambodian New Year, it's a good time for reflection, something she has little time for with her band's growing popularity and hectic tour schedule.

Dengue Fever Band in Sydney Australia

Last night I went to see Dengue Fever band performed on stage at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville Sydney.

At 10:00pm the band had started with their vocal Khmer singer, Ms. Chhom Nimol.

The crowd enjoyed and danced along with her in Khmer. 90% was khmer songs.

I'm so proud to see a Koun Srey Khmer and her band, Dengue Fever,who brings Khmer songs from the 60s-70s into the world stage music.

She is a real Khmer Hero who is reviving the Golden Age of Khmer music.

That night I felt the presence of our late Ream Chhbang of Khmer Music on the same stage: they were smiling at her and thanked to her devotion in preserving Khmer Music.

She was surrounded by Lauk Sin Sisamouth, Lauk Srey Ros Sereisothea, Lauk Voy Ho, Lauk Mer Bun and many others.....

Cheers,
Ung Bun Heang

Chhom Nimol with her Dengue Fever band

The audience had sung along with her. A GO GO ! A GOGO ! A GOGO !

The Khmer Rock-n-Roll had rocked Sydney Siders at Factory Theatre

Our beautiful Chhom Nimol had hit the stage .Congratulations !

From left: David Ralicke-Saxophone; Senon Gaius Williams- Bass Guitar; Chhom Nimol-Vocals

Zac Holtzman-Guitars-Vocals with Sacrava

Chhom Nimol with her fans

Khmer rock revival seeks new audience

Chhom Nimol fronts the LA-based Khmer rock band Dengue Fever

Tuesday, 28 July 2009
By Sarah Cuddon
BBC News

Decades after Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge silenced the sound of Westernised music in Cambodia, the little-known 60s genre "Khmer rock" is finding new fans.

Khmer rock is the sound of the West meeting the East in the 1960s - a mixture of US surf guitar music, early rock and doo-wop mixed with Cambodian traditional instruments.

At the time, the music was virtually unknown outside Asia but its followers in the West are now burgeoning.

Music writer Nik Cohn is a new fan who stumbled across the sound by chance.

He said: "One night I was watching (the film) City of Ghosts, and there's an amazing moment when Matt Dillon jumps on a motorbike and rides through Phnom Penh and this incredible music comes on. An unbelievable voice.

"(I'd) not heard anything that good since Ronnie and Ronettes... and then I began to think about it musically."

Today, the sounds of the old Phnom Penh are being revived in the West by the Los Angeles-based band Dengue Fever, which is fronted by a Cambodian singer, Chhom Nimol, the daughter of musicians who played with the original Khmer rockers.

The band's guitarist Zac Holtzman loves the sound and stories of Phnom Penh's music scene.

"It was modern city, with lots of musicians. By day they played traditional stuff and by night they'd rock out.

"In general the Khmer culture is reserved, but this is the closest to stepping out and going crazy. We can really have fun here."

The country's former controversial ruler, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, was a big influence on the sound.

Despite presiding over an often corrupt and repressive regime, he was passionate and liberal about the arts, and encouraged the traditional court musicians to experiment with Western styles.

But influences also came directly from the US - as the American military presence in Vietnam increased, the American Forces Radio Network also became more well-known.

Flying studios operated by the US Navy spread the sound of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and country music to Cambodia.

Phnom Penh's young musicians did not necessarily know who Jimi Hendrix, the Doors or the Beach Boys actually were, but they loved the sound and they started to imitate it.

"They just took the sound and re-channelled it through instruments equivalent to guitars… a primitive drum kit, and they certainly had bass guitar," Nik Cohn said.

The Khmer rock musicians did not have elaborate studios, and most of the songs were recorded live - often in one take - with any keyboards or guitars they could find, and incorporated traditional instruments.

For a decade, this experimental Khmer rock music transformed the nightlife of the capital, Phnom Penh.

But in 1975 the fanatically anti-Western Khmer Rouge marched in, led by Pol Pot, and the vibrant rock and roll scene was silenced.

Within four years, the Khmer Rouge killed an estimated two million Cambodians in the notorious killing fields, including many of the Khmer musicians.

Him Sophy was one of those sent to a labour camp.

"Ninety percent of the famous singers were killed. I saw the prisoners they took," he said.

Jon Swain, who was the Sunday Times war correspondent in South Vietnam and Cambodia at the time, said: "Educated people, musicians, people with glasses… a lot were taken to the killing fields… so the great singers disappeared."

All the local heroes the scene had produced - like Sin Sisamouth, who became known as "the King of Khmer music" - were wiped out, killed by the Khmer Rouge.

Cambodian musician and composer Sophy Him was a young music student in Phnom Penh and remembered him well.

"Sin Sisamouth would play (royal) court music, then rock music… improvisation from traditional and rock."

Guitarist Zac Holtzman said Sin Sisamouth was a songwriter who he initially thought "was like the Elvis of Cambodia", but then he found his lyrics were more like the "Bob Dylan of Cambodia".

"When you know that every one them was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, many in hideous ways, it deepens the experience of listening to it" - Nik Cohn, music writer

No one quite knows what happened to the famous diva of the time, Ros Sereysothea, but it is believe she also died under Pol Pot.

Like almost all the Khmer rock artists, Ros Sereysothea came from a poor farming family.

She moved to Phnom Penh, where was heard singing by Prince Sihanouk, who later honoured her as "The Golden Voice of the Royal Capital".

It was her voice that Nik Cohn first heard on the soundtrack for film City Of Ghosts, and he said there was always "something tragic about her".

The music was wild and anarchic, but the lyrics often told a different story of teenage angst, death, betrayal and sorrow.

The translation to Ros Sereysothea's funky rock song "Have You Seen My Love" is: "I drink until I get drunk, but I can't seem to get drunk. The sky is all black, love has wings to fly."

It is this strange mix that appeals to fans like Nik Cohn. "It's the sound of innocence, teenagers and innocence, symbolising everything that was lost - and when you know that every one them was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, many in hideous ways, it deepens the experience of listening to it."

Khmer Rock is adored in Cambodia. It survived on bootlegged cassette tapes and vintage vinyl kept hidden during the Communist years at enormous risk to the owners.

"The name of Sin Sisamouth is still there… after Khmer Rouge was overthrown, his songs came back on the radio.

"I remember hearing them again and they are still going on now," Jon Swain said.

And the old songs are winning new fans through reissues and compilations, a presence on the internet, and the new recordings by Dengue Fever.

Khmer Rock and the Killing Fields presented by Robin Denselow, is to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Tuesday, 28 July, at 1330 BST.

'Dengue Fever' Highlighted in New Film

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
05 August 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Many of Cambodia's emerging rock musicians were killed by the Khmer Rouge, but their music has been carried forward by the band Dengue Fever. The rise of that band, and the capturing of Cambodia's 1960s, are now highlighted in the film, "Sleep Walking Through the Mekong."

In the past, singers like Ros Serey Sothea, Pen Ron and Sin Sisamoth sang most of the Cambodian rock songs. Now Cambodian-American singer Chhom Nimol and Dengue Fever have picked up where they left off.

The documentary, produced by John Pirozzi, seeks to catalogue the emergence the band, which incorporates elements of American rock instruments and Khmer lyrics in a unique psychedelic sound.

The film was a product of another product, Pirozzi told VOA Khmer, called "Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll." As a camera operator in Cambodia in 2001, during the making of the film "City of Ghosts," Pirozzi discovered Cambodian rock.

"I thought it could be such an amazing story," he said, adding that he hoped to use proceeds from the film to help support Cambodian artist associations.

Meanwhile, Chhom Nimol, lead singer for Dengue Fever, said she was excited to see old songs resurrected.

"I am so happy that it makes our Khmer people to know clearly about Khmer rock-and-roll songs, and I am especially happy to make the world recognize the value of Khmer artists, resurrected by Dengue Fever," she said. "I am so thankful for the filmmaker who produced our band's documentary. I think it is so important for the world to learn about Khmer songs and the band."

A long-term famous singer, Chhom Chhovin, a sister of Chhom Nimol, called the film amazing, while Ieng Sithul, president of the Khmer Artist association, said he was proud of a band promoting old Khmer songs.

Dengue Fever, the Band, Burns Bright

The members of Dengue Fever are, from left, Ethan Holtzman, Senon Williams, Zac Holtzman, Paul Smith, David Ralicke and Chhom Nimol. (Photo: Kevin Estrada)

By Poch Reasey, VOA Khmer
Washington
24 January 2008

With a third album out and many of the songs sung in English, the band Dengue Fever is gaining critical and commercial momentum.

Dengue Fever features Cambodian Chhom Nimol on vocals and recalls the psychodelic rock of Cambodia’s ‘60s.

In “Venus on Earth,” their newest album, Chhom Nimol sings in more English than in the past two albums.

“Compared to the Khmer songs I used to sing, English ones are much harder to sing,” she said, speaking from Long Beach, California.

“So we spent a lot of time working on this third CD because there are new songs and new melodies,” she said, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

For this album, Dengue Fever has so far only toured the US. In 2005, the group performed in Cambodia, where, Chhom Nimol said, “Cambodian people still want to listen to my voice.”

Back in Long Beach, she said she has also earned the respect of the largest Cambodian community in the US.

“As a Cambodian woman, I never forget Cambodian culture and traditions,” she said. “And I want to thank the Cambodian people who support my work and the work of Dengue Fever.”