SHOW REVIEWDENGUE FEVER
Where: Tangier, 2138 Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles
When: June 8, July 6 and Aug. 3
Tickets: $10
Information: (323) 666-8666
Band's pop-rock Cambodian mix sizzling in the Southland
Phillip Zonkel, Staff Writer
U-Entertainment
Long Beach Press Telegram
THE MUSICAL GROUP known as Dengue Fever may raise audiences' temperatures, but not like the infectious tropical disease it gets its name from.
In this case, the heat is generated by the retro Cambodian pop-rock group's sounds, a fusion of California surf rock, garage rock, soul, Ethiopian jazz and provocative feminine vocals.
The sextet is fronted by Long Beach resident Ch'hom Nimol, a 25-year-old former Cambodian beauty queen who sings in her native Khmer, and includes Ethan Holtzman (Farisa organ), his brother Zac (guitar and vocals), David Ralicke (saxophone), Senon Williams (bass) and Paul Smith (drums). Nimol sings solo every Friday at New Paradise in Long Beach; Dengue Fever will play concerts at the Tangier in Los Angeles on June 8, July 6 and Aug. 3.
In 2002, the group garnered LA Weekly's best new artist award, cited for Nimol's remarkable use of her high shimmering vibrato, theatrical stage moves and the band's understated virtuosity.
Shortly thereafter, Matt Dillon selected the band to make a Cambodian cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" for his Cambodian-based thriller "City of Ghosts."
"Dengue Fever's music is a novelty in a sense, and unique because there's nobody else doing (that sound and style) other than (the band) Neung Phak in San Francisco," says Alan Bishop, an audio recordings archivist and owner of the Seattle-based record label Sublime Frequencies, which has released "Cambodian Cassette Archives" and "Radio Phnom Penh," compilations of vintage Cambodian pop-rock.
"There are some bands in Seattle and Oakland playing to an all-Cambodian crowd at their own restaurants and casinos," Bishop says. "But Dengue Fever is bringing the music to more of an American-based crowd of indie rock fans."
Not bad for a band that owes its existence to a mosquito bite. During a 1997 visit to Cambodia, Holtzman was driving past the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, near Phnom Penh, when his traveling companion turned pale and started to sweat.
At the same time, Holtzman was being captivated by songs on the radio — 1960s Cambodian pop oldies featuring a unique blend of psychedelic rock and enchanting female vocals. He was in a state of ecstasy.
Holtzman's buddy, however, was burning up with a fever. His condition was dengue, an infectious, mosquito-transmitted tropical disease whose symptoms include severe pain in the joints and back as well as fever.
His friend eventually pulled through, but Holtzman didn't recover from the exotic musical bug to which he had been exposed. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Holtzman and Zac, who was also a Cambodian-pop music addict, formed Dengue Fever. The only missing piece was a Khmer-singing woman.
"It wouldn't make any sense if we didn't have any Cambodian singers in the band, and I was singing pretending to be (1960s and '70s Cambodian pop music idol) Sin Sisamouth," Zac says, laughing.
In the summer of 2001, the brothers made several trips to the area in Long Beach known to some as Cambodia town, searching numerous restaurants for the group's soon-to-be vocalist. They found Nimol at the Dragon House on Alamitos Avenue.
Ethan and Zac asked Nimol to be their group's lead singer. And when she learned it was making music in the vein of vintage 1960s and 1970s Cambodian pop-rock, Nimol was ecstatic.
"It's exciting that these are American guys playing Cambodian music," says Nimol, who was born in Battambang and has lived in Long Beach for the past five years. "That's my country and my language."
Dengue Fever released its self-titled debut album in 2003. The songs were, with two exceptions, covers of the bright, bouncy pop and rock songs of boy-girl romance and innocent pleasure that dominated Cambodian music in the optimistic days of the early 1960s. One of the two originals, "Connect Four," is a tale of the board games ladies play in Cambodian cafes and shops as time slips between their fingers.
"There are certain commonalities to (Dengue Fever and Cambodian pop-rock) that people in the West would be able to relate to. It's rock and roll," says filmmaker John Pirozzi, who is working on two documentaries, one on Dengue Fever and "Don't Think I've Forgotten, Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll."
"People say it's Western rock and roll, but when you look into the roots of Western rock and roll, it's not really based in the West to begin with. You go back to blues, gospel and slave music and Africa," he says.
"Music bounces all over the globe and no one culture really owns it," Pirozzi says. "It's like any art form, people pick and choose and take what they want to make it their own and make it unique."
Dengue Fever's unique sound makes the group musical revivalists.
In the 1960s, American Armed Forces Radio stations in Vietnam were beaming out a mix of rock and soul music that made an immediate impact on the popular music of next-door Cambodia. Artists began blending American rhythms and instruments with their own traditional music, giving birth to a hybrid that had Khmer society reeling and rocking — some with joy, others with shocked disbelief.
"In 1970, Phnom Penh was culturally ablaze, and the Cambodian pop music scene was at its height," says Mark Gergis, cofounder-singer-bassist of Neung Phak, which has released a self-titled CD, and curator of the "Cambodian Cassette Archives."
"Among the most revered contemporary singers were Sin Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea and Pen Ron. With their fantastic ensembles, they rewrote Khmer musical history between the 1960s and 1970s. They weaved influences from traditional Khmer composition into the various dance crazes, such as the twist, cha-cha and boogaloo, and psych-rock sounds infiltrating Southeast Asia at the time."
Serey Sothea's high, clear voice, coupled with backing bands featuring prominent, distortion-laden lead guitars, pumping organ and loud, driving drums, made for an intense, sometimes haunting sound. Like Sisamouth, she often took popular Western rock tunes, such as John Fogerty's "Proud Mary," and refashioned them with Khmer lyrics. At the pinnacle of her career, she was honored by King Norodom Sihanouk with the royal title "Preah Rheich Teany Somlang Meas" ("Golden Voice of the Royal Capital").
Sisamouth, the leader of the music scene, possessed a clear crooning voice, which, combined with his own compositions of the pleasures and pains of romance, made him an irresistible idol. He sang many ballads, as well as up-tempo rock numbers and Latin jazz arrangements featuring woodwinds, brass and auxiliary percussion.
As the top music artist in the kingdom, he was asked to lead Sihanouk's palace band, a job he held until 1970.
Sisamouth also introduced many Western pop tunes to Cambodia, simply writing new verses in Khmer language: "The House of the Rising Sun" as "I'm Still Waiting for You" and "Black Magic Woman" as "I Love Petite Women."
After the March 18, 1970, coup deposed the rule of Sihanouk, Sisamouth led ministry bands under the Khmer Republic, rising to the military rank of captain by the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover on April 17, 1975.
This golden era of Cambodian pop-rock was cut short at its apex with the takeover.
"When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, 90 percent of the musicians in Cambodia were subsequently killed for the very music they produced along with most of the artists, teachers and intellectuals in the country," Gergis says. "Venerable traditions of storytelling, classical music and dance vanished along with their masters."
Serey Sothea's career was cut short with the takeover. Forced out of Phnom Penh with all the other residents, she lived at a work site in Kampong Speu. When the Khmer Rogue learned her identity, she was forced to write and perform songs celebrating the regime. She was also forced by Pol Pot to marry one of his assistants in 1977. Later, she disappeared under mysterious circumstances and is believed dead.
Dengue Fever touches on these horrors on its second CD, "Escape From Dragon House," with the track "One Thousand Tears of a Taratula." Nimol's dark, heavily processed vocals evoke a terror that these musicians and singers must have felt in their final moments.
Apart from revisiting a part of Cambodia's history, Holtzman hopes Dengue Fever has a more lasting impact.
"It's odd that an American band is reviving this music, but it's cool," Holtzman says. "Hopefully, we'll inspire Cambodian kids here or in Cambodia to put a band together and play Cambodian rock and roll."
Whether or not that happens, Pirozzi says the story of Cambodian pop-rock needs to be told.
"They know how great their music was. This is a point of pride for them," he says. "Unfortunately, the Cambodian people have lost a bunch of their history from that time period. So much of their artistic brain trust was wiped out. It's almost as if the country is starting over."
Phillip Zonkel can be reached at (562) 499-1258 or phillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com
In this case, the heat is generated by the retro Cambodian pop-rock group's sounds, a fusion of California surf rock, garage rock, soul, Ethiopian jazz and provocative feminine vocals.
The sextet is fronted by Long Beach resident Ch'hom Nimol, a 25-year-old former Cambodian beauty queen who sings in her native Khmer, and includes Ethan Holtzman (Farisa organ), his brother Zac (guitar and vocals), David Ralicke (saxophone), Senon Williams (bass) and Paul Smith (drums). Nimol sings solo every Friday at New Paradise in Long Beach; Dengue Fever will play concerts at the Tangier in Los Angeles on June 8, July 6 and Aug. 3.
In 2002, the group garnered LA Weekly's best new artist award, cited for Nimol's remarkable use of her high shimmering vibrato, theatrical stage moves and the band's understated virtuosity.
Shortly thereafter, Matt Dillon selected the band to make a Cambodian cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" for his Cambodian-based thriller "City of Ghosts."
"Dengue Fever's music is a novelty in a sense, and unique because there's nobody else doing (that sound and style) other than (the band) Neung Phak in San Francisco," says Alan Bishop, an audio recordings archivist and owner of the Seattle-based record label Sublime Frequencies, which has released "Cambodian Cassette Archives" and "Radio Phnom Penh," compilations of vintage Cambodian pop-rock.
"There are some bands in Seattle and Oakland playing to an all-Cambodian crowd at their own restaurants and casinos," Bishop says. "But Dengue Fever is bringing the music to more of an American-based crowd of indie rock fans."
Not bad for a band that owes its existence to a mosquito bite. During a 1997 visit to Cambodia, Holtzman was driving past the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, near Phnom Penh, when his traveling companion turned pale and started to sweat.
At the same time, Holtzman was being captivated by songs on the radio — 1960s Cambodian pop oldies featuring a unique blend of psychedelic rock and enchanting female vocals. He was in a state of ecstasy.
Holtzman's buddy, however, was burning up with a fever. His condition was dengue, an infectious, mosquito-transmitted tropical disease whose symptoms include severe pain in the joints and back as well as fever.
His friend eventually pulled through, but Holtzman didn't recover from the exotic musical bug to which he had been exposed. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Holtzman and Zac, who was also a Cambodian-pop music addict, formed Dengue Fever. The only missing piece was a Khmer-singing woman.
"It wouldn't make any sense if we didn't have any Cambodian singers in the band, and I was singing pretending to be (1960s and '70s Cambodian pop music idol) Sin Sisamouth," Zac says, laughing.
In the summer of 2001, the brothers made several trips to the area in Long Beach known to some as Cambodia town, searching numerous restaurants for the group's soon-to-be vocalist. They found Nimol at the Dragon House on Alamitos Avenue.
Ethan and Zac asked Nimol to be their group's lead singer. And when she learned it was making music in the vein of vintage 1960s and 1970s Cambodian pop-rock, Nimol was ecstatic.
"It's exciting that these are American guys playing Cambodian music," says Nimol, who was born in Battambang and has lived in Long Beach for the past five years. "That's my country and my language."
Dengue Fever released its self-titled debut album in 2003. The songs were, with two exceptions, covers of the bright, bouncy pop and rock songs of boy-girl romance and innocent pleasure that dominated Cambodian music in the optimistic days of the early 1960s. One of the two originals, "Connect Four," is a tale of the board games ladies play in Cambodian cafes and shops as time slips between their fingers.
"There are certain commonalities to (Dengue Fever and Cambodian pop-rock) that people in the West would be able to relate to. It's rock and roll," says filmmaker John Pirozzi, who is working on two documentaries, one on Dengue Fever and "Don't Think I've Forgotten, Cambodia's Lost Rock and Roll."
"People say it's Western rock and roll, but when you look into the roots of Western rock and roll, it's not really based in the West to begin with. You go back to blues, gospel and slave music and Africa," he says.
"Music bounces all over the globe and no one culture really owns it," Pirozzi says. "It's like any art form, people pick and choose and take what they want to make it their own and make it unique."
Dengue Fever's unique sound makes the group musical revivalists.
In the 1960s, American Armed Forces Radio stations in Vietnam were beaming out a mix of rock and soul music that made an immediate impact on the popular music of next-door Cambodia. Artists began blending American rhythms and instruments with their own traditional music, giving birth to a hybrid that had Khmer society reeling and rocking — some with joy, others with shocked disbelief.
"In 1970, Phnom Penh was culturally ablaze, and the Cambodian pop music scene was at its height," says Mark Gergis, cofounder-singer-bassist of Neung Phak, which has released a self-titled CD, and curator of the "Cambodian Cassette Archives."
"Among the most revered contemporary singers were Sin Sisamouth, Ros Serey Sothea and Pen Ron. With their fantastic ensembles, they rewrote Khmer musical history between the 1960s and 1970s. They weaved influences from traditional Khmer composition into the various dance crazes, such as the twist, cha-cha and boogaloo, and psych-rock sounds infiltrating Southeast Asia at the time."
Serey Sothea's high, clear voice, coupled with backing bands featuring prominent, distortion-laden lead guitars, pumping organ and loud, driving drums, made for an intense, sometimes haunting sound. Like Sisamouth, she often took popular Western rock tunes, such as John Fogerty's "Proud Mary," and refashioned them with Khmer lyrics. At the pinnacle of her career, she was honored by King Norodom Sihanouk with the royal title "Preah Rheich Teany Somlang Meas" ("Golden Voice of the Royal Capital").
Sisamouth, the leader of the music scene, possessed a clear crooning voice, which, combined with his own compositions of the pleasures and pains of romance, made him an irresistible idol. He sang many ballads, as well as up-tempo rock numbers and Latin jazz arrangements featuring woodwinds, brass and auxiliary percussion.
As the top music artist in the kingdom, he was asked to lead Sihanouk's palace band, a job he held until 1970.
Sisamouth also introduced many Western pop tunes to Cambodia, simply writing new verses in Khmer language: "The House of the Rising Sun" as "I'm Still Waiting for You" and "Black Magic Woman" as "I Love Petite Women."
After the March 18, 1970, coup deposed the rule of Sihanouk, Sisamouth led ministry bands under the Khmer Republic, rising to the military rank of captain by the time of the Khmer Rouge takeover on April 17, 1975.
This golden era of Cambodian pop-rock was cut short at its apex with the takeover.
"When the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, 90 percent of the musicians in Cambodia were subsequently killed for the very music they produced along with most of the artists, teachers and intellectuals in the country," Gergis says. "Venerable traditions of storytelling, classical music and dance vanished along with their masters."
Serey Sothea's career was cut short with the takeover. Forced out of Phnom Penh with all the other residents, she lived at a work site in Kampong Speu. When the Khmer Rogue learned her identity, she was forced to write and perform songs celebrating the regime. She was also forced by Pol Pot to marry one of his assistants in 1977. Later, she disappeared under mysterious circumstances and is believed dead.
Dengue Fever touches on these horrors on its second CD, "Escape From Dragon House," with the track "One Thousand Tears of a Taratula." Nimol's dark, heavily processed vocals evoke a terror that these musicians and singers must have felt in their final moments.
Apart from revisiting a part of Cambodia's history, Holtzman hopes Dengue Fever has a more lasting impact.
"It's odd that an American band is reviving this music, but it's cool," Holtzman says. "Hopefully, we'll inspire Cambodian kids here or in Cambodia to put a band together and play Cambodian rock and roll."
Whether or not that happens, Pirozzi says the story of Cambodian pop-rock needs to be told.
"They know how great their music was. This is a point of pride for them," he says. "Unfortunately, the Cambodian people have lost a bunch of their history from that time period. So much of their artistic brain trust was wiped out. It's almost as if the country is starting over."
Phillip Zonkel can be reached at (562) 499-1258 or phillip.zonkel@presstelegram.com
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