Various Artists | Cambodian Rock

Listen to the first track (a bit muddy for the first minute)


Listen to the second track

Reposted yet again by special request on 2/17/2015, here

[The first reposting of this CD, for which the following text was written, was on April 8, 2012.] This is a reposting of one of the first posts I made to this blog, two years ago, here, and the last of the "housecleaning" reposts from that first month or two, before I was uploading whole CDs in a single zip (or now, rar) file.

A lot has happened in the two years since I started this blog on April 5, 2010. Three people I've either known or who were people who were close to people I know, have since passed away--all of them living in, and/or connected to people who are living in, Portland, Oregon, where I found this CD in a Cambodian grocery store on Foster Road. In late August, my soon-to-be ex-wife and I separated, and I moved from Brooklyn, where I'd spent most of the 15 years I've lived in New York, to Astoria, Queens, where I am now. (If you look at this blog's history, you'll see that there's an abrupt end to posting in August and that I didn't pick it back up until April of 2011.)

Any listener familiar with Cambodian rock of the 60s and 70s will notice, listening to the CD I've posted tonight, that these are not exactly original recordings. They retain the original vocals--from Sinn Sisamouth, Pan Ron, Ros Sereysothea and others--as well as some of the original instrumentation. But other instrumentation has been added, as though to contemporize the songs, to lift them out of the past and insert them, however awkwardly, or even painfully, into the present. Though purists might bemoan the addition of drum machine and god-knows-what-else (Casio?), for me, there's something beautiful about the gesture, as blasphemous as it might strike many others.

It means one thing to archive, to select from and to present artifacts from one's (personal or cultural) past; it means something different altogether to contemporize these same artifacts, to attempt to situate them within one's present. It isn't, in this case, an act of rewriting history; it's something more complicated. More painful, perhaps, but closer to how memory, the past, does live within, or haunt, the here and now.

I started this blog two years ago as a way to share some of the music that meant the most to me with a handful of friends who I thought would derive some pleasure from it. But there was always another agenda behind taking on and continuing this project, which was to foreground the extent to which the United States has always been haunted by a fluctuating but nonetheless steady stream of immigration. An immigration not just of people and their pasts, but of cultures and their pasts (and presents). These recordings are not just glimpses into other cultures, they're clues into our own constantly evolving culture, as well as our own recent past. (Consider: How did a Cambodian grocery store wind up in Portland, Oregon? Is it, in other words, a direct consequence of the U.S.-Soviet proxy war in Vietnam, or more specifically of the U.S. bombing of PAVN targets in Cambodia and Laos for more than a decade in the 60s and 70s?)

Watching the 2012 GOP primaries and the pandering to what one can only assume to be a white middle-aged heterosexual Western-religion-identified male American target, the insanity of any genuinely held belief that America is, in fact, that hardly needs me or anyone else to point out just how absurdly out of sync with reality that it is. But being who we are and knowing who we are are two entirely different things. 

I was at a wedding reception last month where a second- or third-generation Asian-American referred to other (first-, second- and third-generation) Asian-Americans as "Asians" and white Americans as "Americans; it was hardly the first time I've heard that particular distinction being made.

"die Vergangenheit ist klar vorbei" ("the past is clearly over"), wrote Ernst Herbeck, an Austrian schizophrenic patient whose poetry I've been translating off and on over the last 10 years or so. (Ugly Duckling Presse, here in New York, will be publishing a selection of some 30 of my Herbeck translations this summer--I'll post an announcement when it's available.) I love that line, not because it's obviously the case ... but because it, so clearly, isn't.

Rare Cambodian 60s-70s Rock Collection

Listen to Track 7


Listen to Track 8

Reupped by special request here.

[Originally posted April 30, 2014.] As some of you are tired of reading about by now, I gave a talk this past Friday on Rebecca Pan and the Hong Kong indie / underground music scene at this year's EMP Pop Conference in Seattle. On Saturday, perhaps hypnotized by the atypically beautiful, rain-free weather, I decided to head down to one of the Emerald City's most diverse neighborhoods: Othello. My plan was to hit a Lao market I'd seen reference to on Yelp, pick up a few CDs, hop back on the light rail, and get back to the conference with enough time to see a whole panel on K-Pop and then hang out with a couple of fellow poets I'd met there the day before.

My plan didn't work out like that. The first in a long line of reasons, this place:

where I got to talking with the woman behind the counter. At first, she was convinced that she had nothing I might want. "No older Cambodian music?" I asked. Smiling, she shook her head. "Do you have anything on CD rather than VCD?" was my next, hopeful, question. She looked doubtful, but turned to start digging through the discs of polycarbonate plastic piled up in their "jewel" cases behind the register.

"Oh, here's one," she said, suddenly, setting it down on the counter. "This looks like one, too." Again and again, the hero of this morning's story found another and then another CD-not-VCD. Fifteen-twenty minutes later, she'd built a wall of some two dozen albums on the counter between the two of us. "I ... I'll take them all ..." I said, my voice obviously shaking. Her face registered something between confusion and happy surprise. This shit has been sitting here for decades, she seemed to be thinking. Where was this idiot in 1998?

I have a dental appointment in a couple of hours and then I have a three-hour radio show to host this evening, so I need to go jump in the shower and brush (and, yes, I will floss) my teeth. But later this week, or perhaps this weekend, I'll recount more of my adventures in The Rainy City. Until then, feast your eyes on the above, just some of the Seattle haul I took home ...

Oh, before I go: About today's offering. You've heard a few of the tracks before. A few will be new to you, no matter how many previous collections you have. I haven't titled them; if anyone wants to take a stab at a track list and leave it in the comments, you'd be Everybody's Hero Forever. (Well, not forever-forever, but certainly for a few days or so.)

Also, two tracks are near duplicates of two other tracks -- Track 4 is a near-dupe of Track 3 and Track 6 is a near-dupe of track 5. That said, these are ORIGINAL recordings, digitally restored (in the 90s or early aughts) by someone in Phnom Penh. Trust me, you need this album. 

Want to hear three hours worth of music I found on this Seattle trip? Bookmark this page and come back to listen a week from tonight.

Awrighty, then; I'm off to shampoo and floss. Wish me luck!

Rare Cambodian 60s-70s Rock | Disc 13

Rawk out to track 1 

Reupped a third time by special request on Feb 15, 2015, here. 

[Originally posted in January 2013.] I recognize track 1 as the basis for Dengue Fever's "Tiger Card" from 2008's Venus on Earth; the rest of this album is completely new to this listener, a listener who--I should point out--has amassed somewhere between 750 to 1,000 Cambodian songs from the 1960s and 70s over the last half decade or so. I picked up this plus two other similar compilations at Thai-Cam Video in Portland, Ore., in December, and this one includes some of my absolute favorite tracks. (I'll upload the other two discs in the coming days.)

I asked Thai-Cam's owner, Nang, if she wouldn't mind ordering me the entire series while I was there in Portland, seeing as how the CD's back cover said they were right over the river in Vancouver, Washington; alas, she explained that this company had long gone out of business.

Even More Rare Cambodian 60s-70s Rock

Listen to an awesome track from this magical disc of polycarbonate plastic

Reupped a second time by special request on Feb 15, 2015, here.

[Originally posted on February 24, 2013.] Tonight, as most of the U.S. tunes in to the Oscars, I'll be finishing up the latest "New Life" comic for Rain Taxi using text from Mellow Actions, a new book by an old friend of mine, Brandon Downing. I don't mention Brandon idly: He was, after all, the person who introduced me to Cambodian music of the 60s and 70s in the first place.

Today's offering comes to us via Thai Cam Video on Foster Road in Portland, Oregon (get volume 11 here and 13 here). I have a lot more stuff I brought home from Thai Cam that I'll eventually upload, but this is the last of the 60s-70s Cambodian collections.

Awrighty. I'd love to stay and chat, but I really do have to get back to this comic; deadline's tomorrow morning. 

Rare Cambodian Tracks | BP1 | Reupped!

Reupped once again by reader request here.

Most of my files were reset to "private" mode by my file hoster, ADrive. This means most of the (especially older) albums are currently unavailable. Let me know if there's anything particular you'd really like reupped and I'll see what I can do. 

I'll try and get the other Cambodian stuff back up soon. 

Meanwhile, don't miss this on Wednesday night.

[Originally posted May 2013.] At least nine compilations of Cambodian rock have been released for western consumption over the last decade, making this incredibly rich pop from the 60s and 70s some of the most talked-about and listened-to around the world. But for every song now readily available on CD, there are 10-20 more that most people outside of Cambodia haven’t yet heard.

Over the last year I’ve scoured the furthest reaches of the Internet, pulling together a collection of nearly 1,000 songs, ranging from pretty darn okay to unimpeachably great. The selection I’ve put together here is an attempt to showcase the greatest of what has yet to see major distribution. Every song on this mix-CD is a personal favorite and, to the best of my knowledge, not otherwise available on any of the Cambodia Rocks, Cambodian Psych-Out, Groove Club, Dengue Fever or Sublime Frequencies compilations.

If I had a CD series of my own, this would be the first thing I’d release. Alas, I don’t. And, because I don’t, it looks like you’ve just saved yourself $16.95.

Ros Sereysothea | Khmer Rocks 48

Listen to track 7

 
Listen to track 9

Get this 12-track album here, you lucky bastard, you.

My god I have a lot of CDs. I'm not bragging. (Okay, I'm kind of bragging.) I'm still unpacking and there's just -- there's so much. So, so much. How is it that I've never shared this with you? 

I don't care how many Cambodian rock comps you've already got, you most likely don't have at least a few of these Ros Sereysothea tunes.

So, a big shout out to everyone who has bought some art in our Help Put Bodega Pop on WFMU campaign. I have thrilling news: Someone has come through and is sending us a used Mac that we're 98% sure will work to stream the show. Fingers crossed. And final word in a week or two.

Meanwhile, there's some art left if you wanna put something sort of groovy on your wall. Check eet oot!

Various | Roots of Cambodian Rock

 

Grab this mind-blowing collection here.

I'm tempted to post every single song to Soundcloud because this is one of those records where your first impulse is grab the lapels of everyone who passes by your bodega and pull them in, throw them into the chair, and crank up the volume.

This isn't what it looks like. It's not a Cambodian rock album. It's traditional Cambodian music. Some sounds like it could be Sinn Sithamouth or Ros Sereysothea singing, perhaps, and if so, that would explain the cover. But, trust me, I don't care how massive the Cambodian album posse you've managed to assemble over the years, you haven't heard anything quite like this. I sure hadn't before this evening when I popped the disc into Mr. Smarto. (My computer. I'm a bodega proprietor; I'm required to spew a certain amount of colorful, idiosyncratic language.) 

Various Cambodian 60s Singers | Mini Ago-Go

Want it? Ago-go here.


Found last night on my way to meet my good friend Carol, with whom I saw the legendary Jonas Mekas's recent film Outtakes from the Life of a Happy Man. At one point, Jonas, who is now 90 years old, kept insisting: "These are not my memories. This is not memory. This is real. What you are looking at is real. This is all real." 

If you want to be reduced to a blubbering emotional idiot on the verge of an uncontrollable weeping jag, you could do worse than sit in an intimate movie theater watching images shot in the 60s and 70s flicker by as a very, very old man -- indeed, the man who shot them -- insists that this has nothing to do with his memory, but what is, in fact, taking place.

The songs on this rather life-affirming Cambodian a-go-go compilation are also very much taking place. 

More Rare Cambodian Rock | CSP Disc 11

 

Listen to track 7

 
Listen to track 14


You've heard 15 before, right?

Get the whole 17-track CD here.

Another rock-solid--if slower, bluesier--collection of Cambodian rock from the 1960s-70s, found at Thai-Cam Video on Foster Road in Portland, Oregon last month. I have one more of these that I'll post soon, as well as several more-or-less contemporary Cambodian, Lao, Thai and Vietnamese albums plucked from the City of Roses. Plus, I just got a rather impressive new stash of Tamil Film CDs, Bengali modern songs, more Bappi Lahiri than you can shake a Bappi at--and a few other surprises waiting in the wings.

Rare Cambodian 60s-70s Rock

Three unimpeachably great tunes from this rare CD of Cambodian rock & roll

Download the whole thing in a single zipped file here.

Found in Portland at the same Cambodian/Thai grocery store as I found the CD I'd uploaded earlier.

The male vocal is Sinn Sisamouth. I'm guessing that the female is Ros Sereysothea, though I'm not sure.

Fans of the Cambodian Rocks and/or Sublime Frequencies CD series will definitely want to download this one, as well as the one I posted back in April.

On a related note: Anyone know when this is finally coming out?

Cambodian Rock

Download CD here. (The first song starts out a bit muddy but clears up by the first 30 seconds or so.)

A summer or two ago, Nada and I flew out to Portland, Oregon, to visit family and friends in Oregon and California.

While staying with our friends Rodney Koeneke, Leslie Poirier and their son, Auden, I did a bit of Googling around to find a few comic book shops. I'd heard that Portland was something of a Mecca for indy and self-published things and, sure enough, stumbled upon Guapo Comics & Coffee (6350 SE Foster Road). Being a cafe, in addition to a comic book store, they were open bright and early (it was barely 9:00 a.m.). I mapped out my trip and was soon on a bus rumbling down Foster.

As we began to roll through a series of strip clubs and other seedy offerings, I spotted a rather large store with a sign reading THAI CAM VIDEO.



I pulled the "Please God Stop The Bus" cord and slipped out at the next stop, smiling at a young woman making her way into the strip club where, presumably, she worked.

When I entered the store, the (presumable) owner of Thai Cam Video (5230 SE Foster Road, 503-788-0967) greeted me and watched as I made my way over to the wall of CDs. "You like Cambodian music?" she asked. Here we go again, I thought. "Do you speak Cambodian?"

I gave my standard spiel about how "I am the kind of dork who goes waaay out of his way whenever possible to find 'obscure' little markets just like yours selling delights from around the world of a musical nature."

"Have you been to Cambodia?" she asked. It seemed she really wanted some other explanation.

"No," I said, "but I am going soon," I lied. (I'm going to Japan.)

After picking up a number of items, mostly things recorded on the Thailand-Cambodia border, I asked the shop keep if she had anything older, "say, from the 60s or 70s?"

She nodded and went to the CD wall, pulling down three things.

When I got back to Rodney, Leslie and Auden's place, Rodney and I popped one of the CDs into their ghetto blaster. It didn't work. (We later discovered it was a DVD or VCD.) The second CD did work and we walked out to sit on the porch as the amazing Cambodian music you'll hear on that playlist above filled the crisp late spring Portland air.

More than anyone I can think of, this whole blog has been inspired by, and is hereby dedicated to, the Koeneke-Poirier family.