Gỗ Lim | Gái Làng

Before her death from lupus in 2012, Nga Nhí fronted popular Vietnamese riot grrrl band Gỗ Lim.

Though they were together for only a year, they recorded one of the greatest albums of the genre, Gái Làng, an angular but sprawling sonic assault with nods to Gang of Four, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fugazi, Bikini Kill, and the more experimental end of Vietnamese hard rock and metal, but ultimately unlike anything before it.

I'm going to open tonight's Bodega Pop Live show with half a dozen tracks from this astonishing, bar-raising, ear-altering album, and I'd love for you to be there to hear it with me.

Bookmark the page and see you at 7:00 PM EDT tonight!

Phương Dung | Khúc Hát ân Tình

Reupped again on May 8, 2015, here.

Every time I've gone to Chicago, and the one time I was in Montreal, I've picked up half a dozen to two dozen Vietnamese CDs, mostly pop music recorded in Vietnam before 1975--though I do have a relatively sizeable collection now of Vietnamese rap, all recorded in the States.

The pre-75 stuff rarely disappoints. That said, it also rarely, in the words of my Minneapolis sound poet friend, Erik Belgum, "blows head off." Last weekend, however, I picked up something that defintely BHO.

This is, at least for the moment, my favorite pre-75 Vietnamese pop CD. Hope you like it. Here's something else by Phương Dung, not on the CD, but still pretty fabulous, to listen to while you're downloading:

Hoàng Oanh | Saigon Siren 1960-1975

Listen to "Le Bong"


Listen to "Mua Gat Moi"


Listen to "Tinh Yeu Tra Lai Trang Sao"

Just reupped this Bodega Pop exclusive album here.

I've long wanted to put together a collection of the Bodega's favorite Hoàng Oanh songs, especially since the three or four full albums I've previously posted of hers were taken down early last year. But perpetual busyness coupled with chronic exhaustion has kept me from the task -- until today. Not that I suddenly find myself free and clear, alas. No, it's just that I'm facing an inevitable, looming deadline so severe, so intractable, so humiliating if I miss it, that I just can't help but procrastinate. Lucky you!

Born Huỳnh Kim Chi in 1950 in Mỹ Tho, about 45 miles southwest of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Hoàng Oanh is considered by many contemporary Vietnamese singers to be a primary influence. No doubt in part because she was at the helm of her own career decades after most would have given up, compiling, editing and distributing her classic recordings from an address in Fountain Valley, Calif. 

A couple of things about the title of this particular BP-exclusive album. First, it might be a stretch to call her a "Saigon Siren"; for, other than her proximity to the cultural capital, Oanh was always considered more country simple than urban sophisticated -- at least, according to a fellow writer of mine from Vietnam. 

Another stretch: I'm not sure about those dates: 1960-1975. I have songs on a couple of CDs that are attributed as far back as 1964, when the singer presumably was 14, but no one song from 1960 when she was 10 or 11 ... all I have to go on for that, is this:

That's from one of her self-compiled-and-distributed albums, so I'm guessing she would know the dates. (And, no, Nhạc Yêu Cầu does not mean "Songs Other People Sang First"; it means something more like "Song Requests" -- at least, to the extent we can believe Google Translate. Unless of course it does mean "Songs Other People Sang First," in which case, mystery solved.)

Did she really begin her career as a pre-teen? She wouldn't be the first female vocalist to have done so, of course; I simply find it remarkable, given how mature her voice sounds throughout all of the recordings I have. Does it matter? I suppose not. What matters -- to me, at least -- is that, of all of the musicologists, ethno- and otherwise, we have taking up space at colleges and universities across the country on any given day, not a single one of them has seen fit to trek out to southern California and interview this living legend. (To say nothing of the dozen or so other exiled Vietnamese singers living near and around Oanh's home and offices.) There's a book just waiting to happen. Maybe not a bestseller. But, presumably, a potentially awesome read.

Vietrap: Vietnamese Rap & Hip Hop | Bodega Pop 11

Just reupped the 21-track Bodega Pop exclusive album here.


Listen to "Chi Pheo"


Listen to "Hello Moto"


Listen to "Hai Vi Sao"


Listen to "Ca Va Luoi Bieng"


Listen to "Oi Nguoi Dep"

In the middle of a pleasant if innocuous conversation with the woman behind the counter of the cavernous Vietnamese media store on Argyle Street right off the Red Line in Chicago, I suddenly remembered to ask, "Oh, um, do you have any Vietnamese rap music?"

Her brow furrowed. "Have you heard any Vietnamese rap music?" she asked. I couldn't quite get the hidden meaning here, which I assumed was either: (a) because it doesn't exist, you poor delusionally optimistic white liberal type person; or (b) because I think it's going to induce projectile vomiting in you.

It turned out she meant (b) and just assumed that I would hate what the Vietnamese--Vietnamese-Americans, I believe--are doing with the genre.

Wrong.

* * *

TRACK LIST

Chi Pheo | Mr.Dee & The Bells

Hello Moto | Tien Dat   

Hai Vi Sao | May Trang  

Ca Va Luoi Bieng | F5                     

Du Lich Cung Toi | Mr.Dee & The Bells                                     

Tinh Khong Phai | F 5                                     

Love Music | Mr.Dee & The Bells                                             

Huynh De Tuong Tan | Tien Dat                  

Cha Vang Nang | Tan Quoc                                         

Con Gai | Tien Dat                          

Giao Thong | Mr.Dee & The Bells                                             

Hoc Tro | Unknown                                       

Oi Nguoi Dep | Mr.Dee & The Bells                                         

Tet Viet Nam | Cao Dang Hieu                                   

Ghe Khung | Phong Le                 

Trong Com | 5 Dong Ke                                

Vui Len Ban Oi | Tien Dat                                             

Mai Mai Ben Em | Phong Bot                                     

Mot Ngay Khong Co Em | Vpop

Mr. Viet Rapper | Phong Le

Trong Com 2 | Mr.Dee & The Bells

Saigon Lounge | Vietnamese Pop + Soul 1960s-1970s

Reupped one more time by special request here.

Those of you who frequent the Bodega know that Your Humble Proprietor has got a constant eye out for pre-1975 Vietnamese music what has been lovingly burned into discs of polycarbonate plastic. I've picked up CDs of this stuff everywhere from the Tu Quynh Pharmacy in Manhattan's Chinatown, to Vietnamese video stores in downtown Montreal, to a number of spots on Argyle Street in Chicago, to a place whose name I forget on Foster Road in Portland, Oregon. 

There are a lot of Vietnamese living in the Americas -- 1,700,000 in the United States and another 200,000 in Canada. Fortunately for folks like me, many of them love their 60s and 70s pop, the music the elders were listening to before Saigon fell and they were forced to make a new life half a world away. 

I've long been meaning to put together a mix of some of my favorite tunes for you; now that I've got Photoshop and can do up a Sublime Frequencies-style cover, I decided tonight to go ahead and do just that. I'm betting you're gonna like it ...

Phương Dung | Hoa Nở Về Đêm

Reupped (though in its earlier 192kbps state) here.

For a long time, the most popular CD on this site, at least in terms of downloads, was Phương Dung's Khúc Hát ân Tình. (Will reup that one in must a moment ...) A lot of visitors here connected on some level with Phương Dung, though if truth be told, many of those visitors were routed here thanks to the great Doug Schulkind's linking to it via his enormously popular Mining the Audio Motherlode.

In any event, I was thrilled last night to note, while scanning my CD shelves, that I happen to have, lo and behold, a second Phương Dung selection, most likely plucked from one of the bins at my favorite Vietnamese media shop on Argyle Street in Chicago, and that, after giving it a quick listen ... well, it turns out to be just as fabtabulous as the first one.

Phương Dung's career began in 1959 when she was just 12; the next year she recorded her first album. By the time she was 21 she had recorded more than 300 records and was, until the mid-70s, one of the most popular singers in Vietnam.

Tuấn Anh | Rau Dắng Mọc Sau Hè

 

Listen to "Rap: Vo chong lam bieng"

Get it all here.

Greetings from Beervana! Forgive my absence these last several days, but I'm on the road for the next couple of weeks, currently in Portland, Oregon, where dear friends have been shuttling me from one Southeast Asian media store to the next. I was not aware of this before, but the City of Roses has quite a significant population of people from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam--and I've been grabbing up music from each of these places to restock the shelves of the old bodega.

I will not be posting too much while on the road, mainly because I lack a scanner. However, in cases where I'm able to find images of the covers online, I'll do my best to keep this humble blog active during the holidays.

I found today's offering by Tuấn Anh at a wee Vietnamese media store nestled in Fubonn Shopping Center off SE 82nd Ave, in what is more or less Bridgetown's current Chinatown. I know nothing about Anh other than that he's got a Facebook page and is apparently very popular among the Vietnamese living in this area. The rap song above (one of two on this album) is a duet with Family Love member Christian Le; most of the songs on this CD are not, however, rap, despite the groovy drop-out white letters on the pink field in the bottom right-hand area of the cover.

That's it for now--I've got a hot date with the biggest bookstore in the continental United States, where I'm hoping to flesh out the International Music section of my modest book collection.

Hoang Oanh | Souvenir 08

Listen to "Mua Gat Moi" 

Get it all here.

Born Huynh Kim Chi on January 27, 1950, in My Tho Province, Hoang Oanh (which means "Golden Songbird") grew up with five sisters in Saigon. Her father taught singing and, by the age of eight, the fledgling songbird gave her first performances on stage. A mini-breakthrough came in 1964 when she was 14 years old and was asked to give concerts in Hue, a coastal city about 50 miles north of Da Nang. According to one Vietnamese webpage I Google-translated: "Due to complaints and often poetry recitation before singing, she has made ​​a difference for her performances throughout her career and was rated as 'good enough song immersion.'" In other words, one assumes, she didn't bore the shit out of everyone by reciting a bunch of poetry before kicking out the jams.

Seriously? I have no idea what that really means, although I suspect it does point to a shift in the live performance of Vietnamese popular music. And a shift for her as well, as she graduated from the University of Saigon with a BA in literature and briefly considered a career as a teacher. 

On April 28, 1975, the Golden Songbird flew out of Vietnam for New York, New Jersey and, ultimately, San Jose, Calif., where she lives to this day.

I plucked this fabulous CD from the stacks of an intimidatingly vast Vietnamese media store on Argyle Street in Chicago, where I also found the other two CDs I have from this series. Unlike 75% of pre-1975 Vietnamese pop music currently in print, the songs have not been altered in any way (e.g., no cheesy Casio tracks have been threaded into the mix), allowing the listener to experience it all as it was meant to be heard in Saigon before the fall.

PS: I'll make another push for readers to take the survey to the right before the deadline passes tomorrow evening.

Hoang Oanh | Souvenir 06

Listen to "Tua Canh Beo Troi"

Get it all here.

I was surprised this morning while flipping through the stacks to find that I hadn't yet shared this absolute gem, a collection of pre-1975 tunes by one of the most popular Vietnamese singers of all time.

The album is rich and various, with more traditional Vietnamese songs and instruments sprinkled in among more pop-y and blues-y pieces--including the mournful yet slightly funky guitar you hear in the sample above.

If you like this album--and I can't imagine that you won't--be sure to get this one as well, if you haven't already.

Oh, and before I forget: There's still time to weigh in on the poll at top right, but today I believe is the final day. 

Thanh Thúy | Một Chuyến Bay Dêm

Listen to "Tam The Bai" (and wait for the guitar solo)

Get it all here.

Here's the third album I have by the supremely fabulous Saigon diva Thanh Thúy. The other two are here and here. Obviously, my number one life goal for the immediate future is to find the other two volumes in this series.

When I do? You'll be the first to know.

Thanh Thúy | Buồn Trong Kỷ Niệm

Listen to "Tau Dem Nam Cu"

Listen to "Hinh Bong Cu"

Get it all here.

This is Holy Fucking Shit-level pop, the kind of music you'll take one listen to and wonder who the evil motherfuckers are who have kept you from experiencing it for so long.

Everything I know about Thanh Thúy, along with an earlier recording (with some fabulous guitar work) is in this post. I'll be upping a third recording tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Thanh Thúy | 24 Giờ Phép

Listen to "Mua Nua Dem"

Listen to "Ga Chieu"

Get the whole thing here.

While combing my shelves for something interesting to share with y'all last night I came across three CDs I've somehow not yet posted by the utterly sublime Saigon chanteuse Thanh Thúy. Featuring recordings from before 1975, the Nhac Vang Thuc Hien Truoc 1975 series provides thousands of Vietnamese immigrants with hours of nostalgic memories--and the rest of us with a window onto a now-long-lost world. 

Born Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thúy in 1943 in Huế, Vietnam, Thanh Thúy began her singing career in 1959 at the age of 16. The next year her mother died and she took responsibility over her younger sisters while simultaneously becoming a national superstar--she was voted the most popular singer in south Vietnam for three consecutive years in the early 60s.

And, of course, we know what happened in 1975. I have no idea where Thanh Thúy wound up or if she is still singing.

This gem was recommended to me by a woman whose family owns a fairly large Vietnamese media store right on the northern edge of Montreal's Chinatown. While there for a work-related conference several years ago I made a point, each day after the conference events had ended, of walking through Chinatown and stopping in to this place, where each time the same woman greeted me, making suggestions, including this CD. If I remember right, she said Thanh Thúy's voice was smoky and bluesy, and that I would most certainly like it.

As, most certainly, will you.

If you do like it, let me know, and I'll probably post the the other two I have by her.

Giao Linh | Vùng Lá Me Bay

Listen to Nhớ Một Người

Listen to "Chuyến Tàu Hoàng Hôn"

Get it all here.

A genuinely mind-blowing collection of songs by the ridiculously soulful Giao Linh. Born in in 1949 she became a superstar overnight when she appeared for the first time on Vietnamese television in 1969 at the age of 19. She left Vietnam in 1982 and resettled in San Jose, Calif., where she lives to this day.

Album no. 11 in the Nhac Vang Truoc 1975 series,this dusky jewel was plucked many years ago from the bins of a Vietnamese CD & DVD store on Argyle Street in Chicago.

Rap Around the World | A Bodega Pop mix

Listen to "Phnom Penh Hip Hop" by The Khmer Rap Boyz (Cambodia)

Listen to "Haiti" by Elza Soares (Brazil)

Listen to "Eat Around" by Missile Scoot Girl (Japan)

Listen to "Γουστάρει Η Παλαβή" by Εισβολέας (Greece)

Listen to "DK Anthem" by Divided Kingdom Republic (Zimbabwe)

Get the 24-song mix here.

As anyone who has spent a bit of time in the Bodega knows, this here shop keep has a particular predilection for international rap and hip-hop--the further the language from English, the better. That said, rap & hip-hop from around the world comprise a small percentage of the CDs in my collection, maybe 1%, if that. But you wouldn't know it, looking at the BP tag cloud.

I'm not exactly picky when it comes to pop; though I suppose I do have some standards. But, while there is certainly a goodly amount of bad hip-hop out there--mostly stuff that simply mimics rap in the USA--there are people in all corners of the world who, picking up cues from Western examples, take it somewhere else, occasionally somewhere totally unexpected. 


I'm not going to sit here this morning and tell you that every hip-hop artist in this mix is some sort of insane genius, turning rap & hip-hop up to 11. But some of them are. And those that aren't, at least among what I've tried to include here, are at bare minimum making the genre their own.

If you visit here often and have partaken of the dozen or so hip-hop related CDs I've posted over the last couple of years, fear not: I tried really, really, really extra-special hard not to duplicate, whenever possible. So there's Fama in here, but not the Fama you can get elsewhere on this site. I didn't actually count, but I think maybe 4 or 5 songs in this mix can be found in other full CDs or mixes on this blog.

I also didn't just rip stuff from YouTube videos, although--Jesus God Almighty, it was certainly tempting. Everything here is from my own personal CD collection, with a few things I downloaded myself from other sites that I wasn't able to find in CD anywhere (e.g., the Khmer Rap Boyz).


Okay, I'm going to shut up now and let you get to this. Would love to know what you think. It's my personal favorite Bodega Pop mix, and--at some point in the future, assuming people like this--I'll probably put together another (or two, or three).

Thái Thanh | Thái Thanh 5

Several years ago I attended a work-related conference in Montréal--sweet deal for me, right? Well, yes and no. It was, after all, a conference and I worked all day and many evenings. 

One evening after the workshops and other events had ended, I decided to walk back to my hotel rather than get on the subway. I thought it would be a nice way to explore a bit of the city. As it turned out, the route from the convention center to my hotel took my right through Montréal's Chinatown, on the edge of which was situated one of the largest Vietnamese video and CD stores I've ever seen.

Naturally, though I was exhausted and starving, I wandered in. And spent what probably seemed to the shop keep like hours poring over the CDs. Before long the shop keep, a woman who seemed to be about my age, began asking me the usual questions:


"You like Vietnamese music? You speak Vietnamese?" Yes, no. We talked a bit--I explained that I was a tourist from New York, which seemed to be provide her with enough explanation as to why I'd walked into her store that she loosened up and began to make suggestions. She also told me a bit about her family, who were part of the first wave of Vietnamese immigration to this continent in 1975.


I returned to the store every evening thereafter until the end of the conference and the shop keep each night would recommend several other titles for me to try. She would provide some context for each recommendation, talking about the specific importance of this or that singer, and who they might be similar to in western culture. 


If I remember correctly, she described Thái Thanh as a kind of "blues-y, jazz-y" singer along the lines of a Sarah Vaughn--a description that, actually, was fairly apt. I'm almost certain she recommended Thanh as a personal favorite. In any event, I'm really grateful for her recommendation: this is the only CD I've yet managed to find by this particular singer, and her voice is decidedly fabulous.


Listen to "Mot Mai Gia Tu Vu Khi"


Get it all here.

Hoàng Oanh | Souvenir Ky Niem 04, Ngay Em 20 Tuoi

Listen to the first track on this hair-raisingly beautiful CD

Get the whole kit & kaboodle here.

Frankly, I'm scared to upload anymore music until September 1st, when my Divshare account limit zeroes out again. When I started this blog last year I had about 5 or 6 visitors a day; now I'm getting well over 100. By pop music standards, 100 people a day ain't much, but it's enough to push me up to the next level of Divshare accountage or whatever the word is that means "Gary, we're going to need a lot more money from you if you want to keep doing this."

But, what the hay. This is something I found on Argyle Street in Chicago a few years ago, and is one of my five favorite Vietnamese CDs. Hoàng Oanh is probably the most famous female singer from Vietnam prior to 1975 when, obviously, everything changed. I've got another fabulous CD from her on this site; just click on "Vietnam" in the label cloud to the right. I think Oanh now lives in Cerrito, Calif., and still performs.

Here's a somewhat recent performance on video:

Hương Lan | Cánh Cò Quê Hương

Listen to a fabulous track from this CD

Get the whole thing here.

Found in a Vietnamese convenience store/sandwich shop in Manhattan's Chinatown.

Hương Lan started her career in Vietnam in 1961 at the age of five when she participated in performances of Vietnamese opera. She was recording pop music by 1966 and ultimately left Vietnam for San Jose, Calif., in 1975.

Listen to a pre-75 recording:

Mix CD of Asian Rock + Hip Hop 2000-2010

Get the mix CD, including 38 rockin' tracks, here.

While hanging out with friends in Brooklyn last weekend, someone began to mourn the demise of rock. I countered that rock wasn't dead; it just moved east. I promised to make my friend a mix CD of some of the best rock and hip hop recorded in Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, etc., with a few tracks recorded in the U.S. thrown in for good measure. This is that CD.

Enjoy!

Hoàng Oanh | Gold

"Ngay sua se ra sao" and "Kiep ngheo"

Download the entire CD in a single zip file here.

In September 2008, I went to Minneapolis to do a reading with a couple of others in the Flarflist Collective at the Walker. The day after the reading, we wound up on a street that housed nothing but Vietnamese restaurants and video/CD stores.

After a great lunch, I popped into the video place next to the restaurant and combed the stacks as quickly as I could, finding, among other things, this fabulous collection of songs Hoàng Oanh recorded from 1960-1975. Of the 20-30 Vietnamese CDs I have, this is one of my all-time favorites, largely owing to Hoàng Oanh's voice, which never fails to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She's amazing. I think, although I'm not certain of this, that she's still alive and living in southern California.

When Linh Dinh stayed with me last year during a neo-benshi festival that Brandon Downing curated, I pulled out my stash of Vietnamese CDs, begging him to please please please contextualize some of it for me. Which, graciously, he did.

Apparently, Hoàng Oanh was extremely popular in Vietnam, but largely outside of Saigon, where she was considered a bit unsophisticated or "country." I was very surprised by this, but assume it's true and that sophistication, like humor, doesn't always travel well from culture to culture.