Dengue Fever
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday
Where: The Fillmore, 1805 Geary Blvd.,
San Francisco
Tickets: $22.50,
www.ticketmaster.com
Also: 8:30 p.m. April 27, Moe's Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz, $15, www.moesalley.com
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By Andrew Gilbert
Mercury News Correspondent
Posted: 04/14/2011
No single band can encompass the multifarious cultural melange that is Los Angeles, but Dengue Fever captures the dizzying way that seemingly disparate styles slide together in the Southland, creating something strikingly new.
Keyboardist Ethan Holtzman launched Dengue Fever with his brother, guitarist and vocalist Zac Holtzman, in 2001 after a mix-tape he purchased in Phnom Penh sparked his imagination. Cambodia isn't usually associated with giddy, psychedelic pop music, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Southeast Asian nation turned into a rock 'n' roll hothouse inflamed by the surf rock, soul and garage-band hits broadcast on U.S. Armed Forces Radio to American troops in neighboring Vietnam.
According to the Palm Springs Desert Sun, during Ethan Holtzman's trip to Southeast Asia, his traveling companion contracted dengue fever, and Holtzman thought it sounded interesting enough to use for the band's name.
In adapting songs by Khmer pop icons such as Ros Sereysothea, Sinn Sisamouth and Pan Ron, the brothers set out to find a vocalist who could sing the original lyrics, a search that took them to Long Beach's bustling Cambodian community. They encountered Chhom Nimol performing in a karaoke bar. A vivacious vocalist from a musical family, she had come to California to perform at a Cambodian New Year's celebration in 2000. After living in the area for about two years, she was ready to move on.
"People from Canada, Australia and
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France wanted me to sing there," says Nimol, who performs with Dengue Fever on Wednesday at the Fillmore, then returns with the band on April 27 for a gig at Moe's Alley. "A label in Cambodia wanted me to make a record. But my sister lives here, and some of my old friends. They said, 'You came here already, why go back?'
"That's when Zac and Ethan came looking for me."
With bassist Senon Williams, drummer Paul Smith, and David Ralicke on saxophones, flutes and various brass instruments, Dengue Fever released an eponymous album in 2003 covering hits from Cambodia's golden age of pop, all sung in Khmer. With groovy Farfisa organ lines and stinging surf rock guitar licks, Dengue Fever developed a sound that was both comfortingly familiar and enticingly exotic.
Rather than simply plunder Cambodian pop, Dengue Fever has increasingly taken on the music's weighty history. In 2005, the band performed around Cambodia, a tour that allowed Nimol to reconnect with her fans while celebrating a generation of artists who were almost completely wiped out by the Khmer Rouge's genocide in the mid-1970s.
John Pirozzi's documentary "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong" captured the triumphant tour, and helped raise awareness of the enduring scars left by the killing fields.
Last year, Dengue Fever toured widely, promoting the release of "Electric Cambodia" (Minky Records), a CD featuring 14 vintage Cambodian pop tunes culled from the Holtzmans' precious stash of cassettes. The album's proceeds go to Cambodian Living Arts, an organization dedicated to reviving Cambodian traditional art forms and supporting contemporary artistic expression.
"As far as we know, none (of the musicians on the CD) survived the genocide," says bassist Senon Williams. "If you were famous for making this music, you were first to get a knock on the door, along with architects, professors, doctors, lawyers, artists and politicians."
In the United States, Dengue Fever's music has provided a gateway to Khmer pop, infiltrating soundtracks to films and television shows such as "Weeds," "Must Love Dogs" and "Broken Flowers."
The band's new album, "Cannibal Courtship," is its first release on Fantasy Records. It features mostly original tunes and Nimol singing almost as much in English as Khmer.
The results are no less striking, as the band has made the Cambodian influences part of a broader stylistic palette.
"The Cambodian pop was the initial influence that got us started, and will always be an influence," Ethan Holtzman says. "But in recent years, we've been more influenced by the music we encounter while touring. We did several shows in Asia with Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, who are about the best live band ever, and that inspired us.
"You can definitely hear some Afrobeat rhythms on the new album."
Like the best artists, Dengue Fever doesn't borrow so much as ingest and transform various sounds. The particular influences didn't have to come together in Los Angeles, but the band believes that the Southland's seemingly boundless music scene enabled a particular set of influences to coalesce and evolve.
"A lot of people give L.A. a negative rap," Ethan Holtzman says. "But it's an incredible place with a vast variety of different cultures crammed into this large sprawl. That's why we were able to pull this off.
"The idea required a singer who knew these songs. I didn't know that Long Beach had a huge Khmer population. Ultimately, we've always had the freedom to do what we wanted."
By Andrew Gilbert
Mercury News Correspondent
Posted: 04/14/2011
No single band can encompass the multifarious cultural melange that is Los Angeles, but Dengue Fever captures the dizzying way that seemingly disparate styles slide together in the Southland, creating something strikingly new.
Keyboardist Ethan Holtzman launched Dengue Fever with his brother, guitarist and vocalist Zac Holtzman, in 2001 after a mix-tape he purchased in Phnom Penh sparked his imagination. Cambodia isn't usually associated with giddy, psychedelic pop music, but in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Southeast Asian nation turned into a rock 'n' roll hothouse inflamed by the surf rock, soul and garage-band hits broadcast on U.S. Armed Forces Radio to American troops in neighboring Vietnam.
According to the Palm Springs Desert Sun, during Ethan Holtzman's trip to Southeast Asia, his traveling companion contracted dengue fever, and Holtzman thought it sounded interesting enough to use for the band's name.
In adapting songs by Khmer pop icons such as Ros Sereysothea, Sinn Sisamouth and Pan Ron, the brothers set out to find a vocalist who could sing the original lyrics, a search that took them to Long Beach's bustling Cambodian community. They encountered Chhom Nimol performing in a karaoke bar. A vivacious vocalist from a musical family, she had come to California to perform at a Cambodian New Year's celebration in 2000. After living in the area for about two years, she was ready to move on.
"People from Canada, Australia and
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France wanted me to sing there," says Nimol, who performs with Dengue Fever on Wednesday at the Fillmore, then returns with the band on April 27 for a gig at Moe's Alley. "A label in Cambodia wanted me to make a record. But my sister lives here, and some of my old friends. They said, 'You came here already, why go back?'
"That's when Zac and Ethan came looking for me."
With bassist Senon Williams, drummer Paul Smith, and David Ralicke on saxophones, flutes and various brass instruments, Dengue Fever released an eponymous album in 2003 covering hits from Cambodia's golden age of pop, all sung in Khmer. With groovy Farfisa organ lines and stinging surf rock guitar licks, Dengue Fever developed a sound that was both comfortingly familiar and enticingly exotic.
Rather than simply plunder Cambodian pop, Dengue Fever has increasingly taken on the music's weighty history. In 2005, the band performed around Cambodia, a tour that allowed Nimol to reconnect with her fans while celebrating a generation of artists who were almost completely wiped out by the Khmer Rouge's genocide in the mid-1970s.
John Pirozzi's documentary "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong" captured the triumphant tour, and helped raise awareness of the enduring scars left by the killing fields.
Last year, Dengue Fever toured widely, promoting the release of "Electric Cambodia" (Minky Records), a CD featuring 14 vintage Cambodian pop tunes culled from the Holtzmans' precious stash of cassettes. The album's proceeds go to Cambodian Living Arts, an organization dedicated to reviving Cambodian traditional art forms and supporting contemporary artistic expression.
"As far as we know, none (of the musicians on the CD) survived the genocide," says bassist Senon Williams. "If you were famous for making this music, you were first to get a knock on the door, along with architects, professors, doctors, lawyers, artists and politicians."
In the United States, Dengue Fever's music has provided a gateway to Khmer pop, infiltrating soundtracks to films and television shows such as "Weeds," "Must Love Dogs" and "Broken Flowers."
The band's new album, "Cannibal Courtship," is its first release on Fantasy Records. It features mostly original tunes and Nimol singing almost as much in English as Khmer.
The results are no less striking, as the band has made the Cambodian influences part of a broader stylistic palette.
"The Cambodian pop was the initial influence that got us started, and will always be an influence," Ethan Holtzman says. "But in recent years, we've been more influenced by the music we encounter while touring. We did several shows in Asia with Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, who are about the best live band ever, and that inspired us.
"You can definitely hear some Afrobeat rhythms on the new album."
Like the best artists, Dengue Fever doesn't borrow so much as ingest and transform various sounds. The particular influences didn't have to come together in Los Angeles, but the band believes that the Southland's seemingly boundless music scene enabled a particular set of influences to coalesce and evolve.
"A lot of people give L.A. a negative rap," Ethan Holtzman says. "But it's an incredible place with a vast variety of different cultures crammed into this large sprawl. That's why we were able to pull this off.
"The idea required a singer who knew these songs. I didn't know that Long Beach had a huge Khmer population. Ultimately, we've always had the freedom to do what we wanted."
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