Following up on the Dengue Fever post, Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten - Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll is a recent documentary directed by John Perozzi, who also directed Sleepwalking Through the Mekong.
During the 60’s and early 70’s, as the war in Vietnam threatened its borders, a new music scene emerged in Cambodia that took Western rock and roll and stood it on its head-creating a sound like no other.
Cambodian musicians crafted this sound from the various rock music styles sweeping across America and England, adding the unique melodies and hypnotic rhythms of their traditional music. The beautiful singing of the renowned female vocalists became the final touch that made this mix so enticing.
This documentary film, “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten,” provides a new perspective on a country usually assocated with war and genocide. By celebrating this powerful music, and the people who created it, Cambodia’s musical heyday emerges from the shadows of tragedy into the light of history.
The site for the film has several songs that help define the sound, they are a trip. Surf Rock from an alternate dimension.
Tiger Phone Card is my new favorite song of the moment by Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, whose primary inspiration is 60’s era psychedelic Cambodian surf rock complete with lyrics in cambodian and english. Their music is wicked and their vibe is totally left field. There’s a new film about their pilgrimage to Cambodia Sleepwalking Through The Mekong and the trailer goes into their influences and how they’ve arrived at such an original sound.
The odyssey is a homecoming for singer Chhom Nimol and a transformation for the rest of the band as they perform with master musicians and record new songs along the way.
More than a rockumentary, the film serves up a portrait of modern Cambodia as the band tours through Phnom Penh and beyond, crossing a great cultural chasm with the same spirit of Cambodia’s original rock pioneers.
Cambodia is often synonymous with the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that left millions dead and scattered refugees around the globe. This tragedy overshadows the story of Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Cambodian musicians reinvented Western rock n’ roll with a distinctly Khmer flavor to crete a sound that is at once familiar and completely original.
