Monday, January 25, 2010

A quiet weekend for once: 21 - 22 January

The Hellhounds were glad to welcome the Swedish Ambassador back on bass playing & hat wearing duties on Thursday night at Sharky's. It was great to have my rhythm section buddy back filling in the holes that I leave behind in the grooves occasionally. We slipped into the old patterns as easily as we downed the bacon and blue cheese burgers beforehand. Now, if we can only get a couple more channels in the mixer, the vocals can gather together as well ... expect some new songs when you drop in this Thursday.

Friday night I dropped in at The Cavern and chanced across Shangri-la, a cross-cultural trio made up of Russian Dave and some very good young Khmer players, a drummer and a keyboard player/singer. They played a well-rehearsed, tidily arranged collection of songs, and seem to walk the fine balance between pleasing both expat and local audiences. I'd like to see more fire, but hopefully that can be added once they're up and running. Oh, and in the contemporary Phnom Penh music tradition, there was some great hat wearing. The Cavern are promoting live music Friday nights at present, and I am looking forward to seeing what turns up.

Subsequently on Friday I popped by at Memphis to catch up with the mysterious Repris de Justesse, about whom nobody seemed to have any information at all, and was most disappointed to find it was just another 70s covers crowd-pleaser touring band - perhaps that's harsh, but I allowed them a song and a half to fail to impress me and left. Bad timing, really: I had to get up the next morning and move house. 

(Invasion of) Australia Day on Tuesday - Cambodian Space Project live at Snow's (Maxine's) across the river from sundown!

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