Geckos and then Kep: 2 - 3 April

This quieter weekend began as late as Friday night, with the return to the stage of D'Sco: The Geckos of Love.  We've been spending a lot of time as a mercenary rhythm section for several Phnom Penh bands all over the place, and it was time to get our Gecko on.  Chinese House was the location, the crowd was belatedly good, and if my guitar had played ball and not got all noisy on me it would have been just completely swell.  As it was we ripped through most of our old favourites, even including a special tribute to Lou Reed who almost played the Velkommen Inn the previous evening.  Shame about that aircraft overbooking.  And only one broken string!  It was a fun night.

On Saturday night the Mekong Pirates stormed the Kukuluku bastille for a benefit for the Kep Ecole de Francaise, and put on a fine show with lots of dancing (well, eventually) with the depleted horn section being balanced by the augmented guitar line up - for one tune they even had 3 guitars at once, a veritable CSP manoeuver.  I know it's my personal preference, but in the midst of all that reggae there's a very fine funk band struggling to get some oxygen.  A couple of good sweaty sets were topped off with up to eight people pushing on with an extended group percussion jam.  

Let's hope the music drought breaks with the New Year and the rains ....

Pilgrims and Keppers: 18 - 20 February

It was another thumping night on Thursday as The Hellhounds took to the stage at Sharky Bar, pumping through the weird, twisted and wonderful repertoire that keeps growing funkier.  Mythical Dude managed to break some kind of record with broken strings, showing real dedication to his endless quest for justifying the employment of a personal string-changing roadie.  We welcomed to the stage one Johnny Pilgrim who played some rattling rambling 1952 National guitar chug-chug excitement and took even the wheel to lead us through It's all over now - because the best performances are the unrehearsed ones.

On Saturday the Cambodian Space Project took its outreach programme to Kep.  After a set at the local Ecole Francaise, where I played official photographer, we headed for Kukuluku on the water, and set up for a big night.  Embarrassed by numbers, despite the absense of Bong Thom, we assembled with a three-guitar, two bass, accordion, drum and percussion line-up ... while the carnival.  A couple of punching sets, with a mystery bass player showing up at the end of the first, looking something like Santa Claus' kid brother, and playing the crap out of the funky band favourite, Miss you.  We also hurriedly rehearsed and brought to the stage a new song, Pan Ron's I'm unsatisfied, and the next morning the intrepid production crew headed out to shoot a music video for it.

Here's a couple of shots from later in the day, when the band got to stand around and look interesting.  Perched atop a crab, for example ....  photos courtesy of the fabulous Marc Eberle, space project documentarist.

Look out for the video soon.

This Thursday: Hellhounds at Sharky Bar

This Friday: CSP plays Khmarnival in Sihanoukville ... flamenco at Equinox on Friday night -- Jose de Lopera (guitar and vocals) and Mark Chattaway (mandolin) and maybe Eric on percussion

This Saturday: Stiff Little Punks at Sharky, supported by Lazy Jazz Drunks

See you near a stage soon