A little too much CKB and one too many loud bangs: 18 - 20 December

Friday night I was without a gig, but as I was loaning my drum kit and a couple of amplifiers to Talking to a Stranger for their hosting of the Curtis King Band, in from Vietnam for the weekend, I took the chance to catch up on this well known outfit.  And a rousing old show it was.  They had a few friends joining in as well, making the stage quite crowded for the most part.  Part high school band, part rock theatre, part pantomime, part oldies jukebox, part inexplicable circus show ... essentially hard define as anything other than what it is. 

During the break a special performance of a few songs by the Cambodian Space Project changed the style briefly, and the night ended with something of a jam with Melanie Brew making one of her rare but treasured appearances. 

The Lazy Jazz Drunks, on Saturday night at Rory's, attempted to pull together an unusual combination of instruments - vocals, guitar, drums and accordion - that almost succeeded in spite of itself.  However, after the first set a delegation of angry neighbours showed up to complain about the noise, and the scene got all aggro ... culminating in a gunshot, probably a starter pistol but in any case enough of a cue for the band to quietly begin packing up.  Methinks not so much live music at Rory's for some time. 

I took advantage of the early finish to head up to Sharky's, where I was lucky enough to hear some blues featuring not-on-Phnom-Penh-stages-often-enough singer Kristin Rasmussen, and some scorching harp from Aussie Ken along with more of the same from the all-singing-all-dancing Curtis King Band.  

The Hellhounds were on at Talking to a Stranger on Sunday evening, chewing through a couple of sets to a very respectable crowd, including a generous helping of dancing children, but missing the Swedish Ambassador, currently in hibernation in Sverige.   We were pleased to welcome the bluesy folk guitar and songs of Seattle performer Paul Benoit  (http://www.paulbenoitmusic.com) who played a few tunes to preview his gig on Wednesday (also with the Hellhounds supporting) with some drum and harmonica assistance.  He'll be worth checking out - Talking to a Stranger, December 23rd from 8 pm. 

Next week also look out for the Cambodian Space Project at La Croissette on Christmas night and on the river cruise on Boxing Day - contact the Alley Cat for tickets before the 24th. 

Don't take any wooden money folks.

Chaos and Disorder: 28 November

If you're going to have just one gig in a weekend, you'd better make sure it works.  And my word we did our best.  The Lazy Jazz Drunks assembled in a re-configured line-up on Saturday night at Rory's Pub on 178 St and did everything we could to keep ourselves afloat.  Continuing our bass-less theme, and in response to the exhortation to "keep it down" we lost the keyboard as well, so the Swedish Ambassador sat behind the small drumkit and I moved to guitar, with Tall Tom and Ian The Punk sticking to guitar and vocals respectively, and Aussie Ken doubling on harmonica and stomach trouble.  A particularly (unsurprisingly I guess) drunken Irishman opened the festivities by taking a microphone and making an a##hole of himself and reminding us how fragile some of our equipment actually is.  As if we didn't need reminding.  Because shortly it developed that my mixer was only working on one channel, so we flew in a replacement.  Before too long the speakers gave up as well, so there was another trip to Aussie Ken's to retrieve backups.

To mix it up a little further, we had two power failures and two broken guitar strings, the second of which somehow screwing up the electrics in my acoustic leading me to abandon performance briefly in favour of the comforts and reliability of the bar. 

But did we give up?  The beer was flowing and so was the music.  We sang, we played, we had a sh*t-hot guest or two (playing Chuck Berry, Neil Young), we pushed through about half our regular material and added everything from AC/DC to Abba, including half a dozen of my originals, some inspired gibberish vocals from Ian The Punk, at least three versions of Dirty Old Town (one unplugged in the darkness) with crowds coming and going around us, dancing, headstands, dropped glasses, bewildered passers-by, and managing by mistake to play the manager's favourite song in a nostalgic nod to the bar formerly known as Revolution.   

Just another quiet Saturday night on the expat island ...

More LJD madness this Friday (4th) at Huxleys from 8, and the Hellhounds are back at Talking to a Stranger on Sunday evening (6th) from 6. 

Don't take any wooden money.