MUSIC: Voice of Dengue Fever prepares for release of latest album, band tour.
By Greg Mellen, Staff Writer
Posted: 04/14/2011 07:47:59 PM PDT
Updated: 04/15/2011 12:34:20 AM PDT
Long Beach resident Chhom Nimol, is the lead singer for Dengue Fever, a band that is putting Cambodian American psychedelic surf rock on the map. Chhom, took a break from a crowded touring schedule to visit home for Cambodian New Year before she and the band embark on a West Coast Tour to promote their new album "Cannibal Courtship." (Brittany Murray / Press-Telegram)
LONG BEACH - As Chhom Nimol sits at Sophy's Restaurant, it's a rare slow day for the Cambodian lead singer of Dengue Fever, a unique band with an ever-growing fan base.
The Signal Hill resident has been in a whir of activity as her band prepares to release of its latest album, "Cannibal Courtship," which hits the shelves Tuesday, the same day the band begins a West Coast tour at the Troubadour in Los Angeles.
"My schedule with Dengue Fever is so full," says Chhom, who brings along a friend to interpret but rarely needs help. "Today is my day to relax."
It being the first day of the three-day Cambodian New Year, it's a good time for reflection, something she has little time for with her band's growing popularity and hectic tour schedule.
"I'm very happy with the band," Chhom says. "We travel around the world. Dengue Fever has helped me see the world."
Which is something for the woman who for much of her life was better known as Chhom Chorvinn's little sister. And in many ways, she still sees herself as that.
"I don't know about being famous or making money," she says with a laugh.
The ascent of Chhom and Dengue Fever is an unlikely tale.
Chhom was born in Battambang province in the wake of the Khmer Rouge's regime that left 2 million Cambodians dead.
The Chhom family was split up, and Nimol and her parents fled to a refugee camp. It was there she learned to sing, taught by her brother Monychot.
"There was really nothing else to do in the camp," Chhom recalls.
Chhom's parents, Ou Sarin and Chon, also had been renowned as ayai singers, a popular, playful rural folk style of music.
It was also in camp the Chhoms heard Chorvinn on the radio and learned that not only was she still alive, but had earned fame as a singer.
The Chhom family later returned to Cambodia, and Nimol gained her own renown, winning a national singing contest.
"Everyone knows our family in Cambodia," Chhom says.
In 2000, the singer made her way to the U.S. to ply her trade in the Cambodian music circuit.
Meanwhile, brothers Zac and Ethan Holtzman became enamored of the 1960s rock music that came out of Cambodia prior to the rise of Pol Pot.
In 2001, they chanced across Chhom, who was singing Cambodian songs and karaoke at the Dragon House in Long Beach.
At the time, Chhom spoke virtually no English, and one can only imagine the confusion as the brothers tried to describe the odd idea they had of doing covers of psychedelic retrorock of Cambodia.
"It was crazy, that's what I'm thinking," Chhom recalls. "What are these guys trying to do, playing Cambodian songs?"
Although it was a gamble, Chhom went in with Dengue Fever and hasn't looked back.
Since inception, the band has earned critical raves for its eclectic blend of Cambodian, Afro, garage, surf and psychedelic styles.
With Cannibal Courtship, the band refines its style, while incorporating more English.
Although Chhom jokes she would sometimes have to spend a week to record one line of English lyrics, the music sounds seamless, natural and unique to Dengue Fever.
As the Americanized Chhom prepares to get her nails done and later go to the gym, she hasn't forgotten her Khmer roots.
Chhom and the band still do charity work for Cambodian causes, such as Cambodian Living Arts, the Wildlife Alliance.
Despite a crowded schedule the next day, Chhom said she planned to find time to go to the Cambodian Buddhist temple of Long Beach and receive a water blessing before embarking on tour. greg.mellen@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1291
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
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."
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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