= Live Music 
= DJs 
= Open Mic 
= Live Music & DJ * = International
During September, Leng
Pleng Towers
has been inundated with news of some really awesome live music events
– set to take place in
Cambodia between now and the
end of the year. Watch this
space for more news about
the Phnom
Penh Reggae Festival,
International
Music Festival Phnom Penh,
the Phnom Penh
Jazz Festival and
lots more!
In the meantime, Ted, Timothy
and myself will continue to bring you all the information we can
about the local gig scene.
This period of time in-between
the end of the summer
holidays and the end of the
rainy season is always a little bit quieter in terms of live music
and DJ happenings. We urge
you to join us in supporting those dedicated live music venues still
putting on the bands week-in, week-out. See you around the traps!
 | ||||||
Class Brass: Euan Gray performing at
Bouchon. pic: Trip Advisor user yingchua
|
Euan Gray &
Phil continue the Sparkling
Live Sessions at
Bouchon Wine Bar
this Thursday night. The classy keys and sax duo have enough musical
acumen between them to
render masterly renditions of almost any song in any style... and
always come up with something interesting and surprising. Their
act is perfectly suited to the elegant environs of the Bouchon venue,
which continues to host great live music on a weekly basis. For this
session,
Euan & Phil will be tackling Soul and Jazz.
 |
| Bat-Banging for twenty years: Sony & The Batbangers rock Sharky Bar – pic: Steve Porte |
Sharky Bar is fast approaching it's twentieth anniversary –
an impressive milestone that further re-enforces the Phnom Penh
venue's self-proclaimed status as 'Indochina's Longest Running Rock
and Roll Bar'. Main-man Michael Hsu and his team continue to
program a varied combination of local expat rock bands,
Cambodian-language bands and visiting international artists, with
some DJ nights also thrown into the mix. This weekend's schedule at
Sharky Bar is all about quality Cambodian music. Yang Pov's
Happy Band will perform on Friday and Menh 'Mr To'
Sothyvann's STV Band will hit the stage
on Saturday. Yang Pov is a talented singer-songwriter and
music producer at Bosba
Media – and for many years was the resident keyboardist in Bona
Thiem's Memphis Pub band. Menh Sothyvann is
a legend of Khmer rock, recently joining the Drakkar Band on
their Don't Think I've
Forgotten tour. The veteran lead-guitarist, known
as 'Mr To', was one of the few Cambodian musicians of the
'Golden Era' period of the 1960's and 1970's to survive the forced
labour camps of the Khmer Rouge (‘Music
saved my life from the KR’, Phnom Penh Post, 2011).
 |
Kheltica have a second home at Paddy
Rice – pic: http://paddyrice.net/
|
Paddy Rice
has been hosting regular live music since 2010. Many-a-band
has been formed at the weekly open mic jam session on Thursday
nights, and expat rock bands perform full shows on Fridays. This
week, the estimable Kampot
Playboys
will be making a welcome visit to the Phnom Penh riverside venue.
There is really no other band around doing what the Playboys do –
fusing elements of Western
heavy rock,
Khmer traditional music, western
folk
music and
forgotten fragments of 1980's Khmer rock.
 |
| Chuck & Co. rocking the rooftop – pic: tripadvisor |
Several other Phnom
Penh venues continue to support the live music scene here. Newcomers
Farm to Table and Eluvium
Lounge have established
weekly acoustic solo spots
over the past few months.
Keep abreast of all the
happenings via the Leng
Pleng Weekly Gig Guide and
via the Leng Pleng
mobile app. Down in
Sihanoukville, a new spot called The Venue has
opened. Live
music at The Venue
currently takes place on
Sunday nights at
an open mic jam session entitled
Electric Church,
regularly welcoming talented musicians such as Brooke
Palmer
and Sonny Fournier.
Management
are planning further events soon... watch this space!
Leng
Pleng looks forward to the end
of the rainy season and the start of the high season, which usually
heralds a lot of newly-arriving and returning expat musicians. You
just never know who is going to walk through the door! Hopefully,
we'll get to see Mr R J
Marshall sometime soon.
The well-known UK troubadour
recently posted this cool tune on Soundcloud:
Whatever you're up to over the next few
days... stay safe out there and... see you around the traps!
Joe Wrigley
