Loi Kratong Festival in Chiang Khan

During the Loi Kratong festival, where the Thai's traditionally build rafts out of banana leaves, filled with fresh flowers, candles and inscense, this is lit and the raft is placed in the nearest river. Which in my case happened to be the Mekong, not only the Mekong, but the most beautiful spot on the mekong i have yet visited. The main staging ground for the festival was right along the river accompanied by a live Luk Thung band of students from the local school. Unfortunately, they struggled to keep pace with the tempo changes,my recording of them will be in a later post.

Earlier in the day, while wandering about, on the outer edges of the city near the market, i noticed a stage and restaurant set up that had not been there previously. The set up thrilled me, Two Phins, a full trap kit, a Kaen (the vertical bamboo pan-pipe), a Song (curved hammered dulcimer), and set of Kong (hand drums). When i returned later in the night, i was not disappointed.

 

The band was tearing it up, i hung around the periphery for a bit, trying to sus out if it was a private party or open event, not wanting to be disrespectful. A group of older Thai ladies approached me shortly after i had started to record and demanded i join them for a dance. I couldn't say no, the Morlam groove is infectious, its impossible to stand still. The name says it all Mor-lam literally translates as "Dance Professor" (despite my earlier mis-translation "expert singer" i have it from a Thai source I trust that the proper translation is the one above). I set the recorder to record, and joined the ladies for dancing, food and drinking. The band poured me a glass of whiskey after i'd been dancing a while, i couldn't say no. The ladies kept trying to feed me from their table full of food, ate some, but focused my energies on dancing and recording. By the end of the set I was the only one dancing, my friends who had initially pulled me in had called it a night, but the band continued to play until most of the tables were packed up, i can only think for my benefit, as after my friends left, it was only me and one other table far in the back in attendance. As the band packed up, talked to everybody, although there was little English spoken, and my Thai insufficient, we were both clearly happy to be in the others company. At multiple points in these recordings the singer is mentioning me, to what end I'm not sure. I recommend tracks 5-10, but they're all pretty good. Track nine is nice and sparse, Just Kaen and vocals, with a tiny contribution from the, by this point, very drunk Phin player on the Bass Phin.

 

Chiang Khan Morlam Band by EarSphere

The next two days, I kept seeing these same musicians playing in various places all through out town. have about 30 more recordings of this band in various incarnations, including where there is actually a Song player as well as an Erhu. Look for these in the coming days. My last day in Chiang Khan, I played drums in one of their performances, and they had me over to their house, where i was treated to more food and drinking, as well as an acoustic jam. So much love for and from these guys.

Chinese Dragon Festival Nong Khai

I was lucky enough to return to Nong Khai the day before this festival started. A celebration of Chinese culture, and residents that occurs all over Thailand. The day is filled by two groups of paraders, who visit all the chinese shops in town. One group is the Dragon group, carrying three dragons of different sizes, from 20 people to around 60 people. Each Dragon is followed by a large drum/drummer in a push cart and a group of cymbalists. Here is a recording from the dragons passing through the local market.
Dragon Day Parade Through Market by EarSphere
The other set of Paraders is four groups of musicians/performers, who perform blessing ceremonies at every Chinese owned shop, the following recordings are from a blessing performed at the restaurant near the main communal rest area. The performance groups include a large group of male dancers with thick wooden sticks, followed by a cart drum, cymbal ensemble, and a group of children with hand drums. A girl group with a cart drum, many cymbalists, a gong, an amplified Yangqin, a few Erhus, and a flute. One other performance group, featuring mostly males, brightly colored silks and another drum cart.
Chinese Dragon Festival Parade, By the Rest Area by EarSphere
Next set is the same performers as before playing at the Police station. Seemed as if they played harder for the cops then anywhere.
Chinese Dragon Festival Police Station Performance by EarSphere
The day was also marked by thousands of firecrackers exploding everywhere, as you can hear. Got a fun recording of a kid trying to light a huge strand of fire crackers with a big crowd gathered. He fails a couple times, much to the crowd's dismay, then suddenly they all blow up at once.
Trying to Light Firecrackers by EarSphere
At night, there was an extremely long performance at the Chinese School in town featuring a group of performers from Udon Thani. It included the two person Chinese Lion, performing various acrobatics, In these recordings running across jars, later, running over ascending stilts to drum rhythms. It was hard to get clean recordings in such a big crowd, and the music was basically the same. The long Track is the Lion running over Large clay vases, to get to a bottle of booze on the other side, and precede to get stumbling drunk. Narrated by the Thai MC.
Chinese Lion performance Nk by EarSphere
More details on the Festival on the Log Blog soon.
Over and Out.

Phin player at Chatuchak Market

Another street preformer in bangkok this time near the Chatuchak weekend market 28 acres of market space featuring everything from antiques, to japanese clothing, to all manner of pets.
This is an older Phin player and his son with a pre-recorded backing track, The first song is just the older player, the second tracks for the first 2:30 or so his son is playing, couldn't be more then seven years old. Some great solos when daddy takes over.
Chatuchak Weekend Market Phin Player by EarSphere

Violinist at Siam Center Bangkok

First update, back on the road, in Bangkok. Violinist at the bottom of the Stairs from the BTS station at Siam Center. Running a beat-up violin through a portable amplifier, with nasty distortion.

Siam Center Violinist by EarSphere

more soon, enjoy.

Morlam CDs Mp3s

Two more CDs of Morlam music coming from thailand.
No videos, just MP3s, Here's a taste:

 

Morlam Sample by EarSphere

Links to the individual tracks under each cover (front for t.1 back for t.2). Sample track is the first song on the first album. enjoy.

Back to Thailand soon. More to come.

How to: Megaupload and some Morlam from Laos

Quick Tutorial For the Copywrite Infringement Illiterate:
When you click any of the CD covers on this page it'll route you to megaupload. i did this rather then linking direct to the streamed video, so that if you wanted you could download. Excuse the ads, nothing comes for free.
to download, wait 45 seconds, then the regular download, keep in mind most of these are half hour long video files, around 300 MB.
To stream: Click the Link that says View on Megavideo (see below), sometimes it takes a while for the video to be put on megavideo, but it will be there eventually, once i get everything i want up on megaupload and the blog, then i'll put selections on a different streaming site like with the skeleton puppets. 

Now, some morlam videos i'm pretty sure are from Lao, the Language they're speaking is Lao, which admittedly isn't uncommon for Isan Morlam, but pretty sure the record co. is Lao. To add further confusion, some of the scenic backdrops appear to be in Lao and some in Thailand.
the point of which is, i don't really know shit. but they're enjoyable videos, and its a decent example of slightly more old style morlam. Same girl dancing in front of green screen in every video, but different background scenery, ooohhh,

 I think i have three more videos off this VCD buried somewhere, as always more to come....
Don't forget to put yr greasy earballs onto my new blog as well... Incredible Images and Audio of the Interwebs An agregator of Videos and other music related content i find online and find interesting. Usually with a central theme, keep yr eyes peeled, I've got a huge piece in the works on Yoshida Tatsuya, the brilliant Japanese drummer which includes footage of nearly everything he's been involved in since the early 80s (15+ bands)...
Over and out

Molam with Traditional Dancers

Another Morlam VCD from Thailand. These guys are huge in the Isan Molam scene, with a prolific set of releases. The video shows the "full" band playing in a variety of Scenic settings, i put "full" in scare-quotes because, like a lot of the VCDs a trap kit features prominently in the mix, but yet is not to be seen playing anywhere in the video. The music is still great though, and the video fun.

As usual, two links to watch or download, .avi format. Click the covers to enjoy.

Keep checking here, have some Great Lao Morlam Videos still forthcoming, as well as a VCD entitled "Traditional Music of NE Thailand," which isn't actually that traditional, and Volume 2 of the Skeleton puppets.