Music

It’s been a few months since I wrote, and I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind has been:  “But what is Vietnam’s death metal scene like?”

Wonder no more! Here’s a video from Saigon’s own Black Infinity:

[Moved to Videos]

Yesterday I interviewed Hung, the singer (& director of the video), for the magazine I’m writing for here.  Writing full time, busy busy busy and odiously neglectful. Up to Hanoi next week to do a few interesting stories. My camera has been broken for the last couple of months but I got it fixed today and am eager to take photos again.

How are you?

I was waiting to see a movie at the luxe Siam Paragon shopping center and somehow wandered into a press conference and performance by Tata Young. I had no idea who she was or what exactly was going on. I just followed the sound and the lights, and I think everyone assumed I was another music journalist. I stood around drinking a free soda while she answered some questions in Thai and then performed a couple of songs. I had to ask a magazine writer who she was, and he informed me that she was only Thailand’s biggest pop star. I also learned that the point of the press conference was to announce that she’s planning to break into the US market–so there you have it, first-hand reportage from me to you. I’m sad I wasn’t carrying my camera. By the way, her current hit single is called “El Nin-YO!”

The film I saw was King Naresuan. It’s the biggest blockbuster in Thai history, the first part of a nine-hour trilogy about the 16th century king who liberated Siam from Burmese control. I wouldn’t recommend rushing out and trying to find it, although there were some fairly spectacular battle sequences and lavish sets and costumes. What it did offer for me, mainly, was insight into the Thai national identity. For one thing, I see the reverence for their king a little more. Bloodlines are very important in this film, as is a mythical connection between the people and their land, the blood and the soil. The king here really is more than a figurehead, but a living link to the land and to Thailand’s greatest historical heroes.

You also get a sense of the deep-seated Thai/Burma antagonism. The Burmese king is not an entirely unsympathetic character, but almost all the other Burmese are arrogant, sneering, and duplicitous. I’m not sure if this film was more overtly nationalistic than similar Western epics; it just might have seemed that way because I was seeing it without much built-in context. But it was basically a Thai propaganda film, for Thais. It’s very interesting to hear the stories a culture tells to itself.

I did a pub quiz the other night with Lyndsay and the expat crew at a place called The Dubliner. Our team, “The Lyndsay” came in second. (Out of four teams. Shut up. Like you know how many yards are in a furlong.)

“The downside of reverence” is the note I scribbled to myself as I was watching the third of the three Thai rock bands I saw one night on Phra Arthit (”Bangkok’s answer to Greenwich Village”– Lonely Planet). What are the cultural conditions necessary to create good rock music, I ask? These bands all had a similar sound–kind of emo at its sappiest, with very syrupy pop harmonies.

Still, everyone was having fun and people were friendly–toasts, shouted attempts at conversation over the music, dancing next to me, etc. (PS on the youth culture tip, I would say the dominant look of the kids here is early 2000s, Strokes-era NYC–Chuck Taylors, shaggy hair, skinny pants.) I’m sure there must be more going on here music-wise than I’ve been privy to? I haven’t looked very hard. I will say that most of the music I’ve heard in the background is from the US or the UK. (Song I heard a few days ago that has been stuck in my head: “We’re Going to Be Friends” by The White Stripes).