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Travel notes
Life, John Clewley, Published on 23/05/2023
» Cambodia, like many Southeast Asian countries, enjoyed a golden era of popular music during the 1950s and 1960s, when Phnom Penh, known as the "Pearl of the Orient" became an important cultural centre, a breading ground for the meeting of Western rock and pop and Cambodian music. Author Dee Peyok in her fascinating new book Away From Beloved Lover: A Musical Journey Through Cambodia (Granta, UK, 2023) notes that "the music of East and West merged across Southeast Asia to the most fascinating mélange of instruments, attitudes and expressionism".
RIP to a legend
Life, John Clewley, Published on 12/05/2020
» Little Richard, one of the pioneers and originators of rock'n'roll, has died at the age of 87. His family made the announcement on May 9 from Nashville, bringing the final curtain down on the life of one of the great innovators of popular music in the 20th century.
Keep on rockin' in a lockdown
Life, John Clewley, Published on 14/04/2020
» The sonic landscape of my life in central Bangkok has changed dramatically over the past few weeks of social distancing. Gone are the sounds of construction drills, booming pile drivers, honking horns, unmuffled motorcyles and throbbing tuk-tuks. I can hear birdsong of all kinds in the mornings and, at dusk, the whirring and squeaking of different bat species as they zoom around hunting for insects.
Likay lives on
Life, John Clewley, Published on 07/08/2018
» My first experience of popular theatre in Thailand was a likay performance in the main market in Chumpon. I had not been in Thailand for long and was on my way back from a trip to Malaysia, travelling by local bus and train.
How world music fared in 2016
Life, John Clewley, Published on 03/01/2017
» The Merriam Webster dictionary named "surreal" as its word of the year for 2016. It's a relatively new word that was only included for the first time in 1967, which was around the time "psychedelia" emerged as a style of rock music; think of Jimmy Hendrix's guitar pyrotechnics from the time as an example. Psychedelic rock took off and rapidly split into subgenres like psychedelic soul and the whole Funkadelic/Parliament movement that brought psych guitars to the funk groove.