Dengue Fever ten steps higher

The Cambodian Rocks CD compilation was such a mystery when it came out in 1996—anonymous but rabid ’60s garage rock like the wildest Norton reissues, orphan songs from a nightclub culture annihilated when the Khmer Rouge declared Year Zero in 1975. As it turned out, the mystery wasn’t even necessary. When future Dengue Fever bassist Senon Williams visited Cambodia in 1995, he found the same songs, dubbed from mother boombox to baby boombox in open markets at customer request, and learned that they weren’t forgotten Nuggets/Pebbles/Boulders bands but some of Cambodia’s most beloved performers, uncredited by the time their music made it to American reissue: singers like Ros Sereysothea, Sin Sisamouth, and Pen Ron, who led wild and riled backing bands to colossal discographies mostly unknown in the West. So when brothers Zac and Ethan Holtzman asked him about joining their Cambodian-rock band five years later, he already knew just what they wanted.

Ethan remembers playing pool in Echo Park with a Cambodian guy who also knew those songs and who suggested investigating the lively Cambodian music community in Long Beach. In fact, says Williams, the reissue label that sells (properly-credited) Cambodian classics is based in Long Beach, and the albums you’d buy on the street in Phnom Penh are the exact albums you’d buy right here. Scouting nightclubs for real-deal singers finally brought the Holtzmans to downtown Long Beach’s Dragon House, the sea-green banquet hall that lent its name to Dengue Fever’s debut album. “Chhom Nimol was there singing in this white gown,” says Ethan. “We just fell in love with her, and we tried to get her in the band. It was a tough little process!”

Nimol was maybe even a realer deal than they expected—part of what Williams calls “a musical dynasty” in Cambodia, with her and two siblings each winning annual national singing competitions—and translating her into the fledgling Dengue Fever had to fit between her already-packed performing schedule. But Dengue’s 2003 Escape from Dragon House—with the Holtzmans (Zac on guitar and vocals and Ethan on Farfisa) and Nimol, Williams, drummer Paul Smith, and horn player David Ralicke—presented a capable and absolutely distinctive band doing covers and, soon after, originals faithful to the Cambodian style (and delivered in Nimol’s fearlessly acrobatic voice) that resurrected with rare reverence a very specific kind of music.

“It was one thing playing these songs with my brother and just humming the vocals,” says Ethan. “When it’s someone who can sing—and has the language down—it all went, like, 10 steps higher.”

They’re working on a new album now—a follow-up to evolve the band further—and they’re playing in conjunction with Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, their own documentary about Dengue Fever’s first tour through Cambodia. When word spread that the famous Chhom Nimol was coming home, there was considerable national notice, Ethan says: “We’d be like, ‘Where’s Nimol?’ And we’d turn on the TV and she’d be on it—singing and being interviewed! And that happened numerous times.”

But there was also, says Williams, considerable national pride. “They knew we were an American band, and they were expecting Nimol to come dance like Madonna or the Go-Go’s,” he says, “and instead she was singing Cambodian tunes with an American band. They were just in awe—really proud. They thought she was the coolest thing on the planet: she was able to convert Americans, instead of the Americans converting her.”

DENGUE FEVER AT CAMBODIAN ROCK NIGHT WITH THE KHMER FUSION PROJECT AND SCREENINGS OF SLEEPWALKING THROUGH THE MEKONG AND THE GOLDEN VOICE PLUS DJ SIEM REAP DUFF THE KNITTING FACTORY | 7021 HOLLYWOOD BLVD | HOLLYWOOD 90028 323.463.0204 | TUES 7:30 PM | $15 | ALL AGES

Tags: , cambodia, cambodian rocks, dengue fever, dragon house, Long Beach