Cambodian phnom pens, sings songs with U.S. rock band

Thursday, February 28
By Aaron Beck
The Columbus Dispatch

To find his musical roots, Ethan Holtzman of Dengue Fever had to visit Southeast Asia.

Holtzman, 36, plays the Farfisa organ for the band he co-founded -- which blends early American and British rock with psychedelia and surf music.

Easy reference points include Os Mutantes, the Ventures and every funk-rock group after Parliament-Funkadelic.

On the latest Dengue Fever album, Venus on Earth, the Farfisa organ -- an instrument popular in the 1960s that gives songs a retro vibe -- anchors the music, with the voice of Chhom Nimol delivering the messages.

The band will make its Columbus debut Friday in Skully's Music-Diner.

A short history of Dengue Fever, starting with Holtzman:

During the late 1990s, he quit a day job in Los Angeles and swapped his car for a backpack and a plane ticket to Southeast Asia.

His itinerary included Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

"Cambodia," he said, "really felt like a lawless society."

Prime Minister Pol Pot, by then the retired leader of the communist Khmer Rouge regime, still held influence.

"It really felt like anything could happen," Holtzman said. "It felt like the kind of place you didn't want to be during an election."

Holtzman -- an accordion player and, since childhood, a guitarist -- sought refuge in the underground nightclubs and was instantly drawn to the cooing voices of the female pop singers.
He didn't understand a word, and he didn't need to.

"The emotion was so strong," he said. "The vocals had this snakiness: The falsettos would crack and then drop to a lower note. It sounded really cool. When you do that (style of singing), it's called 'ghost voice.' "

Back home, Holtzman and brother Zac, with drummer Paul Dreux Smith, set about re-creating the sound -- with Holtzman swapping his guitar for a seat behind a Farfisa organ.

They bode their time as they wrote songs, humming the melodies as they sought the missing link: a Cambodian singer.

Despite the significant Cambodian population in every major city on the West Coast, the search for someone willing to join a rock band posed a challenge.

"We were playing pool in a bar called the Short Stop," Holtzman said. "There was this Cambodian guy who was there all the time, and we were like 'Do you know this (Cambodian pop) music?' He didn't speak much English. He just kept saying: 'La Lune! La Lune! Da girls!' 'La Lune! Long Beach!' "

Holtzman started building the band in the La Lune nightclub, about 20 miles south in Long Beach, Calif.

Through the stranger and his La Lune connections, the musicians met many singers and began to audition them.

When the band, which includes saxophonist David Ralicke and bass player Senon Gaius Williams, met Chhom Nimol at a place called the Dragon House, it had its singer -- if she could be persuaded.

"She was already established as a famous singer among the Cambodians," Holtzman said. "But she showed up one night to practice, and all of the other (auditioning) singers left. They were blown away that she was there. They were like 'Oh, I can't sing,' holding their throats. 'Oh, my voice.' "

On the third full-length Dengue Fever album since 2003, Nimol sings lyrics written in English with Zac Holtzman.

Sometimes she translates into a Cambodian tongue; sometimes she plows ahead in English.
The concerts, packed with upbeat tunes from the record, turn into "parties," Ethan Holtzman said.

"It doesn't matter to us what language she sings them in," he said. "The emotion is always there."