Голос кочевников : Dengue Fever Live in Ulan Ade, Buryatia, Siberia, Russia? Oh yeah, baby, right there, that’s good…

 

My glorious career as a music promoter lasted a total of one band (I count time in personalities, not days-months-years).  Let’s just say it wasn’t my cup of pu-erh.  And no, I’m not some rich kid who decided to hire a hip breakout band for my fancy birthday party.  I’m actually a half-way respected travel and world music journalist with a background of intensive and extensive travel, and dealings in folk art and world-based cottage industries. 

But back then—five years ago—I couldn’t have considered myself much of a journalist—or writer—of any type.  I was just a 54-y.o. kid in mid-life crisis with a stiffy in one hand, a handful of poems in the other, and an inherited business interest as financial cushion for my growing collection of bucket-list priorities (okay, so I half-way lied: but it’s a cushion, not currency). 

That band was Dengue Fever.  Now maybe they’re not the premier world-music band in any classic sense, like Ali Farka or Fela or even King Sunny Ade (remember him?).  The Dengue Fever guys are Angelenos or something similar, after all, and Nimol, the Cambodian lead singer and always-photogenic counterpunch to leader Zac’s trademark beardliness, was discovered in Long Beach, no less, an immigrant Khmer diva belting out standards for ex-pat Cambodians and refugees from the harsh rule of the now-defunct Kh’mai Krahom of Pol Pot and his band of psychotics, inspired by illogical conclusions to the thoughts of a Mao-ze-Dong-gone-horribly-wrong. 

The backstory is not only the stuff of history and legend, but it sounds like something I would do.  Ethan Holtzman got turned on to killer Khmer 60’s classics while traveling Cambodia and subsequently fallen ill with—you know what.  Back home he and brother Zac listened to scads of Cambodian-community Long Beach-based karaoke queens and invited them to audition.  When a skeptical Nimol reluctantly showed up, the rest all went home.  She signed on tentatively, figuring nothing to lose.  The guys and gal started polishing off old classics by Sinn Sisamouth and Ros Sereysothea, and soon a chemistry clicked in and the music took over.

A debut album of Cambodian classics was rolled out to good reviews, followed by the now-classic Escape from Dragon House.  Then began the long slog of trying to find an audience and build on it, no easy task for the indie falanges of any genre—music, print, or artistic—and there are always as many detractors and distractions as there are supporters and celebrators. Fortunately their appeal crosses over between world music, indie, novelty and strait-ahead pop/rock. 

But if album sales are a hard-sell, at least the festival circuit is good, especially in Europe, especially for a band with a top-notch live act.  These guys always sound good onstage, because they always have fun.  More-than-competent follow-up albums Venus on Earth and Cannibal Courtship kept us homies happy, which brings us up to the present.

Dengue Fever has a new record label of their own, Tuk Tuk Records (you know, like the onomatopeiac motorized trishaws of Southeast Asian fame), but that’s not why I’m here.  They also have a new EP out, too, In the Ley Lines, whose few snippets I’ve heard are good, of course, but that’s not why I’m here, either. 

I’m a travel writer now, remember, so I hardly have time to write about music, unless I’m really inspired.  I’m really inspired.  Dengue Fever is going on tour again.  ‘Big deal,’ you say, ‘Dengue fever is always on tour, aren’t they?’  True, but they’re going to East Europe, too, and some places you might not expect. When’s the last time you were in Ulan Ade?  Of course, it’s Russia, but not really East Europe.

I’m here to tell you about the ‘Voice of Nomads’ music festival in Ulan Ade, Buryatia, directly north of Mongolia in Siberian Russia, scheduled for July 10-14.  Pretty cool, huh?  Bombino has played there before, and Huun-Huur-Tu, too.  Like I say, these guys do things like I would do them. 

I was in Mongolia last fall and fell in love with the place.  This is maybe even better since it’s right near Lake Baikal, the largest (by volume) freshwater lake in the world.  You could get there from Moscow or Ulan Bator, Mongolia, either, right there on the Trans-Siberian railway where it spurs south to Mongolia and east to Vladivostok (home of Mumiy Troll btw). 

I know, ‘too expensive,’ you’re thinking.  Got visa?  Actually a Russian visa is not so expensive if you allow plenty of time.  Start now.  Many places over around Fairfax and Santa Monica here in LA can do it for you.  Or Google for your area.  And once you get there, you can stay in Ulan Ade Traveler’s House, one of our partner hostels from my “Backpackers & Flashpackers: Hostel Guides to the World” (or something like that) project, with beds starting at only twenty-two bucks.  That even includes breakfast, and laundry facilities.  Chill slightly and then drink..

Did I mention that Ulan Ade has a statue of Lenin’s head that weighs forty-two tons?  You heard it here first.  I figure if I leave the US West Coast in late June then I can catch the Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Borneo, then continue on to Ulan Ade mid-July, and still have plenty of time to make it to the Sharq Taronalari festival in Samarkand, Uzbeki-wekistan in late August.  Sounds like a plan.