Favorite Video(s) of the Week: Cam Ly

Minh Oi (My Honey) - Cam Ly

A few weeks ago, I was home sick and exploring all the new non-English HD stations. I spent a good long time flipping between Korean cooking shows, Armenian commercials and Asian soap operas. One Vietnamese soap opera in particular attracted my full attention. I was pulled in by the tropical setting, the dramatic tension and then, the characters began to sing. The instrumentation sounded traditional and the melodies were everything I could ask for in a song: complex, meandering, evocative. The singing plaintive and melancholy. Were they singing about bittersweet love, family members long gone or decisions made in a hurry resulting in dire consequences? It didn’t matter, I was entranced.

The next day I went back to work and asked one of my Vietnamese co-workers if she could recommend some “traditional” Vietnamese music. She explained that most popular artists sing both traditional and modern songs and it was difficult to just get a CD of one or the other. A few days later, she handed me a stack of CDs to try and I brought them home to listen. Unfortunately, most were the usual faux-American pop sounding mush with the requisite Mariah Carey style runs completing the effect. However, just as my co-worker said, there were a few more traditional sounding gems mixed in. One of these was Minh Oi by Cam Ly.

Just as I often do when I hear something new, I looked her up on Youtube and came across this amazing live performance of this gorgeous song. There is something in her eyes, I can’t quite define it, perhaps it’s sorrow but there is something in her expression and singing that goes way beyond what I would expect from a pop singer.

By the way, Vietnamese music benefits from a bit of musical philanthropy, a contribution of Indian musical influences in melody and rhythm have made my ears hungry for these alluring songs.

Another Cam Ly song as melancholy and gorgeous as the first…

Buồn Hát Lý Chờ Mong - Cẩm Ly (2/2)

This is the second part of a longer video (part one here) so I think I need to give some context to the on-going story in this video.

A sweet, young pregnant wife must take charge of the household because her jerky irresponsible husband blows all their money on his annoying gambling habit, a daily card game with his Donald Duck sounding friends. His friends are even jerkier and get him to bet more and more money, till there is none left. Despite raiding his wife’s pockets and her secret hiding places, he demands she give him the money she’d been saving for their soon-to-be-born baby. She’s like hell no, I’m already out in my boat everyday trying to rustle us up some food and now you’re gonna take my last pennies, uh-uh. Then his stupid friend is like be a man, get the money homes. And like the vice infested jerk he his, he smacks her and she’s like OK you gonna be like that, take the damn money. And off she goes in her little boat to a better life.

It’s hard though and she’s out in the jungle chop, chopping for her food. Then the baby comes and the little thing grows up so fast, she’s almost tall enough to reach the coconuts. So mom is still all badass and expresses her sorrow through the most beautiful songs. The little girl is happy but wonders, where’s pop?

Well, pop is fresh outta money and gets his thrill through vicarious gambling voyeurism but his swindling, no-good friends are sick of his metiche ways and shun him. Then pop, blubbering and retrospective, gets some kinda revelation. Off he wanders, like a walking palapa hut regretting his poor jerky choices in life and pining for the beautiful wife and child he left behind. Will they ever forgive him?

In a tears from heaven scene he comes across them, and the real treasures of life become very apparent. In a tense last second happy ending, his daughter accepts him with a forgiving greeting…but does his wife?

I love this song!

Cam Ly

Favorite Things: Vintage Sheetmusic

Found at a Montecito yard sale (I just happened to be wandering through)

Although I am unable to read them, I have a fondness for sheet music from the early 1900s. I find them at yard sales, library sales and thrift stores.

Debussy- Claire de Lune performed by Mária Kovalszki, Budapest

Favorite Song of the Day: Ramba Ho

Ramba Ho from the Bollywood movie Armaan (1981)

At this point, if you are still a reader of this blog, you have to know that my music tastes are sometimes not enviable. I put up any darn thing I like, I’ve always tried not to follow genres or rules. My hope is that there is at least one other person in the world that likes these songs and hopefully, that person would like to be my friend. And then me and that friend can have a dance party and jump around singing “Ramba Ho!”
Hindi+Secret Disco=Song of the Day!

Favorite Video of the Week: Kizil Gulum

قىزىل گۈلۈم Kizil Gulum

Uyghurs from ancient Lop nur region. I’ve always wanted to have a party on a thousand beautiful rugs.

Uyghur folk song from Lopnur (Kroran)

Just a warning, there are mummies in this video and even dead, the people of Central Asia are beautiful.

Favorite Song of the Day: Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Jonny Dung-Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Time to get in the holiday spirit! Happy Lunar New Year!

Secret Disco: Lost Angeles

Giorgio Moroder-Lost Angeles

Los Angeles is in a crisis but are we lost?

Hollywood Jail

Teens and novelty photos, does anyone remember the good times? The concept of a Hollywood jail is a peculiar one, I don’t quite understand the appeal. A novelty photo on a stuffed donkey, now that I understand. Despite the kitsch, their faces say so much, too much.

In this photo: my mother, some of her cousins from Mexico and a very young future Silver Lake optometrist.

Favorite Video(s) of the Day: Ahmed & Mehmet

Reyhan - Ahmed

So the second part of my Chalga series was gonna be on Reyhan, beautiful, beautiful Reyhan…The chola looking Gypsy/Roma singer from Bulgaria who sings in Turkish, the language of Muslim Roma in that country. Sadly, she died in 2005, in the prime of her super-stardom, the victim of a tragic auto accident. Men still weep for her on Youtube.
It’s taken me forever to write my post on Reyhan because I felt it deserved something extra special, it might be done one day…

Reyhan in her younger days



Selda - Mehmet Emmi

We all love Selda, the queen of Anatolian Rock!

Favorite Things: Thrift Store Glasses

Offerings of the thrift store gods: glasses for high-balls, fancy beer and Moroccan tea.

Secret Disco: Hi-NRG

Trans X-Living on Video

Stop-Wake Up

Lime-Babe Were Gonna Love Tonight

Considering the term “Chicano Oldies” is accepted and in popular use, I’d like to create a genre called “Chicano Disco.” Some favorite examples above.

In Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco, author Peter Shapiro explains how the influence of the European musicians’ love for synthesized music fundamentally changed the essence of dance music. Whereas disco used to be based on funk, live beats and real drummers bands like Kraftwerk showed there was another way to create a rhythm. The synthesizer with it’s fake handclaps, hi-hats and bass drums helped create a whole new genre of disco music: Hi-NRG.

Hi-NRG had a huge following amongst Mexicans and Chicanos in the Los Angeles area in the 1980s. It was the musical fuel for an amazing DIY scene of DJs, backyard parties and dance clubs that ruled over large sections of the city. It’s a movement that isn’t well known outside Chicano circles in Los Angeles, back then most people could not care less what was going on in our communities.

I wasn’t part of this scene but my brother was a DJ and a member of Boyz in Kontrol, one of the hundreds, if not thousands of party crews that existed at the time. The crews were responsible for organizing parties, dance contests, DJ battles and cruising (cars) spots. While punk may get a lot of credit for being a DIY scene, the disco scene of 1980s rivaled punk in it’s “let’s organize ourselves” philosophy. Unlike punk it wasn’t a political choice, the self organization was done out of sheer necessity. Our neighborhoods offered very few forms of entertainment or diversions for youth.

Towards the late 1980s, the backyard parties started attracting the attention of the authorities, and by using the excuse of minor incidents of violence, these authorities begin to systematically shutdown and target the parties. Some involved with the scene said this heavy handedness by LAPD and the sheriffs department helped to create the revival of cholos and gangs on the Eastside. During the height of the disco scene, to be a gangster or cholo was the epitome of being uncool. Kids would snicker at the site of old veteranos riding on the bus with baggy pants like some anachronistic figure of the past. The disco scene had Latino kids going from neighborhood to other neighborhoods across the city to attend parties and to battle each other on the dance floor. The rivalries that existed and any tension were quickly diffused through dancing and partying. The violence that occasionally happened at these parties was mostly due to fights over girls/boys and the usual love dramas.

When the authorities started cracking down on the party crews and cruising, the essentially were forcing teenagers with lots of energy to stay home. And who was waiting for them? The old gangs who provided them with diversionary outlets. Many of us saw this process play out in front of our eyes. I’m not saying this was the only catalyst for the upsurge in gangs but it was a significant one and gives us a few clues to how we can deal with our current gang problem. The more you try and control youth, the greater the eruption of chaos. Young people need something to do, they have a lot of energy and excitement for their new world that cannot be bottled up and funneled into a path that adults approve of. Let the kids party!

Hi-NRG is still popular among successive generations of backyard partygoers. Go to any baptism, quinceañera, wedding or birthday party on the Eastside or in the San Gabriel Valley and there will be at least one DJ set devoted to the pantheon of Chicano Disco aka Hi NRG.

Please see Pachuco 3000’s post: 30 Years of DJ Culture from East Los Angeles for further reading.