Boing Boing reader Alex Ringis says,
Kristy Gibson and Jonas are Mor Lum singers who are westerners, and apparently American. And their Thai is absolutely flawless (right down to regional Isan accents). This is truly Wonderful and Weird. Kristy also actually has an incredible voice.... More.
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What are they singing about? Cooking? Anything food-related?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christy_Gibson
Christy is Dutch and Jonas is Swedish.
http://www.jonas-christy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=6&Itemid=140&lang=en
They aren't american, they're of european descent and moved to Thailand before they were under 10.
And, well, they have the AutoTune cranked up to eleven judging by this clip.
As far as I'm aware, they're also doing fairly normal Lukthung rather than the more garage-rockey organ based Morlam. (Morlam Sing especially is really cool with its heavy metal influences.)
In a country where even a perceived insult against the monarchy gets you thrown in jail, some preventative ass kissing is apparently in order.
@teapunk They are singing about Som Tum, papaya salad. The song was vaguely about two rival Som Tum vendors, fighting over turf and then making up.
@birdseed The tempo of the song is heavily-influenced by Mor Lum, though the instruments and composition are more modern. I'm not sure why you thought Mor Lum was garage rock, it's nothing of the kind. Mor Lum is based on story-telling, or sometimes a sort of tit-for-tat teasing between female and male "singers". The form evolved to be accompanied by musical instruments, dominated by the Kaen, a woodwind instruments indigenous to the area in Northeastern Thailand and Laos.
If anything, it's more like rap than it does garage.
the first time i went to an isan show in bangkok i thought i had entered the daydreaming mind of some asian drag queen who had been doing speedballs for two weeks, nonstop. the garish costumes, eye-straining colors, genderf*ck, price is right sequin backdrops, ridiculous choreography, and all around synth-driven kitchiness was enough to keep me at the table pounding thai whisky for the first hour. when i was finally dragged out on the dance floor by a gaggle of dwarfs dressed like slutty flight attendants, i knew there was a special place in heaven for these people. while i can't profess to be a fan of the music, there is something simply great about the isan pop culture's ability to worship pretense without any pretension whatsoever. kudos to this western couple for nailing it!
bonus: a video of the bangkok club i visited in one of its tamer moments. you can see how fanatic the isan fans are as they flop around going batsh*t crazy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKYX8m69Vw0&fmt=
Well, Van Halen is Indonesian but they seem to play that American rock and roll fairly well.
and evidently they still don't know how to properly mix and master music.. the vocals are practically buried, and way-way-way-too-autotuned. Doesn't anybody SING anymore?
Steve #6, it's in our law book for a very long time already. If Thai people don't want it, they can force their MP's to change it or, now-a-day, petition for the change as some are doing. However, a large number of the public apparently still wants it. I can not say that every law we have is perfect; many will need to be changed to remain relevant. However, while it's still in the book, one must follow it or suffer the consequence.
If a Thai citizen breaks a certain law, however eccentric and provincial, in the US or some other western countries, you wouldn't expect this sort of attention, right? Would it seems that a Third-World Asian is fit to be jailed in all the western countries, but not the other way around? Oh, no, how terrible! Tsk! Tsk! I have seen a lot of books written by westerners jailed in Thailand. In fact, it's a small industry, writing these Jailed & Tell books.
You know what they say about not staying away from Singapore if you enjoy a bit of graffiti & vandalism of properties or chew gum. It's the same. There's a trade-of for being in a extremely safe environment (some would say sterile--but people seems to like them also),worrying about getting mugged, and being caned for a bit of vandalism and heavily fined for chewing gum. You just have to be in places where the balance is right for you and be ready to accept the legal consequences.
For tourists, the Thai court might be more forgivable for such offense. But, if you are referring to Mr. Nicholaides, the Australian taught in a Thai university (a government-funded one, especially)for some years and should know better the limit of local intellectual freedom. I can assure you it's not that difficult for outsiders to pick this up.
His inclusion of this controversial passage is also quite gratuitous to the storyline if you get a chance to read it. In fact, he seemed like he was looking for trouble, stirring up public interest for his rather ordinary work. That's another issue, and, not being an aficionado of novels, I might be speculating here.
Wow, I WISH I could pronounce Thai that well! Every time I try and speak Thai here they look at me like I'm talking with a mouthful of marbles...
I was also INCREDIBLY tickled to see the fight announcer from Ong Bak in this video, I love that guy! "OH GOD!" Kind of a stretch but I also thought it was neat that the song is about Som-Tum which is the name of a movie starring Nathan Jones, who co-starred in Tom Yum Goong with...Tony Jaa! Yep, pretty much everything is about Tony Jaa as far as I'm concerned... :P
according to Wikipedia (I know, I know) they're also members of The Family International, aka the Children of God cult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_International
just sayin.
For a better-quality video where you can actually hear them, append &fmt=18 to the base youtube url, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zYrEfTGSw&fmt=18
Apparently format 18 is where it's at!
Haha, my friend phil does much better thai lip synching! ;)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=14cr8xuySew
I'm gonna side with Birdseed and call this as more Luk Thung than Mor Lam (but I can see the Mor Lam influence). I saw a full on Mor Lam concert at a Red Cross festival in Kalasin and it was insane - loud as all hell and almost hardcore-like in intensity. And the costumes would put Vegas to shame.
are you guys familiar with the caucazoid singer Delena? she's famous in Veitnam. go to 2:25 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2tkKMMybfE
white people are AMAZING!
@2, 3:
So they are not, in fact, from the Caucasus, as the headline would have it.
Have you all heard Dengue Fever? They do a good job (with their Thai lead singer) of capturing the Thai pop sound...
Love that group.
Thanks for the tip, #20, I'm checking them out now.
I'm still deeply confused after listening to *this* song, which goes the other way - a Thai/Khmer/Laotian singer doing an unexpected Western musical genre:
http://www.wfmu.org/365/2003/050.shtml
"The song is essentially an ode to the Kuntai Isan (northern Thailand), north of Surin. ...they love to eat "bla" (fish)... Another sentiment expressed in the lyrics is that "It doesn't matter what part of the country they live in...they're still Thai..." {...} It's mainly a song describing how nice the people of the Isan are. "All of them belong to one country, and they love each other...""
@20 - she is cambodian, not thai. worth noting.
I have it on authority--direct from the "horses mouth" that they are not auto-tuned. You must bear in mind that with making files small enough for the internet and watchable the compression also makes things sound like that. Try watching them live! (I'm only anonymous because i can't be bothered signing up--no conspiracy here. lol
Culture mixture shock galore - me, as a German, being married to a Thai, living in California, I had to forward this to my wife as a teaser because I thought it might be embarrassing to her as 40 year old German top 10 (actually 12 - http://www.merlinsilk.com/2007/06/19/cultural-embarrassement/) are to me, but was surprised that she loved it and was amazed by Kristy's beauty and talent and confirmed that she speaks perfect Thai - with a little bit of Laotian influence.
I actually ordered the CD from http://www.ethaicd.com - $6 and free shipping from Thailand to the US. How can you lose?
Anonymous #24 - tell J & C to post a translation on youtube - or on their blog.
:D
I think it would be cool if Christy married into the Thai royal family - she'd make an awesome Princess Grace.
...Or at least she could star in a production of 'The King and I.' (How does that story actually play over there, anyway?)
@ #20
This is interesting in a roundabout way...
I looked at the MySpace blog of Dengue Fever. Apparently they played the TED Convention. They blogged today about an attempted mugging to steal a $6000 TED ID badge.
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=13885609&blogID=470061865
The title shouldn't call this "pop". Thai pop music is very different.