Catching Dengue Fever

There aren’t a lot of American/Cambodian psychedelic rock bands in music today, or in music history. In fact, as far as I know there’s only one - Dengue Fever. Comprised of (pictured L to R) brass man David Ralicke, guitarist Zac Holtzman, bassist Senon Williams, drummer Paul Smith, singer Chhom Nimol and keyboard player Ethan Holtzman, Dengue Fever, which formed in 2001, has been making quite the name for themselves in the global pop/rock scene with their unique genre-bending style. Their recently released documentary, Sleepwalking Through the Mekong, which covers their 2005 trip to Cambodia, also has people talking about the band. This week I caught up with Dengue Fever drummer Paul Smith to find out a little bit more about the group, the difficult transition Nimol is making going from singing in Khmer to English, and the craziest happening from their 2005 trip that wasn’t caught on tape. Spoiler alert – it involves a meth head!

Adam Bernard: Let’s start with the obvious, why on earth did you name yourself after such a horrible disease?
Paul Smith: At the time very few knew of it in the States and Ethan, when he was in Cambodia and first heard some of the songs that we ended up covering, his travel companion had dengue fever. On top of that, we were thinking of Dance Fever a little bit. Somehow we thought it was funny. We still like it, but some people have had an adverse reaction, especially if they’ve had the disease or known someone who’s had it.

Adam Bernard: I think Anthrax went through something similar when the whole anthrax scare was going around. I remember Scott Ian joked that to placate people they were going to change their name to Basket Full of Puppies. On a similar note, is Dengue Fever a fever that can be cured with more cow bell?
Paul Smith: Yes, everything can be cured with more cow bell. Just turn it up.

Adam Bernard: The story behind the band is that Ethan was inspired by his trip to Cambodia, but what originally inspired him to make that trip to Cambodia?
Paul Smith: At the time Ethan and I were roommates with another friend of ours in Santa Monica. He was working with mentally ill people, a lot of schizophrenics, and he was really burned out on it. He had made some decent money and had socked some of it away and he said I’m gonna travel, I’m gonna check out southeast Asia for six months. We all left the house. Our other roommate ended up moving to Hawaii, where he died at Pipeline, surfing. I went to recording/engineering school.

Adam Beranrd: My condolences for you friend. You know, those are three very different paths you each took. As a band you’re also on a new path as you’ve just started to make the transition from Khmer (Ku-mai) to English language music. How difficult has that process been?
Paul Smith: It’s not easy, but the one thing I think we did that was smart was instead of forcing it we only let it happen when Nimol, just on herself, gradually learned more English. We didn’t say OK, we gotta learn more English, we gotta sing in English, it was like she was just hanging around us more and started picking up more English. She lives in Long Beach in a very Cambodian community, 50,000 strong, it’s the largest Khmer population outside of Cambodia, and all of her friends are Cambodian, so when she’s in her own neighborhood she doesn’t really have to assimilate in any way. When she hangs around us it’s really her only time getting, or absorbing, English and American culture, so the more time she spends with us the more English she gets. It’s been a natural progression and we just decided it’s not an issue worth forcing. It’s difficult enough when you’re in the studio and you’re trying to learn a melody you’re not familiar with, she’s also trying to learn a language.

Adam Bernard: Is it possible to compare Cambodia’s pop scene with America’s?
Paul Smith: No. They love ballads. You could be in a Hip-Hop club, they could be spinning a Lil’ Jon cut, and they could go straight to a slow straight up ballad and everybody loves it. They put their arms around each other and they just sway. It’s not like it’s the end of the night and they’re trying to clear the floor, that’s just what they do, they love em, they call them “sentimentals.”

Adam Bernard: That’s pretty wild. I bet you have plenty of wild and strange stories from the road. Can you share one of the wilder or stranger ones?
Paul Smith: There have been so many strange things, but one show in Cambodia, this Australian, who turned out to be a meth head, booked us and this was a situation where the guy had to supply drums, amplifiers and all that. The first weekend of the trip we got to play on national television for like an hour and a half and it got broadcast to everyone. The whole country only has four channels so literally 8/10 of the population saw us. The moment we finished with that show we walked outside and everybody knew who we were. It was almost surreal. We still had this deal with this guy, we were gonna play for free. We get there and there’s a huge crowd, it was already at capacity, and we see the stage that this guy built. It looked like if all of us got up there it would instantly crash. There was a half broken drum kit and no amps and the guy charged everyone like five bucks, which in Cambodia is a ton of money. Nobody has five dollars there except the people from other countries. The crowd was mostly white people from Australia. We were just like, “where are the amplifiers” and he pointed at a home speaker, like a stereo amplifier that has two input things on the front, and he was like “you can just plug into that.” We were like “dude, we need amplifiers, we went over this with you twice on the phone.” He was like “yeah yeah yeah, this will work, just plug into this.” “No, that doesn’t work and half the drum kit’s missing.”

Adam Bernard: What did you end up doing?
Paul Smith: We had never cancelled a show up to that point. We were just looking at the crowd and looking at the stage and going “we have to just walk” and the guy heard us talking and immediately freaked out on us, started cussing us and threatening us and saying he was gonna kill us. The whole time we were filming the documentary. Of course, somehow the cameras weren’t rolling then. We just had to run out and split and this whole crowd didn’t know what was going on and this owner was screaming at us, “you’re done here, you’ll never play another gig in Cambodia,” which was funny to us because Cambodia’s not a market you can make money in. It’s not like that was gonna hurt us somehow, we can just go there and play for free. There are some websites that he went on where he went off on a rant badmouthing us. That was a strange and bad experience, but you look back on those and it’s like whatever, it’s funny.

Adam Bernard: After that story I think my last question may have an obvious answer. Is there anyone you’d like to give the disease dengue fever to?
Paul Smith: To that dude. {laughs} You know what, no, I would never wish that on anybody.

Related Links

Website: denguefevermusic.com
Documentary: sleepwalkingthroughthemekong.com

Drake & Kid Cudi - Sharing The Spotlight

With so many up and coming rappers choosing to beef as a way to get on it was refreshing when both Kid Cudi and Drake were so enthusiastic when I proposed the idea of a combined interview to them. A lot of artists want the entire spotlight to themselves, but both Cudi and Drake really liked the idea of showing some unity and proving to the world that the spotlight provides enough room for more than one emcee. Here are a few of the highlights from the interview:

Kid Cudi on mutual admiration:
"I know that he’s (Drake's) gonna kill shit and I’m gonna kill shit and it’s gonna be like’97 again when you had Jay-Z, DMX, Nas, Ja Rule, you had all these great artists and they were all killin shit in their own right."

Drake on mutual admiration:
"I can say on record that I have nothing but love for Cudi. Every time I hear something good about him I’m happy because I know we’re on the same climb. I always feel his accomplishments as if they were mine."

Kid Cudi on making relevant music:
"Make sure it’s important. Make sure that the kids get it and it’s gonna be something that they want to live with forever."

Drake on the added pressure having buzz brings:
"That’s not a negative pressure, that’s a little competitive edge that we should all feel. I feel like I really have something to live up to. It’s a great thing."

Check out the full interview at 101Distribution.com.

Pop Shots For The Week of 7/8

Welcome to your weekly dose of pop world musings. Covering all things pop culture, this week Pop Shots is hitting you with thoughts on everything from Jordin Sparks to Attack of the Show to JoJo. All seasoned with a little bit of attitude.

Check it out at 101Distribution.com.

The Wit & Wisdom of The Alchemist

The Alchemist has long been considered one of the top producers in the game, but he's not all about beats and rhymes. I caught up with him this week and while we did talk about his work, including his latest album, Chemical Warfare, the conversation ended up going in some pretty crazy directions as we ended up discussing tour pranks, dumb things people say, and why the yellow cab is the new private chopper. Here are a few of the highlights from the interview:

His thoughts on Auto-Tune:
"I’m not going to say Auto-Tune is wack. That’s like saying a certain drum machine is wack. Wack is wack. Auto-Tune is just a program that you use."

When people yell about being a "grown ass man":
"If anybody has to tell you they’re a grown man… they really aren’t. 'I’m a grown ass man!' OK, maybe you need to hear that out loud so you can believe it, because I don’t."

Joking about riding in taxis:
"It’s really ruining my Hip-Hop ego, stepping out of a yellow cab. I think I’m gonna lose some record sales. Perception is everything, bro. I should be getting out in front of my crib in a helicopter."

Check out the full interview at RapReviews.com.

Artist Of The Week – Eprhyme

You don’t hear a lot of rappers spittin about Kabbalah, but that's just one of the things that makes well traveled emcee Eprhyme so interesting. Eprhyme grew up in Phoenix where he played the sax and did poetry readings with his brother Cannupa Hanska, primarily at a club called The House of Grooves. During that time in the mid 90’s he also started jumping into some ciphers, although he didn’t actually write any of his rhymes down until half a decade later. At 18 Eprhyme moved to Olympia, WA, for college and ended up staying for ten years before eventually moving to Brooklyn. While in Olympia he rapped with a crew called the Saints of Everyday Failures. The group would put out five albums independently. Before that he was in what he describes as an “art-noise-ritual-metal jazz band” called American Cancer. This week, intrigued by both his music and his life story, I sat down with Eprhyme to ask him about his mixing of traditional Jewish music with Hip-Hop, his openness about his religion in his work, and what Kabbalah is really all about.

Adam Bernard: Start me off by telling me how you ended up with the name Eprhyme.
Eprhyme: That’s actually a complicated and nerdy story. I came across the term "e-prime" in a book called Quantum Psychology. I always thought it was kind of a cop out to have a moniker with the first letter of your name and some goofy word, but then when I stopped being so hyper critical of everything I realized it was kinda classic and this was perfect - e-prime. It refers to a neuro-linguistic programming technique thought up by semanticists in the early to mid 1900’s. It’s the English language without the word "is." So nothing IS anything. Things may "seem to be" something, but you can’t fully define or understand something with a single word. Quantum physicists started using e-prime when they came across the wave-particle duality, when they realized that if they looked at light through one lens it was a wave and through another lens it was a particle, so they could never definitively say that "light IS a wave," or that "light IS a particle." It was both at once. It’s a linguistic technique designed to deal with paradox and ambiguity, so I thought that was pretty cool. Then I realized that my initials are EP and that I could spell "rime" like “rhyme,” so then it turned into EPrhyme, which lots of people mistake for Ephryme (efraim), but it’s not, it’s pronounced E-prime. I told you it was gonna be nerdy.

Adam Bernard: Nerdy, but really dope. Moving to your album, waywordwonderwill, which is due out in the fall, what was the process of melding Jewish music and Hip-Hop music like? How long did it take to get it right?
Eprhyme: Ultimately, it was pretty smooth. Each kind of music, from the Klezmer to the Middle Eastern music, has its own rhythms and textures and it was just about bringing out that funk that was already there. That’s always been what Hip-Hop was about, finding the funk and swing in all kinds of music that is just waiting to bump. I was privileged to be able to work on this project with my good friend Smoke of Oldominion. He's a fuckin Jedi. I basically dropped off a ton of songs and samples that I had been collecting over about two years and waited for what he came back with. It was amazing. As far as the lyrics, that was easy because rap is a universal language through which you can tell any number of stories, so that’s what I did, I wrote my story.

Adam Bernard: There are a lot of topically relevant songs on waywordwonderwill. Are there any specific points in particular you hope people better understand after they listen to the record?
Ephryme: Yes, definitely.
1) Maybe white men can’t jump, but for sure Jews can rap. {laughs}
2) Hip-Hop is a universal language and rap is an art form and it can make you think and dance at the same time.
3) Cultures and conflicts are complex webs of collective consciousness and contradictions.
4) Violence is not an option in the pursuit of sustainable peace.
5) Judaism is culturally and spiritually unique, universal, accessible and relevant.
6) Collective/communal dynamics are reflections of personal imbalances and dis-ease... and vice-versa.
7) We all individually have the power and choice to make a difference in our own lives and in the world.
8) G!D is not a bearded man in the sky waiting to judge you... It's all G!D. You “twoo” are One.

Adam Bernard: You mention Kabbalah on your album. Could you tell everyone your thoughts on that offshoot of Judiasm and what it means? Most people only think of it as a celebrity trend because of Madonna and Ashton Kutcher.
Eprhyme: Sure. To start, Kabbalah is not an offshoot of Judaism, it is one of the many integral facets of Judaism which really only fully reveals itself when viewed and experienced within the context of the rest of Judaism. The practice, observance and discipline of Judaism actually bring the Kabbalistic teachings to life, so it does not remain just a head game, but you are able to bring the teachings down into your heart and your body and your life. Kabbalah is the tradition and transmission of the "concealed" Torah. There is the "revealed" Torah and the "concealed" Torah. They deal with different aspects of our lives and souls, but ultimately they are one and the same. Literally, Kabbalah means "to receive." Some people interpret this to refer to the oral transmission from teacher to student. It is the teachings and tradition that you must "receive" from someone experientially. It was actually debated for hundreds of years whether or not to even write these ideas down because people might just read them and not "receive" them from a living source, but as time went on it became increasingly clear that the human race would benefit from the spreading of these teachings and traditions, so gradually the "concealed" Torah is being "revealed." Personally I interpret the term "to receive" to be referring to a state of consciousness, the "receptive" state, where one is clear and open to take in new and seemingly paradoxical information and experiences on a very deep psycho-physical soul level. Most methods of meditation, or yoga, and even the arts are intended to assist in achieving such an inspired state. Kabbalah is the Jewish tradition, art, and science of achieving the "receptive" state of consciousness, so we can receive what is constantly being revealed, the revelation of One.

Adam Bernard: Religion can be both uniting and alienating. How do you feel people will react to your openness about your faith?
Eprhyme: I don’t know. Really I’m just trying to bring and share my whole self in my music. I’m a religious person, so that’s gonna be in my music, but I’m a religious person in the etymological sense. The word religion means "to connect," so I’m a religious person in the sense that I am constantly seeking to connect with G!D, with other people, with the earth, and with my deepest self. I grew up listening to rappers talk openly about their spirituality. That was one of the things I loved about rap music, you could be open and honest about who you were and you could talk about G!D, poverty, girls and rockin the mic all in one song. It was so true to the reality of the human mind at any given moment in time. It felt so honest. You know KRS-ONE, Killah Priest, Tupac and tons of other rappers have shared their deepest thoughts, feelings and struggles with G!D and life and spirituality and philosophy. I don’t feel like I’m doin anything different. It’s just a different set of symbols. I’m just trying to round out the picture of the human mandala as expressed through Hip-Hop, adding another voice to the cosmic symphony.

Related Links

MySpace: myspace.com/eprhyme
Modular Moods: modularmoods.com
Shemspeed: shemspeed.com
Krecs: krecs.com

Vid Pick: Braille - Skepticold

You definitely have to check out Braille’s incredible video for “Skepticold.” The clip is visually brilliant, the song has a fantastic beat, and there’s a heck of a message sewn into it all. I could go on with the adjectives, but just press play and see what I’m talking about. Enjoy!

Saving The Magazine Industry

It’s no secret that magazines have been dropping like flies. The other day Vibe was the latest victim of the print downturn. Many people claim this is happening because digital outlets are taking over. That’s not really the full story, though. Yes, digital outlets are providing an alternative to print, but print isn’t doing much of anything about it. Once the people in charge of the print mags learn that the role of the magazine has changed and start altering their product accordingly people will see that print publications are still an important part of the media world. Today's blog tackles the kind of changes that need to be made in order for magazines to thrive again.

The web owns certain aspects of news and reporting. Any magazine that thinks they can report any kind of breaking news is moronic. What they need to do, instead, is go deeper than simply the breaking news and focus on extended, multi-source, features on why and how specific things are happening. The net has the who, what, when and where, but rarely do they ever dive any deeper than that. This is where print journalism and the act of taking the time to gather facts and get the whole story, is essential.

There’s another reason extended features are where the future of print journalism lies – people don’t want to read pieces that are thousands of words long on their computers. The web is perfect for short form stories and that’s exactly where the vast majority of those blurbs should go. Putting short features in your magazine is a quick way to never sell a copy. Why would anyone buy it if they can read it in its entirety on the newsstand?

When it comes to music journalism, the simplistic solo interview about an artist’s album coming out is dead. The web owns it, even if it doesn’t own it very well. New media PR people are some of the most diligent in the game, but unfortunately this has led to every site basically having the same content up at all times, just done by different people. This is great for the artist, who gets a ton of exposure, but terrible for journalism. There is no exclusivity, there is little originality, and there is no “scoop” since everyone gets the same people for interviews. The print world can capitalize on this by having their artist interviews revolve around more than just what someone is putting out at the moment. If fewer articles read like press releases it would make magazines more relevant. A journalist’s job is not to uncover the obvious, but to dig deeper and find the most interesting story possible to tell. Can this be done on the web? Probably, but as noted earlier, the longer, more in-depth, piece is a much better fit for a print publication.

Something else print publications need to embrace is the concept of “evergreen” features. This is the phrase we use to describe articles that don’t have an expiration date, or if they do it isn’t anytime soon. Having a litany of articles in a publication that all revolve around release dates and what may be hot at the deadline of the mag give it a very limited shelf life and it’s going to look stale only a week or two after it hits newsstands. This staleness leads to people’s perception of the magazine being a negative one. Evergreen articles don’t grow old nearly as quickly, so what you run this month will still be relevant on the very last day before your next issue comes out.

All in all it’s a pretty simple fix. The problem isn’t that people don’t want print media. The problem is that print media doesn’t have a very good understanding of what people want from it. The connection will be made eventually, but it may take a lot of changes at the top of a lot of mags before we actually see it happen.

Side Note – Props to Vapors, who seem to be getting it right… even if they do still owe me money from over a year ago!