Rich Glauber's Blog

Played my second to last Friday night open mike on the beach, at Cafe Noir, and it continues to grow and thrive, turning into quite a scene. One of the highlights is these Russian folks who hang out here, Sergei (about 40 years old) plays some guitar and sings, so there is a group there to hear him. He's not great, but he gives it a lot of energy (and he brings his friends). They've come to see us at Led Zephyr a few times, and the women in particular are always smiling, dancing in their seats, enjoying the music. They have very little English, but Sergei's wife said to me, 'we are fans of you' and that was really sweet. I thanked them for showing so much energy when we play (it is dance music, after all, and they are two of the folks who get it). We ended the conversation with the hands together, head bowed symbol of respect. (it's beyond language, you see).

Hey speaking of Russians, there are some really interesting characters here, and you never really know who it is that's walking down the beach. There are billionaires, business people, legal and otherwise, 'security types' (lots of brawny bald headed guys who look like leg breakers for God knows what organization. There are bathing beauties, shop owners, pasty guys just arrived, you hear a lot of Russian in the restaurants and cafes. It's very interesting and I'm aware that I feel quite alien from them.... maybe because we grew up with them as 'the enemy'.

The other day I was bobbing around in 3 feet of water when a Russian guy on a jet ski starts approaching the shore to pick up his rocket-body girlfriend. She was maybe 20 years old, tall blond Sharapova look-alike in a bikini who was walking out to meet the jet ski. He cut the engine and it drifted right over to where I was hanging out, so I put up my hands to keep it off me. 'Sorry' he said, I said 'no problem' and I held the craft steady while his girlfriend put on her life vest and climbed aboard. I would never stare at a gorgeous young Russian woman in a bikini, but hey, I was holding the jet ski and here she was. Damn! Oh yeah, life on the beach...

I'm just soaking up as much of the fun as I can, tearing it up at the open mike with the quartet, eating grilled tuna and drinking beers, playing music on the street late night again. Another Saturday night gig tomorrow, apparently a lot of folks are going to show up. We're adding material, getting tighter and therefore able to be looser, if ya know what I mean. I know what I mean. And what I mean is... this chapter in Sihanoukville has been awesome. 10 or so days to go... soak up the fun.Had two nights off from gigs, so what's there to do? Hell, make some music, I don't know what else to do at this point. Jelly and I ended up at the Irish bar where the owner kept our glasses filled and we entertained the regular crowd of drinkers, jokers and shmoozers. (is there an Irish word for that?... because God knows they do it). At one point, it seemed like the Italian guy at the neighboring bar turned his music up to drown us out, or was it a coincidence? We stopped for awhile. Started again and the asshole did it again. (no coincidence) I'm thinking to myself that there is a special place in hell for someone who would drown out live music and good cheer with recorded noise. (St Peter at the gate), 'Um Mario, what is this? Why were you killing the live music with that recorded crap? What's wrong with you, son? Rejected! Get outta here!'

Some guy asked if we could play Summertime and we did a nice version in C minor, people singing along. Apparently Mario is a Gershwin fan, because he kept the music off from then on. I had come very close to going over there and calmly telling him that it's a mistake to drown out live music, not in a hostile manner, but straight to his face anyway. Out of respect to Connor who owns the Irish bar, I managed to not go there, but the feeling was very strong. We need live music, people singing and celebrating in real time. It's life...To shut that down with canned noise hits me hard. I'm glad that he somehow figured it out.

Back gigging tonight and for the next 5 days. The only bummer is that the Miss Sihanoukville event where I was scheduled to play got moved back a week, and I'll have to miss it. Dang! I was looking forward to that one as the culminating event of the stay here. Oh well, they'll have to crown the new Miss Sihanoukville without me. I'll be in Oregon. Maybe I could play a Miss Springfield event? Uh, maybe not... In a week I head to Bangkok to catch a plane home. Yup, Oregon is still home.