dengue fever/ph7 @ lola's

first of all, the sound: andre edmonson's been busy upgrading things and sonically speaking, 'twas a huge improvement over the last time we were at lola's -- lots more punch and definition. we walked in late on pablo's set and were amazed at the clarity of the bass and vocals (love those four-part harmonies). you could actually imagine katboy purring during their set. ph7 sounded _massive_, and all credit to andre.

'twas also nice to see all the cambodian (?) kids who came out to see dengue fever. i told calvin abucejo, "it's nice that you 'n' i aren't the only asians here for once."

dengue fever actually asked dre to take off the cambodian rocks cd i'd burned for him, "because we play some of these songs!" watching them set up, we were admiring zac holtzman's jazzmaster, and teague correctly identified senon williams' bass as an ampeg ("i love the headstocks on those!"). once chhom nimol took the stage and opened her mouth, though, she was _the show_ -- what pipes! it's actually an advantage not to understand any of the khmer lyrics she sings -- the better to focus on _that sound_. chhom was a big star in cambodia, even singing for the king and queen, but she handles herself onstage with an engaging humility. (teague: "these guys must have _shit their pants_ when they found her!")

my sweetie was shooting pics throughout their set and will post some on her photo blog later today. she noted that when senon got on his knees, he was about as tall as chhom. he and zac also did some nice synchronized dance steps, which reminded me of r&b bands i've played in and made me wish more bands would do silly fun bullshit like that. zac has a real light touch (especially after watching sir steffin rip it up with pablo earlier), but he gets that spacy cambodian surf-psych sound just right. (and yeah, it _was_ these guys playing mulatu astatke's music on the broken flowers soundtrack.)

a great crowd, too -- i told teague, "sunday is the new saturday!" people were into it but not as many were dancing as i'd a thought. oh well. my sweetie bought me a t-shirt that i'm gonna wear when the stoogeband plays at fred's for the fort worth burrito project benefit this saturday. and i got chhom to autograph their setlist. yeah!