Idle banter forum

i like the thai issan folk music like mor lam and luk thung also. they are fun and clever and easy to listen to styles, unless you are trapped on a bus for eleven hours and they are playing those karaoke-style videos over and over again on the world's loudest no fidelity sound system.

i'm not sure it is only music videos with those disturbing themes. the thai-language movies i've seen with my friends often had mindlessly violent storylines with themes of mental illness, murder, and suicide. fun stuff, huh?

I'm not familiar with the issan folk music but in general I mut say that asian music doesn't do much for me. Folk, traditional or modern. I know it's a huge continent and plenty of great bands and I'm generalizing here
It's one of the few areas in which this continent is seriously lacking when compared to the americas, africa or europe. Off course you have the occasional good band such as Cambodia Space Project or Dengue Fever but as a whole I find it very poor. But, you can't have it all.
Dengue Fever, as good as they are, are still a very much western influenced band.
I'm missing a great truly asian band/singer where the base/origin of the music is asian that would really "catch" me.

Completely agree on the video themes. I guess there must be a video-producers guidebook for successfull videos that states that at least 2 people should die.
And on a related note are the (mostly) korean soaps that have their fair share of misery and are immensely popular. Always great to walk into a local shop and try to order something when a soap is shown on TV.

Carabao
That's a damn good band. Been to two of their concerts, and well worth the take.

As for Television - my favorite Thai TV theme is where the guy rapes the girl and then she falls in love with him. Oh yeah, this happens all the time!

It's kind of like Bruce Springsteen and the East Street Band. Bruce is Bruce, but he's not a solo performer. Carabao is the same.

And yes it's Tagalog. In Thailand calling yourself a Buffalo (Kwai) wouldn't not work. Hence Carabao used a different name.

It's not really the "River Kwai" however. As in, the name of the river isn't Buffalo river. Closest I can come to writing it in English is Kweo. I suppose you were already aware of that though.

Yep - although sadly I have never been there. I am thoroughly domesticated and it's a long ride on the bike from Muk. But I do want to go and pay my respects to the fallen.

I read the book "The Colonel of Tamarkan" and it illustrates it well. Yep, tragic. What happened with the Imperial Japanese Army, which had behaved perfectly decently to its captives in WW I, is a good illustration of how things can go wrong and a people lose their way.