Thai VS Bollywood II: Ultra rare Suang Santi (Iron Man) / Sumit Stachatape, full album!

You would never suspect it from the look of the cover - this is Suang Santi's record with the Black Sabbath cover "Iron Man" (Kuen Kuen Long Long) on it. The guy on the cover is of course not our cool hero Suang, but Sumit Stachatape, who is found on the A-side... and to my surprise it is a real find! It's a blend of Indian music and Luk Thung, hence I feature it in my little series of reports about thai-indian musical relations. Side B then is probably some of the most recent stuff from Suang Santi before his untimely death, and definitely some of his finest. Have fun!

...and if you have the chance to find it - there is a 7 Inch re-issue from Finders Keepers with "Kuen Kuen Long Long" on it, this time Suang Santi on the cover:

Our friend Chon a.k.a. Big Tiger opened bar & records studio in Bangkok!

Big Tiger Record Studio - open every day, located in Bangkok, Lad Prao Wang Hin, Soi 48.

If you love Thai Funk, Molam, Luk Thung and Reggae it is the place to be! Vinyl and drinks! For more info check Chon's Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/bigtigerstudio/

Thai VS Bollywood - Lata Mangeshkar VS Ream Daranoi

During the 70ties Indian movies were very popular in Thailand, so popular in fact that the music in some of these movies was dubbed as well. For Bollywood the dominant female voice of this time was that of Lata Mangeshkar, who sung what feels like half of all Indian movie songs from the 60ties to the 80ties. Her voice is truly remarkable. The song "Tanhai Men" was dubbed in Thai, sung by Ream Daranoi and called "Fai Yen" (cool fire), and is featured on Paradise Bangkok's excellent "Sound of Siam" compilation. For this post, I gathered the Indian Original and the Thai version. I will post more music at the intersection between Thai and Indian Culture in the next weeks... so here's "Fai Yen" and "Tanhai Men"... enjoy!

The Cat - Do the Watusi! 60s Garage/R&B/Shadowmusic from Thailand

A real astonishing set, presented by Thailands The Cat on their only LP. The title track may be considered Garage, other tracks are reminiscent of the Beatles or other 60s Bands. It is difficult to classify this set as pure Shadow Music (= those Bands from South East Asia, that were influenced by the Shadows extremely successful tour in the 60s thru the region and hence played instrumentals on western instruments with heavy farfisa organ sound like Son of P.M. or Johnny Guitar) even though this is the general feel. I picked 3 stand-out tracks, since my copy had a scratch, so I cannot upload the whole thing anyway. I picked the garage title track "Do the Watusi", a real groovy blaster called "I am gonna be free" (where the singer sounds like a young Big Maybelle or Little Esther) and the Shadow-style instrumental "Torpedo Run". They sing in English BTW! Enjoy! 

Pet Phin Thong - again! Thai Grooves from Isaan! Their 3rd Album (HLP 264)

Another Killer from the Pet Phin Thong Band! As requested the full album. Originally I wanted to post only the first side since all the groovy tracks are there. Side B in contrast contains several solo pieces, by Kaen or by Phin, and is rather for the real fan if I might say so... but please judge for yourself! BTW there were also 4 track EPs produced sometime in the early 70ties which contain the best tracks (3 EPs taken from the 3 Albums HLP 260, 262 and 264), so if its not possible for you to find the whole album (took me nearly 2 years to get a decent copy) you may get lucky with the 7 inch EPs!  Enjoy!

Re-up: Sroeng (Suang) Santi, the Black Superman! - "Phu Yingyai" - with Black Sabbath Cover! full album!

This week I would like to introduce Suang Santi (sometimes misspelled Sroeng Santi), a singer that started with rather common Luk Thung songs but later introduced Rock and Soul elements to his music, mixing it with great humor and political statements. He even did one Disco Album, but fans of Finders Keepers may know him mainly for his cover version of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man", repressed as a 7inch a couple of years back. "Phu Yingyai" ("the greatest") features a cover version of The Black Superman (Johnny Wakelin) as well as some Black Sabbath inspired songs (Dub Fai Kui Gan, Naman Paeng, Mai Rak Yaa Rak) that pop up from time to time on compilations, but the whole album is the real deal. As a little extra I included "Khuen Khuen Long Long", his iron Man Cover. Please forgive me as always for not naming single tracks, but to post A- and B-side as single tracks. Re-up!

45 of the week - Thai goes Disco - "Rasputin...Khao Niao"!

Since my previous posts cover early seventies stuff I decided to leap forward into the late seventies and into Disco! It is still surprising for me to see how popular songs like "Dschingis Khan", "Rasputin" or "Kung Fu Fighting" still are in Thailand. Once you listen to the Thai Versions you will realise how great some of these tunes are. So to pay respect to Disco pioneers like Frank Farian (German Writer, Producer and Singer of Boney M) I picked my favorite Thai Disco number, Nutchanat Nantana and Rasputin...khao niao. Khao Niao means sticky rice, so I assume that Miss Nantana is from Thailands North East. Another great cover version is to be found on the first Zudrangma Thai Funk CD, by Pannada Chayapark. To me, Nutchanat Nantana's is the better one - enjoy!