The Roving Musicologist

Travel Post #25: Where are the knobs on those cricket Frogs? (Nan, Thailand)

These frogs are like an organic version of an earlier post, Gorf Freaks Out.  I have recorded many insects and frogs at night on the trip, but this one is probably the best and the only one good enough to post.

This was recorded out of the window of the oxcart room I stayed in for two weeks in the north of Thailand.

Travel post #17: Thai Karaoke Hypnosis Therapy

Finally something that rocks!

Giant Kittens and Karaoke are two of the prime ingredients for Thai night ambiance.

Many times, the batteries run out.  That’s it, give up, moments gone.  Not this one, though.  I had time to go downtown, buy batteries, and come back.  They were still at it.  They invited me in for a few drinks…and musicologist gold.  Then they asked for money and the moment was over.

The Karaoke was done with live instruments.

Travel Post #16: Thailand Sun Making a Man Slowly Give Up

There’s always a fair in Thailand…little bamboo and thatch huts that sit
in a little lawn and sell things.  Everywhere I go I bump into some kind
of market or festival.  For some reason, the Thai way is to have a guy
going around with a portable microphone and talk about whatever comes into
his head.  On this day, I sat in the shade of an abandoned stall, sweating the whole time, and watched this guy.

The music for the festival was the drone like sounds
you hear, which was completely blown out by the guy’s voice.  No one was
really listening to him, as there was hardly anyone at the fair in the
first place.  The way he said “eah” with the sun coming down on him, carrying his battery pack around, seemed so much a product of the heat coming down. The drone of the Buddhist music in the background gave the fair the feeling that everything was happening automatically, indifferent to how much effort was exerted.

The Nan ethnic fair did not host the Princess of Thailand