Rocking out with good clean fun
Indie musical festival Kodindy returns to the Royal Turf Club in Nang Lerng
THAILAND’S SOLE truly independent music event, the Kodindy Music Festival, is heading back to town this month, bringing 170 underground – and largely unknown – bands to eight stages at the Royal Turf Club, Bangkok’s horse-racing stadium in Nang Lerng.
“I like to call Kodindy pure art not commercial art. We put our heart and soul into this festival,” says organiser Burinthorn “Heng” Saelor.
“We’ve been accused of noise pollution but I firmly believe that what we are doing is good for everyone. Kodindy is a clean festival and not one that is organised just to please sponsors.”
By “clean” Burinthorn means smoking and alcohol-free. “The audience is very disciplined and refrains from smoking and drinking at this festival thanks to the support of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation. Alcohol can cause people to become aggressive and violent and that’s not good at any live event. And all 170 bands have agreed to comply fully with our rules and regulations,” he explains.
“Next year, we are taking the Kodindy concept one step further and organising a team of ‘Khru Asa’ [volunteer teachers] from several educational institutions to go round Bangkok’s secondary schools and help build a new breed of musicians. They will teach song-writing techniques, how to play a variety of musical instruments as well as talk about life in the music circle,” he continues.
This year theme, “Khrai Mai Fang Tae Rao Fang”, acknowledges the difficulties faced by indie outfits in getting others to listen to their music.
“There’s very little chance that songs by any of these underground artists will be played on the radio. They are also likely to be rejected by the mainstream music labels because their sound isn’t commercial enough.
“A band spends months producing a song and their efforts deserve recognition even if the end product is not chart material. I think of a song as being like life, something that touches on sympathy, happiness, family, and separation. I would ask all those who may be coming to this festival for the first time to empty their minds and forget music genres. That way they will be open to discovering something new. After a decade of Kodindy, I can say with certainty that the festival is successful and draws a large number of bands. Indeed, we were even certified by Ripley’s ‘Believe It or Not’ in 2012 for breaking attendance records with 180 bands.”
The 170 bands include Diaries,
Houdini, Many Days Last, Yellow Submarine, Sunday Drive, Pop Overdrive, Dorothy, Bra Banner, Coconut Sunday, Playground, Strange Brew, Small Ticket, Oh Yeah, Teddy Ska Band, Blackhouse, Vodka Band, Weekend Rocker, Love Buzz Thing Nong Noi, Annalynn, Low Fat, Coma, 8th Floor, Psycho Slim, Phy, Lord Liar Boots, Mine Cinema, The Catwalk, Beautiful Go Where?, The Vintage, Kiss Indisco, Pause, Maha Chanroen and DJs Leo and Bullet Bwoyz.
Southern Boys, Dorothy and blues wizard Khoon Samarn entertained fans at the recent press conference. Khoon, who hails from Nakhon Ratchasima, even has an album to his credit – “Prince of Lo-File World” on GMM Grammy label.
Southern Boys features Songkhla-born brothers Bay Sakwut and Bom Watcharapan Wattaro and double bassist Pininant “Tong” Soonpayanon from Nakhon Ratchasima. The trio plays rock and roll and rockabilly.
“We are inspired by old-school soundtracks of Thai movies such as ‘2499’ and ‘’Go Lang Wang’,” says Sakwut.
“When we were a duo we used to play folk and blues, covering songs by John Mayer, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy and BB King, before joining up with Tong last year and going for a rockabilly sound. This is our first time at Kodindy.”
The trio regularly plays at Bangkok’s smaller venues including Fan Chan and Perd Sakad every Friday, Takai Bar at the expressway market on Saturday and Chumthang Sayam Gypsy on Sunday.
Black ’Ciety is a metal band that has been together since 1999 and plays covers of songs by Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Exodus and Anthrax. They recently released their sixth EP and are looking forward to their set at the festival.
“We’ve been playing here since the very beginning,” says Gorragod Treerapee, the band’s bassist.
“German has its Wacken Open Air Festival, Thailand has Kodindy.”
BARGAIN DAY OUT
-Tickets are Bt199 at the door.
- Find out more at Facebook.com/KodindyFC.
