Figuring out floor zero for the appearance of Dengue Fever could be tough, however cautious analysis has recognized Aquarius Data within the coronary heart of San Francisco’s Mission District as the first origin of the infectiously melodic band.
Within the late Nineteen Nineties, guitarist Zac Holtzman was a member of Dieselhed, a rootsy rock band that was a part of the scene’s inventive fringe with teams like Mr. Bungle and Fantasy. As a Mission denizen he frequented Aquarius Data, the place a buddy who labored within the store handed him “Cambodia Rocks,” a compilation of psychedelic and storage rock tracks from the late Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s by groups decimated and scattered during the Khmer Rouge’s genocide.
“He’d always steer me in the right direction, and this compilation he turned me on to had this amazing music,” Holtzman recalled. Shifting again to Los Angeles in 2000, he found that his brother, keyboardist Ethan Holtzman, had collected cassettes by lots of the bands represented on “Cambodia Rocks” whereas touring in Thailand.
“He was like, ‘How do you have this compilation?,’” Zac Holtzman mentioned, figuring out the second once they began plotting to launch a brand new band. 1 / 4 century later, Dengue Fever returns to floor zero, or 4 blocks east on Valencia Road, with two reveals at The Chapel Dec. 30-31. The six-piece group nonetheless revolves round Cambodian-born vocalist Chhom Nimol, who had just lately moved from Phnom Penh, the place she’d received a nationwide singing competitors, to Lengthy Seaside’s Little Phnom Penh neighborhood.
“We think of Nimol as the icing on the cake, the songbird that goes where she wants and leads the way,” Holtzman mentioned, utilizing Chhom’s given identify somewhat than her surname, which by Cambodian customized goes first.
“We’re there to support whatever direction. When she sits out, we can go faster. There’s freedom and we can take it in different directions. But when she’s singing she’s flying around and the sweet thing on top that’s the focal point. You’ve got to follow your singer.”
It’s been a rare journey by any measure. In 2017, the band spent a giant chunk of the 12 months on the highway because the opening act for Tinariwen, the storied Tuareg rockers from Mali. They expertise modified the way in which that Dengue Fever interacts with audiences as they realized “we could move the crowd in other ways, deploying peaks and valleys with dynamics,” he mentioned.
“We got braver slowing it down, leaning into the psychedelia, knowing we could keep everyone into it. We don’t have to be going 90 miles an hour.”
The next 12 months, Dengue Fever performed a central function in creating the rating for Lauren Yee’s Horton Foote Prize-winning play “Cambodian Rock Band,” which went by growth on the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Floor Ground program and returned to the Rep for a profitable run in 2023. The plot, which follows a Cambodian-American legal professional returning to Phnom Penh, the place her rock musician father was pressured to flee, echoes many facets of Chhom’s life (like her return to Cambodia documented on John Pirozzi’s 2007 documentary “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong”).
The band has sought to pay its inventive debt to Cambodia on a number of fronts, like “Electric Cambodia” (Minky Data), a CD that includes 14 classic Cambodian pop tunes culled from the Holtzmans’ valuable stash of cassettes. The album’s proceeds go to Cambodian Residing Arts, a corporation devoted to reviving Cambodian conventional artwork types and supporting up to date inventive expression.
With the entire band members’ actions, it’s not Dengue Fever went practically a decade between albums, following up 2015’s “The Deepest Lake” with 2023’s “Ting Mong” (which implies Scarecrow in Khmer). Crammed with memorable tunes, it toggles between songs that includes Chhom’s mesmerizing vocals and woozy items that includes Zac Holtzman vocals, like “Great On Paper.”
“We went out to the desert stayed in this cabin and built a studio near Joshua Tree, Pioneertown actually,” he mentioned. “We were having fun, coming up with ideas together. There was this cave my brother and I would go to early with my flute and a Casio keyboard and play off of the natural reverb.”
Whereas all the time primarily based in Los Angeles, Dengue Fever has maintained ties to the Mission. The band has change into a daily presence at The Chapel, and carried out at Union Sq. in September as a part of the inaugural Cambodia Day Music + Tradition Competition. “The only wedding we ever played was in the Mission, at the Make Out Room,” Holtzman mentioned.
“Some musicians who were getting hitched asked us and we said, sure.”
DENGUE FEVER
When: 8 p.m. Dec. 30, 8:30 p.m. Dec. 31
The place: The Chapel, 177 Valencia St., San Francisco
Tickets: $32-$45; thechapelsf.com
Initially Printed: December 27, 2024 at 10:05 AM PST
