Nguyen Dinh Phung’s “Dem Hoai Vong” is a masterful display of Tuan Ngoc’s harmonic sensibility and Duy Cuong’s understated technique. Best to be experienced in a late, peaceful night. Da Khuc Nguyen Dinh Phung is highly recommended if you like this kind of music. If Tuan Ngoc puts you to sleep, don’t bother.
Thu Hoai who is a Visualgui.com’s frequent visitor and one of Philly’s finest vocalists invited me to check out her live performances in front of a small crowd around 100 people. Since I was in the nearby area yesterday, I decided to drop by and I am glad that I did. Thu Hoai is passionate about music, and her singing proved it.
She approached Nguyen Van Thuong’s “Dem Dong” with confidence, and she knew how to transform one of the most beloved ballads into a personal statement. Unlike Diem Lien who presented “Dem Dong” in Asia’s 75 Nam Am Nhac Viet Nam exactly as the composer intended it, Thu Hoai was able to incorporate subtle but individual nuances into her phrasings. There’s always a risk in breaking the composer’s original intention. A singer could either ruin or enhance the work. In her performance, Thu Hoai enhanced it.
With Phu Quang’s “Em Oi! Ha Noi Pho,” Thu Hoai’s gruff, tangy, and authoritative voice brings out the lyrics’ semimetal aesthetics: “Con duong vang ri rao con mua nho / Ai don cho ai toc xoa vai mem.” She then moved toward fitness-enhancing tunes to please the crowd since part of the show included dancing—somebody had to entertain the mack daddies. She packed the floor with Anh Bang’s “Tango Tinh” and ABBA’s “The Winner Takes It All.” I am ashamed to say that I was sitting back and envying the pops getting their groove on with the chicks that are young enough to be their daughters. (“Who’s your daddy?”)
Highlight of the concert is when Thu Hoai provided listeners with an intimate experience. Supported by simple strumming guitars, she poured her heart out on Vu Thanh An’s “Tinh Khuc Thu Nhat” (accompanied by Phu), Trinh Cong Son’s “Tinh Nho” (accompanied by Phu and Dung), and “Nhu Canh Vac Bay (with her brother Minh). Due to the sound issues, the guitar sounds were barely audible, which left Thu Hoai’s singing almost naked as if she was doing a cappella. Although her performances were imperfect, they were full of soul. She took her time to articulate the lyrics.
Music aside, Thu Hoai is a down-to-earth lady. Although we met for the first time last night, we have known each other for while on Visualgui.com. Our love for music (she’s the singer, I’m just the appreciator) brings us together like brother and sister. Big sis, keep the vibe alive. Thanks for the special dedication (“Dem Dong”) and the shout out to Visualgui.com.
Ba Que’s Xua va Nay, a gorgeous traditional/contemporary folk instrumental album for free 99. Don’t say that I don’t hook you up. “Hanh Khuc Tho Nhi Ki” is mad crazy the way they weaved classical melody into eastern sounds.
Beautiful shots of Trinh Cong Son’s ” Phuc Am Buon” concert from Phong Lan and Joseph.
Me, me, me, me, and more me. Damn! Everywhere I go, I see the same hoe.
Video artist Nguyen Tan Hoang spoke and showed eight of his experimental short films at Vassar yesterday. His works are ranging from four to eighteen minutes addressing various topics such as gay Asian American, Vietnamese pop cultures, and sex stereotype of Asian male in mainstream America media. Hoang received his Studio Art’s MFA at the UC Irvine, and is working on his PhD in Rhetoric/Film Studies at UC Berkeley.
From the visual aesthetic sense, Hoang needs tremendous improvements. His amateur productions bring down his messages, way down. I don’t expect Hollywood quality from him, but decent shooting and editing will enhance his works. For instance, Forever Jimmy! is a slideshow featured Asian pop pretty boys including familiar faces of Andy Lau, Jackie Cheung, Aaron Kwok, and Leon Lai. Of course, he also threw in gay pornography to complete the sticky homoeroticism. The way he made the transitions from one image to the next were so bad (too jerky and too many cheesy effects) that I almost began to get seasick. Thankfully, it was only six minutes long or else I have to walk out of the auditorium.
His concept in Pirated! shares some similarities with my “A Few Gifts For My Homeland.” He also used “Mot Chut Qua Cho Que Huong,” but a Khanh Ly’s rendition. The main difference between our works is that I tell mine from the women’s and children’s view while he tells his from a gay man’s standpoint. The video starts off with clips of fleeing boat people then progresses into homosexual pirates. Even though the piece relates to the Vietnamese people, he hesitates to show it to them because he concerns about the homosexual context. With the political issues I had faced with my own work, I understand where he’s coming from. Been there and done that, but I have also learned and met many open-minded individuals through the entire controversy. I feel that the Vietnamese-American community is not so conservative anymore. My negative reaction to Pirated! is not the homosexuality (I don’t have a homophobic problem) but the way he presented it. The experience is pretty disgusting when listening to Dalena singing “Lan va Diep” while watching two guys fucking, especially when we understand the lyrics. “Lan va Diep” is not a lovemaking tune. A couple has to be real tasteless to be humping to that song. He should have just incorporated some Chinese-translated songs, and the scene would have worked fine. Maybe a Vietnamese campy version of ABBA’s “Voulez Vous” would be better.
Speaking of Dalena, Cover Girl: A Gift From God is an eighteen-minute documentary on the talented American female who sings perfect Vietnamese. Hoang pulled together clips from Thuy Nga’s Paris By Night video, and he did a horrendous editing job. The film fails badly because it gives viewers the wrong impression about Dalena (she did look horrible on some of the Thuy Nga’s clips). The audiences were giggling and laughing at her. So the video comes across as an exploitation of Dalena, but I am glad that wasn’t Hoang’s intention. He reemphasized at the end of the lecture that he respects her talent and the film was not meant to be ridicule.
I give Hoang props for his openness about his cultural and sexual identities. In Forever Bottom!, he wants to give viewers the feeling of fucking an Asian guy by putting us, the audiences, in the top position. The four-minute clip shows the pleasure of the bottomhood as the guy being slammed in the anal in various public places including in the car, on the beach, and on the bench. Hoang gets his point across well with the in-your-face, hardcore style, but he should have done it a professional and classy manner. I also hope that he reaches deeper into Vietnamese music around the world rather than just relying on Thuy Nga’s production for his research on Vietnamese pop culture. His perception on Vietnamese music is the recycling of same old songs. That is what he gets when he only looks at Thuy Nga’s products. The music scene has been evolving drastically and many new, original works are from independent musicians around the world and especially in Viet Nam. And for art’s sake, learn the aesthetics of filmmaking. I highly recommend Hillman Curtis on Creating Short Films for the Web.
When it comes to rain, nobody pours like my Lady Day. The way she expresses the word shine in Harold Allen’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” sounds like a tiny candle glowing wearily in a dark corner and eventually blown out by her naked wind of emotion. I have listened to various rendition of this song (Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Gayle Moran, Eric Clapton and B.B. King), yet none could drag the sadness out of it like she does. When she phrases, “I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you,” her desperation has become uncontrollable, and the pouring rain outside added a bone-wrenching sorrow to her singing. I had to stop listening to Holiday because she commends full attention and I needed some sleep. With my Billie’s collection, I am sure I could listen to her for two days straight.
I switched to Hong Nhung’s Thuo Bong La Nguoi for something soothing and relaxing to lull me into my night. I dropped the volume down to an almost mutable level so that the arrangements ease back and rain could cascade into her voice. The result turned out to be unexpected. Trinh Cong Son lyrics came to life. In “De Gio Cuon Di,” Hong Nhung’s delivery froze me when she croons, “Hay nghieng doi xuong nhin suot mot moi tinh / Chi lang nhin khong noi nang.” Trinh’s wordplay is amazing. He was able to tilt life and look at her in a different perspective, but only to observe quietly without a word. He had to be a lover of life to have such a beautiful soul or “tam long” (Is it “loving-kindness?”) as he suggested, “Song trong doi song can co mot tam long. De lam gi em biet khong? De gio cuon di” (To live your life you need a loving-kindness. Do you know what it is for? To let the wind twirls).
The experience of listening to music with the sound of rain in the stillness of the night is incomparable, but it also contributed to my insomnia. Although my brain doesn’t function too well today, my works tend to carry more emotions when I am half asleep. I am in a perfect state of mind for designing but not coding.
On his new album, Fishscale, the Monster of Don a.k.a. Ghostface Killah does what he does best—spitting crack tales in vivid details. To illustrate that he is still the hardest-working dopeman in the business, Ghost chucks out the hooks and pushes 64 bars straight in “Shakey Dog” right off the bat. He sounds hungrier than ever. Packing words into the beat like a crack dealer stuffing his cocaine into a bag, Ghost’s energy brings a filmic experience to his narration: “Frank pushed me into the door / the door flew open / Dude had his mouth open / Frozen, stood still with his heat bulging / Told him, ‘Freeze, lay the fuck down and enjoy the moment.’ / Frank snatched his gat / Slapped him, asked him, ‘Where’s the cash, coke, and the crack?'”
If I need a recipe for making cocaine, no need to look further than the crackmasters in “Kilo.” With Raekwon who is also a descriptive lyricist joining him, Ghost lays down the process of manufacturing coke like Emeril prepares his favorite soup: “Big heavy pots over hot stoves / Mayonnaise jars and water / With rocks in ’em / Got my whole project outta order / Kilo is a thousand grams / Beige, gold, brown, dirty, fluffy, tan / Extract oil come from Cuban plants.” Another flavorful collaboration between these two Wu-Tang members is “R.A.G.U.,” a violence scene in which Ghosts finishes with, “Yo Lord! I knocked out his teeth / Now he’s rocking those false joints like everything’s peace.”
Fishscale’s productions are tight, but what drive the recordings are Ghost’s dynamic deliveries. In “The Champ,” Just Blaze’s orchestration is crazy—hard beat fused with chaotic guitar and harsh horns arrangement—Ghost’s flow is crazier, and he lets nothing overpowered his voice. On the sentimental “Whip You with a Strap,” the late J Dilla sampled Luther Ingram’s “To the Other Man” and provided a soulful beat for Ghost to reflects on his childhood memory in which he was belted by his mother for his rudeness: “Mama shake me real hard / then get the big gat—that called the belt. / ‘Help me,’ as I yelled / I’m in the room like ‘huh, huh, huh’ with mad welts / Ragged out, bad belt / Yes her presence was felt.”
With a solid release filled with aesthetic qualities, Ghost has proved that he still stands strong in the hip-hop community at the age of thirty-five while many of his peers have gone. He has not only maintained his style, but also improved and refined his techniques over the years. Fishscale confirms that Ghost is keeping the game on lock.
I have tremendous respect for Thinh Nhat Hanh and his work as a peace activist. I’ve learned to calm myself and connect with my interbeing (Tiep Hien) through his Being Peace. The book is an eye-opening reading for me, especially when we’re in the world full of temptations, because it taught me to appreciate my presence and to live life one day at a time. I was so impressed with his teaching that I have wanted to learn more. I began to read his other books, but disappointed by the same concepts, only different stories. His simple writing style becomes a drag to read, and his idea gets unreasonable to the point where I begin to doubt his credibility.
On the subject “We Are What We Eat” in his Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames, he talks about the food that we eat contains anger. For instance, cows raised in small barns are filled with anger because they are trapped; therefore, when we eat them, we inherit their angriness. His point is interesting, but I am not sure how realistic it is. As someone who loves his pho (Vietnamese noodle) with a side dish of uncooked beef, I guess I consume kilos of madness on top of mad cow disease. But I doubt that my anger will subside if I stop eating like a cannibal. Let’s assume that he is right on “we are what we eat,” how would he explain the angriness from people who don’t even touch meat? I know quite a few women who eat only the greenest vegetables and the freshest tofu, yet I can’t even believe the words that came out of their mouth or their evil intention. I am sure we all know someone with those two qualities.
Another disappointment with Anger is when Thich Nhat Hanh switches to fictional writing. In the tale of “David and Angelina,” he writes, “[David] was a lonely person. He did not have friends. Often he did not go to the campus cafeteria. Instead, he stayed home and ate instant noodles. You may have already guessed that David is Asian.” Besides the stereotype that only Asian people eat instant noodles, his setting is problematic. David is a college student in America, which is more or less closer to a modern society, yet Thich Nhat Hanh tied it into a fantasy world. I just could not read on when the beautiful Angelina comes to life from a painting that David has been obsessed with ever since he bought it from the market. This is not Weird Science, and I didn’t know Thich Nhat Hanh could write cai luong (Vietnamese opera).
I am in no way attempting to disrespect someone who works hard all his life to bring the world some peace. I guess it’s the evil in me, from eating too much angry food, drinking too much inflamed liquid, and listening to too much evil music like jazz and hip-hop, that fuels the flames instead of cooling them down when reading Anger. I know I am going straight to hell when I die, and it’s not so hard to tell. In fact, the mental life I am living in isn’t better than hell; therefore, I admire Thich Nhat Hanh, and wish I could be as spiritually free as he is.
What I missed the most about Tupac Shakur a.k.a. Makaveli was his realness. True, he was a dope lyricist, but it was the sincerity in his delivery that brought his rhymes to life. So when he said, “Fuck the world,” I felt him. His death shook me because he always rapped about gun and annihilation as if he knew he would catch them sooner or later. His posthumous The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory (the only piece of my ex I have not destroyed) sounds like he has planned his earthly departure.
On the opening “Bomb First,” Pac’s ferocity gushes like adrenaline rushes—as if it is his last chance to rhyme before fading to black. In the beginning of “Hail Mary,” he screams, “Uhh, feel me!” I could sense the hopelessness in his voice; therefore, when he rhymes, “I ain’t a killer but don’t push me / Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to getting pussy,” he was convincible. The antagonism continues on “Me and My Girlfriend,” a Pac’s version of Bonnie and Clyde that laced with sex and violence: “I love finger fucking you, all of a sudden I’m hearing thunder / When you bust a nut, Niggaz be ducking or taking numbers.” On “Just Like Daddy,” Pac wants to become a father figure to his girl and promises to take away her pain. Not sure how he would do that since he claims that you’re “screaming like you’re dying every time I am fucking you.” I suppose he takes away her emotional pain by giving her pleasurable pain. But that’s Pac, a man who had nothing to hide when it comes to speaking out his mind. And the self-expression is what I love about hip-hop.
A few readers still find it surprising when I write about hip-hop. Their perception is that I am not the hardcore or tough type of guy. What does my personality have to do with the music I listen to? My appreciation for hip-hop based purely on its aesthetic values: the beats, the flows, the rhymes, the structures, the techniques, the deliveries, the wordplays, the imageries, and the experiences. Hip-hop is a form of art that allows artists to truly bare their soul, and that was exactly what Pac did.
Today is mom’s last day at her job. She is finally retiring at the age of 69. Now what? I will have a personal chef again after four long years. More food to come.
Diggin’ the way Nguyen Khang massages the hook on Tuan Khanh’s “Mua Em Troi,” especially near the end where he maneuvers the last word in each bar. His performance is an example of making a sugary pop tune unsweetened.
White Out, a badass, head-whacking video featuring the sexy Jenna Jameson. Produced by Tronic Studio for Adidas’ spot.
Designchuchi, a breath-taking site design with a creative CSS layout.
Thank You for Smoking, a gorgeous typographic motion. Gotta love that trumpet solo!
Phu Quang is a renowned songwriter who treasures every second of his life. 69’59”—the title of his latest work (Phu Quang Vol.11)—signifies the pulses of his heart and the lifespan of his songbook as he welcomes listeners into his “Quan Thoi Gian” (Stall of Time) performed by the young singer Ngoc Anh. Their collaboration is a fruitful one because she brings beautiful drama to his simple, lyrical compositions with her gravel pit of a voice.
Ngoc Anh has the right chops for the bossa-nova “Lang Dang Chieu Dong Ha Noi.” She knows how to float her dirt-flecked timbre around the Latin-inflected groove and the exotic keyboard licks. And she pours when she rains. Ngoc Anh streams her heart out on the acoustic guitar in “Khuc Mua Thu” and drowns her emotion in the sentimental “Truoc Mo Cha.” With “Chieu Phu Tay Ho,” she surprises the listeners with her handling of traditional folk. Her overcooked quality gives the piece a soul-soothing touch.
69’59” is a savory album because Phu Quang’s compositions are easy to listen and his lyrics are straightforward but never comes across as mundane. The producers—Thanh Phuong, Do Bao, Vinh Tam, and Viet Anh—also earned their proper for the effervescent arrangements. As much as I admire Ngoc Anh’s dark, warm sensuousness, I am still not contented with her aspirate delivery. Although she has reached deep into the music with her soulful interpretation, she needs to silence her breathing to complete her perfectionism.
