thugs and good stuff

well thursday night i played at retox bar, and guy from ireland his name is jelly he plays harmonica stopped in so we did some niel young and some blues. wow it was fun! then last night(friday) i player at rainy season and one of my friends had a birthday party there and other people showed up so we had good crowd, i was happy about that.oh and jelly was there to do a few songs with me so i was`nt alone up there all night playing the same songs that im sick of playing.thursday night on the way back to my room by the beach i stopped for something to eat downtown at 3 in the morning like ive been doing this time i was alone, sometimes im there with a girl i let hang out with me named sunny. anyway im at this roadside cafe and 2 young khmere guys pulled up and talked to me and said i owe them money for a moto fare i did`nt pay. which is total bullshit they where trying to extort money from me. i called my personal driver named "tha" pronounced "ta". as soon as those thugs heard me say his name they left fast. tha showed up 5 minutes later, i ate and he took me home. you get a reputation fast in this town good or bad....mine is top knoch at this point and i make sure it stays that way.anyways, no more eating downtown alone at 3 am, could have been a problem if i had forgotten to bring my phone or something....oh i gave a guitar lesson today,a few extra bucks!...later ken

just stuff

well, the first night i played at" rainy season bar" is when i met richie who owns a bar called retox. i guess about 5 weeks ago. him and his dad are the best people i could have ever met.they are from england, i cant say enough good things about them and there friends who ive been getting to know also. anyway i jam on electric guitar there with friends or play an acoustic set myself about 2 times a week. last week at "rsb" after the first set 5 people left because they had a scuba trip in the morning. it was a very slow night and that was about half the people there, i was very depressed. but then after eating a big plate of bbq, free for me, 2 of my friends who work at a bar on the beach near where i stay, showed up with 5 friends so i did a set with the dirty stories and all my best songs and it went over real good. the next night "saturday" was a grand opening of a a place called "the finlandia" owned by, you guest it, guys from finland.that was free food and beer from 6:00- 10:00 then we went to another bar after that. the next night we had a jam at retox,that was fun! today is tuesday im invited to a kmere birthday party tonight, i think i will go. then i play retox on thursday rsb on friday then im going to phnom phenn to stay with my friend andy who just quit bartending at frog shack because the new manager is a jerk. so im going up there to look for more bars to hire me and try to join a good blues band, but still keep my playing commitments here by the beach, just move the nights i play closer or work something out. pp is about 4 hours from on a bus that cost about $3.75 each way. well, alot i could say but i need to learn more songs before the weekend, i better get at it.

just a note about the pictures

sorry some pics are not so clear,and the pic with the hotels in the background was taken at pattaya
beach thailand. i have room at the frog shack ,sometimes at night i can hear the ocean from my bed. i have been in cambodia for about nine weeks now and have made some great friends. going back to when i first came to ochheuteal beach sihanoukville cambodia i was walking down the beach and i saw an old rusty stringed guitar hanging on a wall at a bar. i asked if i could play a song,there was about 7 or 8 people there. they said yes if you can tune it your wellcome to play it. so i played one of the few songs i remembered (its only love) a beatle song. well they all clapped and said that was good what bar do you play at? i said i just got here i never even thought about playing in a bar. it turns out that there are maybe over a hundred beach bars in cambodia and no live entertainment.noneat all! many people, backpackers mostly pass thru but no one really stays very long. so a few days later i was telling people at some bar about the rusty gutiar and thats when i met peter. peter said he has 2 good guitars and he owns a bar, lets go there now if your any good and you want to stay i want you to play at my bar (frog shack) about 2 or 3 nights a week. well we hit it off great right right from the start. he bought me a cd player and burned about 60 songs and asked if i could learn enough to play a set in 2 weeks for a big party he had planned. so everyday i would learn a song or 2 and and every night i would go to the frog and play for him what i learned. so it was time for the party and i had about an hour of songs to play on stage by myself. kinda scary up there just me and a guitar trying to be an entertainer. i did pull it off, people liked me and peter was very happy. well that was his going away party, he went back home to sweden.well after he left things changed, i was getting free food, beer,money, and a room to play 2 nights a week.but when peter left he put a real asshole in charge of his bar who doesnt like me so that was the end of that....then i met richie who owns a bar called retox up on victory beach. that will be my next story.

some pics

spoonful

i dont know how to delete the old blogs yet but im still just learning. i have alot of pictures im going to post next week and stories to tell. i have a gig tonight up at victory beach called "rainy season bar"im going to try to get a song or two on video to post here. i played last night at my friend richie`s bar called "retox". what a great time we had! a bass player stopped in who played just like jack bruce. we played "spoonful"for half an hour and man we just blew everyone away! even i was impressed and im very hard to please when it comes to my guitar playing.

this new blogger crap

ive been trying to get to my blog account for over 4 months but they changed it and sometimes it wouldnt be in english and i just gave up. well i think ive figured it out and i m looking forward to writing and posting pics and short movies soon, i hope about once a week. my spelling sucks,grammer sucks, but im not going to concern myself with that. ive been having quite an adventure these 4 months, mostly good, some not so good. please keep checking back and if you post to me to say hi, ask a question,tell me whats been going on in your life, id love to here from you.....ive been working in cambodia singing and playing guitar for the past 8 weeks. before that i stayed in thailand for 8 or 9 weeks. my friend here has a computer at his house so next week i think i can spend a few hours and share some stories if your interested, so please check back when you find the time, ken