Thailand Loves a Good Song(kran) – Part 2

The other diversion that kept us busy during our first week in Thailand is my budding music career. That’s right. I make up one third of a Thai-Canadian-guitar-harmonica-Neil Young-cover-trio. (Tone, you and Heather would have KILLED to be there…). We play – surprise surprise – mostly Neil Young (with a Thai twist), although NOT entirely by choice. Long story long, the police chief of Ko Lanta Island was celebrating three days of Songkran (see last post)  at our resort and when he heard me and another Thai guy jamming he INSISTED that we set up a little concert for the revellers at the restaurant. In reality, I was playing the harmonica under duress – but the police chief loves Neil Young and the harmonica so Neil Young and harmonica is what the police chief got! Next thing I know he’s feeding Elise and me Johnny Walker Green Label by the glass-full (Green Label??) so I HAD to let him sing (you’ll have to watch the vids below to hear it for yourself). I guess he took a shining to us since he gave us his phone number and told us to drop his name if we ever get into any trouble over here, wink wink. Translation: we have carte blanche to commit crimes in Thailand. That’s the second police chief we’ve befriended on this trip (recall the gun-toting police chief at grandma’s house in Peru). Oh, and for the record, I eventually managed to appropriate the guitar to get a few lesser-appreciated, non-Neil Young solo numbers in there without offending anyone. No tour was planned at the time of writing.

-G

The show must go on...I had to improvise a pick and capo.

Solo debut