Traveling through Asia's rock 'n' roll past

The Asian rock 'n' roll heroes of yesteryear don't get much playtime nowadays. Shiny and new generally takes precedence over dusty relics in Asia and  reverence for past musical glories is conspicuous by its absence.

However, for anyone prepared to do a bit of digging there’s an untapped mine of melodious gold to be discovered around the region.

Here's where to find the people that helped define Asia's rock 'n' roll past. 

Cambodia: Sin Sisamouth

It is impossible to overplay the importance of Sin Sisamouth. The undisputed King of Khmer music, Sisamouth could rightly vie with James Brown for the title of the "hardest working man in showbusiness."

A frighteningly prolific polymath, Sisamouth reportedly wrote more than 1,000 songs and was as adept at recording Latin-style music as he was blues, folk and bossanova.

What made him truly special was his ability to fuse Cambodia’s ancient musical traditions -- characterized by deeply haunting vocal and instrumental melodies -- with Western influences.

Despite being visually unprepossessing, Sisamouth’s keening voice and his deeply personal lyrics of love and loss made him his nation’s no. 1 idol.

Most of his solo work deserves investigation but his duets with Ros Sereysothea are particularly affecting. The circumstances of Sisamouth's death in 1976 at the age of 43 are mysterious, but he almost certainly died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. 

Seek out: Although the cloth-eared cadres of the Khmer Rouge destroyed his master tapes, Sisamouth’s work lives on in recordings created from cassettes and LPs subsequently converted onto CD.

A good place to start your Sisamouth and Khmer music education is the soundtrack to the Matt Dillon film "City of Ghosts," which features several timeless Cambodian tracks. Also try "Sleepwalking Through the Mekong" -- a soundtrack accompaniment to a documentary about Khmer/U.S. band Dengue Fever’s Cambodian tour.

YouTube:  Sin Sisamouth performing "Mou Pei Na." One of Sin’s poppier moments, Mou Pei Na brims with the optimistic vitality of 1960s Phnom Penh.

Thailand: The Impossibles

Check out these guys. The supreme stars of Thai "string" (pop) music in the 1970s, the band started out in the febrile climate of late 1960s Bangkok -- a period when Thailand established itself as the preferred venue for R&R for U.S. military personell serving in the Vietnam War.

Whether the presence of thousands of young black troops in the country proved the catalyst is unknown but there’s no doubt that The Impossibles were bitten badly by the R&B bug. Despite recording pop, rock and even country hits, it was when the band made for the dancefloor that they really hit their stride.

Their magnum opus "Hot Pepper" was recorded in Sweden during a European tour and features smoking versions of Kool and the Gang hits "Love the Life You Live" and "Give It Up." Despite splitting in 1977, the band has reformed on several occasions -- further proof of their funking unstoppability.

Seek out: The all-English language "Hot Pepper" is rightly regarded as the band’s finest hour. Be prepared to splash out as copies regularly shift for up to US$200.

Another great Thai compilation showcasing the country’s underground rock scene is "Thai Dai – The Heavier Sound of the Lukthung Underground" released on Finders Keepers Records earlier this year.

YouTube: Love the life you live. Kool and the Gang’s original version is still the best, but this runs it close.

Vietnam: Trinh Cong Son

The Vietnamese revere their patriots and poets in equal measure, so their adoration of Trinh Cong Son is accordingly deep. Dubbed the "Bob Dylan of Vietnam" by U.S. folk minstrel Joan Baez, Son certainly shared a number of traits with his counterpart across the Pacific.

Yet while Dylan was frequently wilfully oblique, Son’s often illusionary way with a couplet was partly a response to pressure from the South Vietnamese government who objected to his pacifist stance during the American-backed conflict with the North.

His considered and melancholy songs -- most effectively performed by female muses Khanh Ly and Hong Nhung -- didn’t go down all that well with the post-war Communist regime either and he was sentenced to "retraining" in a labor camp.

In later years, however, he gained new acceptance and popularity and his funeral in Ho Chi Minh City in 2001 attracted more than 100,000 mourners.

Seek out: It can be a struggle to track down the best versions of Son’s music. Versions of his songs can be found on various Vietnamese sites but are often smothered by cheesy synths and overly smooth modern production.

Another Vietnamese gem is "Saigon Rock & Roll," a collection of long-forgotten gems from the late 1960s and early 1970s released on the Sublime Frequencies label last year.

YouTube: "Diem Xua." Performed by his favoured muse Khanh Ly, "Diem Xua" (The Past) is a perfect encapsulation of Son’s poetic melancholy.

The Philippines: Juan De La Cruz Band

The Philippines might have lost music cred when The Beatles were forced to flee Manila amid howls of disapproval after inadvertently snubbing shoe-fan and former first lady Imelda Marcos in 1966, but it wasn’t long before the country was rocking again.

In the vanguard of the nation’s fledging indigenous contemporary music scene was the Juan de la Cruz Band. Juan de la Cruz himself was a fictional entity -- the band was helmed by guitarist/singer Wally Gonzales -- but the band’s massive popularity was real enough.

The first Filipino band to play the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1971, the group swiftly became icons of Pinoy rock and their finest song -- the elegiac "Himig Natin" ("Our Hymn") -- is regarded by many Filipinos as a defining moment in the country’s musical history. The band last played together in 2010.

Seek out: The band’s first album "Up In Arms" is an accomplished collection of Led Zeppelin-style heavy rock, but the second album "Himig Natin" is the one to get, if only for the delicately passionate title track.

YouTube: "Ang Himig Natin," the title track of the band’s second album, is a celebration of the Filipino attachment to music and has deservedly been accorded classic status.

South Korea: Shin Jung-hyeon

The moral panic caused by rock 'n' roll as it exploded in the West was virulent enough, but it was nothing compared to the fear and loathing it inspired in more repressive nations.

So hats off to Shin Jung-hyeon, the "godfather of Korean rock" who, despite having been imprisoned, tortured and briefly held in a mental hospital after refusing to write a song in praise of then President Park Jung-hee and his ruling Democratic Republican Party, remains musically active over half a century after releasing his first record.

A prolific talent-spotter as well as a genius musician, Shin wrote, recorded and arranged for a string of acts in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

His own recordings -- a mix of folky ballads and heavy psychedelic rock -- were equally popular but when the government targeted him he was made and outcast, his music banned and royalties stopped. 

Rehabilitation came eventually and Shin -- who is now 74 -- played music with his sons and recorded once again before retiring from the business in 2006.

Seek out: An anthology of Shin’s work entitled "Beautiful Rivers and Mountains: The Psychedelic Rock Sound" was released on the Light in the Attic label earlier this year.

YouTube: "Beautiful rivers and mountains," a celebration of Korea’s wondrous nature, was what Shin came up with after being asked to write a hymn for the ruling Democratic Republican Party.