The Rock Pub (“Bangkok’s House of Rock”) has long been
my main music mecca here, and I try to get into the city to attend their gigs
at least twice a month if possible. I
like the music of all the house bands there – however, me being an old guy I
tend to identify more with the bands who play older Rock music, say from the
60s, 70s, and 80s.
And Mundee is that band. They are veteran musicians with a mastery of
those songs that I’m most familiar with, and they truly Rock! I can identify perhaps 95% of the songs
Mundee plays – and maybe, for most, tell you who wrote the song, who covered
it, in what year, and where I was when I first heard it on the radio. (Radio!…Ga Ga.)
As for the Rock Pub’s other house bands, they are all
fantastic, and one with a somewhat similar-sounding name, Munson, is also one
of my long-time favorites, playing an early range of songs from perhaps a
decade later than Mundee’s repertoire. I
can identify maybe 70% of the songs Munson plays by song name or band. Munson makes Heavy Metal weigh-in way
heavy.
(I lost track of contemporary Rock by the early-1990s
because I was finishing college and beginning my teaching career, and I just
didn’t have time to pay attention.)
For the younger band Jimmy Revolt, who have a stunning
range of songs in their repertoire – and whom I love to hear and also consider
to be good friends – I cannot tell you much about the majority of their songs’
histories because they are much newer, but I’m a major fan of anything they
play because they do it so well. And
they do know an amazing variety of oldie crowd-pleasers for whenever the Rock
Pub is filled with old-fart farangs. Versatile
and cool.
But Mundee speaks personally to my own youth as an
ancient devotee of Rock and Roll. They
play classic hard rock that stirs up intense memories. Mundee had not been playing at the Rock Pub
recently, because of some kind of an accident a band member had. But when I saw that they were finally
scheduled back for a recent Saturday night gig, I just had to make a special
trip into town for them. They did not
let me down.
Mundee will probably be slotted again into the regular
Wednesday night gig – after many years being the Saturday regulars. This is good news for me, because Wednesday
is often the best time for me to get into the city. I’ve planned this coming Wednesday entirely
around their gig. Rock On.
-Zenwind.
.
