LOS ANGELES–Dengue Fever is a Los Angeles band featuring a Cambodian-born singer and five American alt-rockers who regularly embarrass her onstage. On the cover of its new album, “Venus on Earth” (M80), the guitarist Zac Holtzman, with a long beard and goggles, drives a scooter with the vocalist Chhom Nimol sitting demurely behind him sidesaddle, the way a good Cambodian girl would ride through the streets of Phnom Penh. Dengue Fever, which specializes in an unlikely mix of 1960s Cambodian pop, rock and other genres, is a lot like that image. Propriety and smart and sarcastic indie rock race by, blurring together.
「登革熱」是洛杉磯的一支樂團，特色是有個在柬埔寨出生的主唱，以及經常在舞台上讓女主唱出糗的五位美籍另類搖滾樂手。在這支樂團新專輯「凡間的維納斯」（M80公司出品）的封面上，留長鬍子、戴著護目鏡的吉他手柴克‧霍茲曼騎著一部速克達，主唱秋妮莫端莊地側坐在後座，這是柬埔寨良家女孩坐機車穿梭金邊街道時的方式。「登革熱」擅長以令人料想不到的方式融合1960年代柬埔寨流行樂、搖滾和其他音樂，很符合這個形象。中規中矩、聰明，以及喜好挖苦的獨立搖滾迅速轉換，彼此的界線全都變得模糊。

It is a band of rollicking lightness that keeps coming up with deep themes. At a recent show in the Echo Park neighborhood here, the male members were downright silly, but Ms. Chhom, singing mostly in Khmer and dressed in shimmering Cambodian silk garments she designs herself, looked like old-school royalty. After the set, when she lighted a candle onstage to honor those killed by the Khmer Rouge, her voice broke and tears ran down her face.
這是一個不斷提出深沉主題的遊戲人間樂團。最近在洛杉磯回聲公園社區的一場表演上，男團員們都像是十足的呆子，不過秋妮莫大多以高棉話演唱，穿著自己親手設計、閃閃發亮的柬埔寨絲質服飾，彷彿舊派貴族。表演完一組組曲後，她在舞台上點燃一根蠟燭，紀念那些遭赤柬殺害的人時，她的聲音突然哽咽，眼淚從臉龐滑落。

“I think we balance each other out,” Mr. Holtzman said in a recent interview. “She’ll bring the whole place to a hush, and that would be a long night if it was just that. And then we smash the place up.”
霍茲曼最近接受採訪時說：「我想我們互相制衡。她讓整個地方鴉雀無聲，如果只是這樣，那會變成漫長的夜。接下來我們把整個場地砸個稀爛。」

Dengue Fever formed after the Farfisa organ player Ethan Holtzman, Zac’s brother, traveled to Cambodia in 1997, discovered ’60s Cambodian pop and returned with a stack of cassettes. This was not the sort of roots-driven folk sounds ethnomusicologists crave; this was locally produced, gleefully garish trash infused with the surf guitar and soul arrangements that Armed Forces Radio regularly played across the region during the Vietnam War. It flourished until the Khmer Rouge came to power in the 1970s and functionally dismantled Cambodian culture.
「登革熱」法菲薩電子琴手伊森‧霍茲曼（柴克的兄弟）1997年前往柬埔寨旅行，發現1960年代的柬國流行樂，返國時帶回一堆錄音帶，樂團也隨之成軍。柬埔寨流行樂並非民族音樂學家渴望的那種受祖先影響的民俗樂曲；而是出自當地的歡樂花稍拙劣音樂作品，充滿越戰期間美軍廣播電台經常在該地區播放的衝浪吉他和靈魂樂改編旋律。直到赤柬在1970年代掌權，並推翻柬埔寨文化後，柬埔寨流行樂才不再風行。

Dengue Fever’s music is a tribute to that lost pop. But the six members of Dengue Fever form a quintessential Los Angeles crew, with a mix of backgrounds and interests that seems fitting in a region with the largest Cambodian population in the United States (in Long Beach, south of downtown Los Angeles) and a flourishing indie rock scene (in the hills east of Hollywood). The band offers a cultural mix; beyond the obscure Cambodian pop you can hear psychedelia, spaghetti western guitars, the lounge groove of Ethiopian soul and Bollywood soundtracks.
「登革熱」的音樂是對柬埔寨失傳流行樂的禮讚。不過「登革熱」的六名成員組成一支典型的洛杉磯樂團，結合不同背景和興趣的成員，對於一個擁有全美最多柬裔人口的地區（在洛杉磯市區以南的長灘），以及獨立搖滾越來越風行的地點（好萊塢以東的丘陵區）而言，似乎相當合適。這支樂團提供文化的融合；除了晦澀的柬埔寨流行樂外，你可以聽到迷幻、義式美西吉他演奏、衣索匹亞靈魂樂帶來的閒適歡樂，以及寶萊塢的電影配樂。

Now Dengue Fever is starting to make its mark far from its hometown. The band recently returned from the Womex world music festival in Seville, Spain. British publications have included it in “next big thing” roundups, and Dengue Fever’s songs have been on television and film soundtracks, including the director Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers.” A new documentary, “Sleepwalking Through the Mekong,” that follows the group on its first trip as a band to Cambodia, seems likely to help it gain more attention.
現在「登革熱」開始在距離家鄉很遠的地方走紅。這支樂團最近參加西班牙塞維爾國際音樂節「世界音樂博覽會」（譯註：Womex為World Music Expo的縮寫）後返國。英國媒體將這支樂團列入「明日之星」的綜合報導中，而且「登革熱」的歌曲已成為電視和電影的配樂，包括導演吉姆．賈木許的電影「愛情，不用尋找」。新紀錄片「夢遊穿越湄公河（暫譯）」跟拍這支團體首度以樂團之姿造訪柬埔寨的旅程，似可幫助這支樂團獲得更多注意。

“The underground people are getting hip to world music, and the world music side is getting hip to how you don’t have to have a dreadlock wig and Guatemalan pants to be cool,” said the bassist Senon Williams, sitting in his backyard with Ms. Chhom and Zac Holtzman.
貝斯手塞儂‧威廉斯說：「地下樂團的人現在趕上國際音樂的潮流，國際音樂方面則流行如何在不戴辮子頭假髮，也不穿瓜地馬拉褲的情況下，也能很酷。」威廉斯坐在自家後院受訪時，秋妮莫、柴克．霍茲曼也在場。

Dmitri Vietze, a publicist and marketer for many global music acts, sees the band as “part of a larger developmental pattern” in world music. He noted that the American market had been introduced to world sounds most often by American artists, like Paul Simon.
經手許多國際音樂活動的公關兼行銷業者德米崔‧維耶澤認為，這支樂團是全球音樂「更大發展模式的一部分」。他指出，最常將世界音樂介紹到美國市場的是美國藝人，像是保羅賽門。

Now, he said, he sees a movement toward music made and influenced by émigrés: “We’re seeing more and more bands like Dengue Fever.”
他表示，他現在看到一場音樂由外來移民製作且影響的運動：「我們看到越來越多像『登革熱』這樣的樂團。」

原文參照
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/arts/music/20smit.html　
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/arts/fever.php　

2008-02-03/聯合報/C5版/教育 陳宜君 原文請見1月28日紐時周報七版右下