Almost all the bars in Southeast Asia are lady bars. The listener and participants who interact and frequent the clubs are exclusively male who become actively involved with the ladies, not the music. Coming to them to listen only to the music is not what people do.

Everyone's a singer now, thanks to karaoke, for better and for much worse. But the live band is now becoming ancient history in Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma.

Old is unwanted. You don't find Thais going to the thrift store. They want new clothes. They want the newest cell phone.

I like traditional music. I listen to a lot of it. There is no particular reason to present these recordings. I love what I do so I find ways to keep doing what I love. Music is certainly not all that interests me. I hear things my own way and I present them. Sound is inspiring and I can be quite obssessive with certain sounds.

The lyrics are not an important thing to me. In fact, it can be a distraction. If I knew the language enough to know it was a horrible love song with stupid lyrics - like most of the popular songs are today in the English language that I hear - then it would be much more of a turnoff then if it would allow me to interpret it from the expressive capabilities of the vocalizing or of the sound itself, which allows me to create my own meaning for it, which elevates it into a higher piece of work for me.

Almost all the bars in Southeast Asia are lady bars. The listener and participants who interact and frequent the clubs are exclusively male who become actively involved with the ladies, not the music. Coming to them to listen only to the music is not what people do.

In terms of perceptions of the culture, most people don't think about music. They're not concerned with it. They don't take their musical legacy seriously.