Smith Wannapanit works in designing pipes and plumbing systems for highrise buildings. Tonight, though, he is a cowboy.
“I’m a big fan of American music,” said Smith, the guitarist and vocalist for Blue Mountain Country at Saturday’s Bluegrass Music Jam at Ban Rai Phupha Tawan Farm. “I studied in Ohio and lived in Houston when I was 22, so I became really interested.”
Big trucks and luxury cars drove from Bangkok for a hoot and a holler with the hill folk of Khao Yai on Saturday, away from the city slickers and their rules. And, boy howdy, do they party. Drunk dancing, off-stage performances, dozens of musicians, and an absolute maniac in a sombrero pretending to play the accordion for about an hour.
Offstage, THB2,000 (US$60) buys hay bales for six people, two bottles of Sniper bourbon, soda waters, and a selection of fruit. Other snacks – whole hog roast, chicken, mashed potatoes – were on sale just outside the venue along with cheap booze and cowboy kitsch. In the parking lot, those not lucky enough to get a hay bale sat in the dirt parking lot with banjos, mandolins, and fiddles playing a concert all their own.
Khao Yai is cowboy country, and this is the second music festival in as many months drawing hundreds of mustachioed cowboys, “Mexican” banditos, and a few uncomfortable stereotypes. Revolver twirling, lasso dancing, bullwhip cracking – some are here to cosplay, some live the cowboy full time.
“Around 30 or 40 years ago … Chokchai farms brought American culture, cowboy culture into Thailand,” Smith says. “We also have mountains and fields and cows. And it is now our tradition.”
Chokchai Farm, started by the Bulakul family, began with a small herd of eight cows and today boasts thousands. Chokchai Bulakul is credited with being the “first Thai cowboy” and is venerated in pictures and posters. Today, that cowboy culture is built into the scenery of Khao Yai, with little Wild West photo ops lining the main highway through Muak Lek. Once upon a time when tourists existed, people would come to the farms to see cowboys sling their guns and ride horses.
This party was meant to be, at least in theory, a retirement party for Thorn Banjo. Thorn Banjo, of the Thorn Banjo Bluegrass Band, banjos. No one could rightly explain, however, what it was he was retiring from. Nor, it turns out, could Thorn himself.
“Not retiring. I will continue to spread music and spread bluegrass,” said Thorn, the face of Thai bluegrass who has been playing his lightning fast three-finger on the five string for over 20 years. “It started from cowboy movies, I started hearing the music in the background and learned about all of the instruments — the folk music, bluegrass music — all acoustic, not electric.”
For some, it’s all about the music. Sunny Sachdev from Bangkok drove up for the weekend with his “Zombie Killer,” a sleek red and black banjo he picked up in Malaysia in his prized collection of unique banjos.
“I heard a song from the Dead South and after that, I just wanted to know more,” Sunny says.
Though everyone’s a cowboy, the tunes aren’t very Wild West at all — more eastern bluegrass, Americana folk, and a little classic Dolly and Hank thrown into the mix. Still there is an element of tradition, the big jam at the finish always ends on Will the Circle Be Unbroken — enough to melt the heart of any bluegrass lover.
Revelers arrive in full regalia: bedazzled in 10-gallon hats, sheriff costumes, chaps, Native American headdresses.
Which leads inexorably to a flag-shaped Asian elephant in the room: a symbol of racism, hate, and intimidation as decoration. It’s almost enough to put you off your mashed potatoes and moo ping. Here, it just means cowboys. The reasons someone might get beaten up for flying the rebel flag in Atlanta are difficult to explain to someone in Khao Yai who just wants to just wear a big belt buckle and sing Country Roads – even more difficult to explain why waving it in Kentucky might get them elected.
Hopefully it is a lesson that will be learned quickly, but it’s not a lesson for Thai celebrants alone. A Nordic patron at the event was seen giving a woman in Native American headdress the full “woo, woo, woo.” Come on, man.
The bluegrass jams in the smoky mountains of Khao Yai are a party and a family affair, a place for music aficionados and cheesy theatrics, a place where you may not speak English, but you damn sure know all the words to Country Roads.
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