caravan: s/t

band: คาราวาน (caravan)
album: s/t
tracklist:
01. คนกับควาย (khon kap khwai)
02. เปิบข้าว (poep khao)
03. หมายเหตุจากหมู่บ้าน (maihet chak muban)
04. ชาวนา (chao na)
05. ข้าวคอยฝน (khao khoi fon)
06. คนภูเขา (khon phu khao)
07. จิตร ภูมิศักดิ์ (chit phumisak)
08. นกสีเหลือง (nok si lueang)
09. หยุดก่อน (yut kon)
10. กระต่ายกับเต่า (kratai kap tao)

earlier we heard from carabao, the band who popularized the เพลงเพื่อชีวิต (pleng puea chiwit) or "songs for life" genre; here we have the debut from its progenitors, caravan. this tape, issued in 1975 (พ.ศ. 2518) collects the songs with which band members สุรชัย จันทิมาธร (surachai chanthimathon) & วีระศักดิ์ สุนทรศรี (wirasak sunthonsi) had been leading protests for democracy throughout the country. their tunes & lyrics caught on quickly and were a vital force for bringing the messages of urban student activism out to the provinces. the music is fantastic, loosely adapting folk-rock rhythms & melodies from american & british protest songs of the time (listen for bob dylan, traffic), and interlacing them with thai folk idioms & instrumentation. shortly after the release of this album, in the wake of the massacre at thammasat university, the members fled bangkok, some heading into the mountains of the northeast to join the communist insurgency in armed struggle. needless to say, their music was banned from radioplay, broadcast only from pirate stations in the hills. these songs have since been reissued on smithsonian folkways, with fantastic liner notes.