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Twenty years ago the greatest band in the history of rock and roll music dissolved. Today, a group of musicians has revived the music of the Beatles and brings it to the local Bangkok club scene. They are Chai Komlertkul on guitar, Jod Choketippattana on bass, Pual Bekanan on lead guitar and Pong Junsuta on drums.
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I had just arrived
back in Bangkok from Los Angeles after having lived there for the past
20 years with my wife and 2 children. The last time I remember playing
Beatles music was at a charity show in front of His Majesty The King Of
Thailand in 1969, and I flew off to the United States a few days after
that. Seeing me off at the airport was Paul Bekanan (who joined me in the
US. within a month). At that time I was only twenty years old and had already
been playing music professionally in Bangkok for several years, mainly
with four other musicians in a band called The Fantasy 5. The band enjoyed
a fair amount of success with local music lovers due to their ability to
mimic the sounds of many of the bands from the early Bristish invasion
era, such as The Beatles, The Searchers, the Dave Clark Five, etc.
When I returned home
in 1987 I was pushing forty and most of my old friends were scattered throughout
different parts of the country, but I was lucky enough to run into an old
musician friend named Ji (Jiraphand Angswanond). Through him I met some
of the famous local musicians who had moved out of the club scene and were
involved in the production part of
the music industry.
Ji was the managing director of a production company called Butterfly Sound
And Film Productions at that time. Through him I was introduced to Jod,
a bass player and Pong, a drummer.
Downstairs to Ji's
offices was a little club called "The Glass", where lots of aspiring young
actors and models, along with the who's whos of show business were hanging
out. One night after we got pretty well brewed, Jod and Pong, whom I had
just met, and I decided that we'd do some jamming with the band, and were
shortly joined by Ji and a keyboard player named Yo. Having never played
together before at all at that time, we decided that we'd start out playing
some blues so we could just jam, but then someone in the crowed yelled
"Beatles songs". We looked at each other, and then I went into the intro
to "Money", not knowing that Jod and Pong were also Beatles fanatics. We
ended up playing many of the Beatles songs that night.
Having had so much
fun playing that night, I suggested that we get together and relearn some
of the Beatles songs, and the pub owner asked us to play at the Glass regularly
every Monday night from 11.00 pm 'til closing. We did that for nearly a
whole year. It was good fun, but the real fun had not yet begun.
Paul came home from
the U.S. about a year after I did. Having been gigging with him on many
occasions in the US., I asked him if he would play with the band, replacing
Ji, who didn't have any free time because of his executive job. Paul agreed,
and that's when the
Beatlenuts were officially formed.
It's been over ten years now and we're still playing together, doing one night a week gigs at local clubs in town, some concerts, TV spots and roadshows to many cities. While each one of us are pretty busy with our own jobs in the music industry, we still find time to be with each other and play the kind of music that we've been playing for so many years of our lives - and loving it!
Chai Komlertkul
The Beatlenuts
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