Singapore Bands in Wartime Vietnam

In the 1960s and ’70s, lured by adventure and money, Singaporean musicians went to South Vietnam to perform for American troops during the war. They were met with cheers, bullets and assault.

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What Boon Lai Talked About

02:01 – How Boon Lai came to know of local musicians who went to Vietnam during the 1960s and ’70s
05:33 – When these musicians went to Vietnam
08:47 – Why these musicians decided to perform in the warzone
11:30 – How these musicians were recruited
15:56 – How much they were paid
16:44 – Nightly curfews
18:35 – Daily schedules of musicians
20:50 – Close call with bullets
21:53 – Musician Veronica Young’s experience as a woman
24:53 – How long Impian Bateks and other musicians played in Saigon
27:12 – Boon Lai’s three-year research process
28:58 –Boon Lai’s DKD sequel
29:44 – Hardest thing about creating a historical graphic novel

About the Guest

Boon Lai is an author, an illustrator and a filmmaker based in Singapore. Inspired by the true accounts of the rockers who toured the Vietnam War, he created the three-book graphic novel series, The Once & Marvellous DKD. 

Resources

Boon Lai, "American Troops. Singapore Bands. The Vietnam War," BiblioAsia 20, no. 1 (2023).

Boon Lai, The Once & Marvellous DKD, bks 1–3 (Singapore: Mentalworks, 2019–2020).

Joseph C. Pereira, Apache over Singapore: The Story of Singapore Sixties Music, vol. 1 (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2011).

Joseph C. Pereira, Beyond the Tea Dance: The Story of Singapore Sixties Music, vol. 2 (Singapore: Select Publishing, 2014).

Joseph C. Pereira, Legends of the Golden Venus (Singapore: Times Editions, 1999).

Charles H. Waterhouse, Vietnam Sketchbook. Drawings from Delta to DMZ (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Co., 1968).

Credits

This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by One Dash. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Boon Lai for coming on the show.

BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.