Santika Pub – Lifestyles of the Rushed and
Famished
It is easy to talk in
cliches when surveying the music scene
in Bangkok but it is certainly no longer
appropriate or de riguer to talk about
corny bands playing corny tunes any more.
Or complaining about the inevitability
of Hotel California forming part of your
evening’s entertainment around town. If
that is still the case for you, you can
not be getting around much any more, because
the music scene in the better venues much
better reflects what’s happening in the
charts today. And while it may not be
everybody’s cup of tea, much of the music
is the real deal and no mistake.
Someone has to be doing
Eminem and Linkin Park and laying down
the hip hop grooves that have been pouring
from our radios now for years. And yes
they are, and it ain’t bad neither as
most of it is layered over fairly serious
rock structures, and you can still get
down to some serious grooves without making
a fool of yourself.
Want
to get some of the action? Well you need
to head for Santika Pub on Soi
Ekkamai or Sukhumvit Soi 63 to
be absolutely correct. And to be sure,
the very large and brand new Santika Pub
is right opposite Soi 16 for the taxi
driver.
A very spacious car
park crammed full of Benz’s and BM’s and
the like gives a kind of signal that this
may not quite be any old pub with music,
and that’s about right. It is a very well-designed
building with a sweeping terrace, a generous
lobby and a deep and comprehensive groove
tank where all the dance action is. There
is a pool table, but that’s well off the
beaten track so to speak, and you do not
come here to play pool.
Along one side of the
main auditorium there is a very classy
balcony with private space away from the
hordes, and the adjacent terrace also
holds a good fifty to one hundred punters
who may want a more quiet evening and
even a good meal.
But back to the main
hall. The lobby vestibule looks down on
the main hall and on the stage which is
big and very well-equipped. Loads of room
for the bright young things and their
guitars to grind and mesh and mosh or
whatever it is young rockers do nowadays.
And make no mistake, the first band “BURN”
rock very seriously, and get the punters
gripping their drinks and getting ready
for more. This music is not for the casual
listener. This is mainline music to get
the adrenalin up and the drinks order
rate into high gear.
Like the old showbands,
BURN feature two of everything except
bass and drums and the two singers kept
the pace up without any hesitation and
while the format is jaded, the music makes
up for it.
No Mor Lam here mate!
The band blows away
any pretensions of a quiet night out,
and their energy and musicality is infectious,
and soon you are grooving along with the
heavy licks and full on head-banging hip
hop. Make no mistake, they are here to
rock the city, masks and all, and they
cover the full range of hip hop/rock tunes.
Sequencers set on STUN, they move arrestingly
into ‘Zombie’ and ‘We will Rock You’ and
other rock classics, but always with that
unmistakable hip hop groove.
The sound is great from
a very well thought out system, in a huge
room acoustically designed to keep the
sound stable, and not bouncing off the
walls and glass. The fibre walls, drapings,
woods and panelling are all strategically
placed within the design to keep the sound
pristine and perfect and loud and clear.
Rock on!
If you have ever been
to NASA disco over by Klong Tan, you will
be struck by the similarity of the design
as you enter Santika Pub. Loads of room
to hang and drink with huge televison
screens and it is a drinker’s place, with
a cover charge of 500 baht a head which
gets you two cocktails. You don’t get
in without any ID either, and that goes
for you older farangs too. It means everybody,
and the security guys are not interested
in explanations as to where you might
have left your passport or copy thereof.
Have it with you or else.
The mostly young crowd
of some two hundred punters all got in
without any hassle anyway, but few if
any were under twenty, most products of
the music and advertising industries with
a few off-duty actors and actresses thrown
in.
We took in the first
band until 10:30 pm and then retired to
the terrace where we were pounced upon
by the otherwise unoccupied terrace staff.
There is a very ambitious menu with a
selection of Western food and local stuff,
and we were starved. I had the Seafood
Spaghetti and My Girl went with the Grilled
Salmon Steak helped along with a Fried
Prawn Salad and a Grilled Sea Bass between
us! Very marine and very delicious it
all was too, washed down with some cold
Heineken. The diversion set us back just
a little over a thousand baht which ain’t
bad considering you were away from the
madding crowd, and just a short walk away
from the main event.
While we ate, the two
DJs were giving it big licks with more
hip hop…yes, there was no compromise.
Like it or lump it, or dance all night!
SANTIKA PUB
235/11 Sukhumvit Soi 63
North Klongton, Wattana
Bangkok 10110
Tel: 02 711 5886
