Si Bung Parelpet
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Si Bung Parelpet is the Indonesian alter ego of Ron ‘Parelvet’ Smith. Ron, born in 1955 in Telukbetung, Indonesia, came to the Netherlands in 1958 with his parents, brother and sister. He belongs to the second generation of Indo-Dutch people.
Throughout his entire musical life, Parelvet wrote and sang in English. During the first COVID lockdown Ron finally had time to address what had long gone unsaid resulting in an unpublished family chronicle and in its wake, a solid number of Indo songs in Dutch, here and there sprinkled with Malay. The songs can be heard in the podcast ‘Mama, Waarom Zijn Wij Indo’s’ by niece Stephanie Teekens and on the digital album Si Bung Parelpet, now released on Dordrecht’s Sheephead Records, a sublabel of Social Beats.
The album Si Bung Parelpet was recorded at home during the lockdown with minimal means. The result is an intimate, deeply personal album with the central theme – how could it be otherwise – ‘Indo identity’.
Who is Parelvet? Parelvet is the alter ego of Ron Smith, world-famous in Dordrecht as the guitar man of surf-cocktail band Trio Koko and fifties band The Wanderers. Parelvet: old school singer-songwriting in the Americana genre; tear-jerking country-folk and smoldering blues with a rock and roll edge.
Credits: Ron ‘Parelvet’ Smith – all instruments and vocals, recordings, production and pre-mix. Geert Teekens (Hotboks Studio) – remix. Edwin in ‘t Veld – mastering. Stephanie Teekens – artwork.
