Korea Gig Guide

Sato Yukie at Gopchangjeongol

By Mark

Okay, this is totally last-minute, but I just found out that Sato Yukie is going to be playing at the bar Gopchangjeongol tonight (Saturday), at 8pm.

Yukie is, of course, our funky Japanese friend with a great love for Korean classic rock. In Japan, he had a band that played covers of Korean classics, also called Gopchangjeongol.

The location Gopchangjeongol is, imho, the best bar in Korea. It recently moved down the street, and is now in a great basement location, right beside Club Bbang, close to the Sanullim Theater. The bar has one of best collections of old Korean rock music (and now, with the move, a pretty good collection of western rock, too).

Gopchangjeongol does not have live music there often, but when they do, it is usually something special. Check it out.

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Sparrows, Pigeons, and Independence

By Ian Chiasson

This Saturday one could find themselves celebrating Independence Day, or if you’re not American, just another weekend with On Sparrows Hills, Vildugi OoyoO, and Look and Listen at Club TA.

While there won’t be any fireworks or gigantic portions of meat, there will be reverb, beer and 3 bands that won’t disappoint. On Sparrows Hills are the remnants, plus 2, of the short lived but very intriguing, The Fist. (You can download, for free, The Fist’s album here)

Vuldugi OoyoO (which means “Pigeon Milk” - ED.) features members of Juck Juck Haeseo Grunge. This is where the reverb/shoegazer reference has roots.

With Look and Listen you may hear a comparison or two to Sleater Kinney/”riot girl” type stuff, whatever that means.

Both Look and Listen and Vidulgi OoyoO will be pretty busy this month around Hongdae, if you can’t make it to Saturday’s show.

Show starts at 11:00. Cost is 5,000 won.

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Bulssazo’s Brief Return

By Shawn Despres

As Mark previously mentioned, Bulssazo will be opening for Nosaj Thing and Sighborg at DGBD on Saturday night (June 27).

This will be the Seoul trio’s first live appearance since November 22, 2008. Drummer Young Il Ko is currently completing his mandatory military service and guitarist Sang Chul Han and bassist Myung Hoon Seo have been busy with other things, resulting in several months of non-activity for the band. According to Han, ending their hiatus was not an easy choice, but ultimately playing with Nosaj Thing was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“We are big fans of Nosaj Thing’s remix tracks and his singles so we wanted to support his Korean tour,” Han says in a short email interview with KGG.

Bulssazo have released two discs of awesome shoegazey post-rock goodness, 2005’s “Furious Five” and 2006’s “I Also Will Laugh at Your Disaster…” on Pastel Music. After a lineup change that saw Ko joining high school chums Han and Seo they opted to no longer perform tracks from those efforts. They penned new, instrumental songs, several of which were performed last year at the now defunct Skunk Hell, Bowie, and during their opening slot for Envy at Rolling Hall, and hope to record them, but Han admits that’s unfortunately unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Han is uncertain of what cuts Bulssazo will turn out on Saturday night saying they’ll adjust their set to suit the mood of the crowd. There’s a pretty high chance this will be their only concert this year. If things change and they do another show expect it to be intimate.

“Maybe we won’t play any more gigs, but if we plan something only our band will play,” Han states. “There won’t be any other bands on the bill. I know we have low sales and no ticket power, but I don’t care. Maybe we play to only five or six audience members, but it will be great. If less than 10 people come, I’ll pay for their dinner after the show and we can all talk together.”

I wouldn’t bank on a band this stellar drawing less than 10 folks, but if they did those lucky few patrons would definitely be in for a way-too-cool night.

Bulssazo interview with K.O.A Zine here.
My Bulssazo live review from May 2008 for Smashing Mag here.
Video clips of their July 2008 gig at Rolling Hall here.

Doors open at 10:30 p.m. on Saturday night and Bulssazo are on first, so make sure you’re there EARLY. Tickets are 15,000 won (presale – ends tonight at midnight for Saturday/ Sunday shows) and 18,000 won at the door.

Los Angeles-based Korean-American electronic artist Nosaj Thing, whose new debut disc “Drift” has been attracting its fair share of positive press, and Sighborg also play on Sunday in Seoul at Daily Projects with Trampauline. There will be a pre-concert “meet n’ greet” BBQ at Daily Projects starting around 4 p.m. On July 3 Nosaj Thing and Sighborg will be at Urban in Daegu and they will close out their tour on July 4 in Busan at Vinyl Underground. For full details on all gigs, visit Super Color Super’s site.

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More Wild Gals

By Shawn Despres

The 2nd Wild Women’s Performing Arts Festival is taking place at 500 (Obeg) in Hondgae on Saturday, June 27. Featuring an eclectic mix of talented local and foreign female performers the night will showcase a wide range of music, dance, poetry, and spoken word while raising funds and awareness for the Korean Women’s Association United.

The debut Wild Women’s fest took place in January and was a great success. More than 300 people attended and several million won was donated to the KWAU thanks to their support. The 2nd edition promises to be even more memorable.

Here is the lineup and set times for Saturday night:
7.00 Jen Waescher (acoustic folk)
7.20 Kate Bissel (poetry)
7.30 Katelyn Convery (acoustic folk)
7.45 Nkuli Marope (spoken word)
7.50 Kangho Dallim (acoustic blues)
8.15 Tamara Kowalska (spoken word)
8.25 Buchurama (Korean experimental folk)
8.55 Song Soonjin and Kim Suyeon — Korean Vagina Monologue: “Say It” with English subtitles
9.15 Fumi Hill (Participatory Movement Activity)
9.25 Some Dance Company (modern dance)
9.40 Lauren Bedard (spoken word)
9.50 Orgeltanz (gypsy-inspired folk with belly dancing by Eshe)
10.30 Navah (belly dance)
10.50 Bridget Martin (acoustic/electric folk)
11.20 Leash (mask dance)
11.30 Bobby Beakbane with Greg James Hanford (fire dance)
11.50 Melissa Kelman (belly dance and fire dance)
12.05 Pika (electronica)

DJ Tygerlily and DJ Mo’chi are up after Pika and will be spinning tunes until the wee hours of the morn.

Cover is 16,000 won with one free drink. Sangsu Station is the closest subway stop to 500. For detailed directions on how to get to 500 from Sangsu Station click here.

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Nosaj Time Like the Present

By Mark

Okay, first of all, sorry for not updating the main page for so long. I’m sure I could have and should have, but I did not, so sorry.

Anyhow, here is an event that is not happening for a couple of weeks, but considering how I am not using this main page for anything more urgent, it deserves your attention. I’m talking about the mini-tour of Korea that Sean Maylone has organized for Nosaj Thing.

(click image to embiggen)

Nosaj Thing will have four shows in Korea, starting June 27 at DGBD (aka, Club Drub), then June 28 at Daily Projects, then July 3 at Urban in Daegu and continuing July 4 in Busan at Vinyl Underground.

Sean’s band Sighborg will be playing at all the shows. Spookfish will also be playing for the Daegu and Busan shows. And, in a personal favorite, Bulssazo will be playing the DGBD show in Seoul in the 26th. You can also learn more about the shows here.

All in all, it is a pretty interesting set of shows… something between live and DJ sets, the kind of thing Korea does not often get.

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Venues Added

By Mark

As you can see in the top bar, I have added a section called “Venues”. Which is just what it sounds like, a listing of many of the live clubs, halls and other music spaces around Korea.

I know my map is sorely lacking and I have been wanting to upgrade it for some time. But that has proved to be really difficult to get right, so I thought the next-best thing might be to have a text-based listing of the live venues. Hopefully we will have most of the major places in Korea listed there soon, with descriptions of what the club is like, how to find it, links to maps, and anything else people might find useful.

This venues sections is very much a work in progress, so feel free to email me or Shawn or Jon with your suggestions, additions, deletions or whatever.

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Random Music Notes, Part 3 (or part something … I lost track)

By Mark

This is a little late now, I just noticed that Dafne Lee over at Radiocactuscube has been listing the winners of this year’s Korean Music Awards, along with translating the explanations about the award winners.

Lee has divided the KMA award results into four sections, part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. A very worthwhile set of postings and I highly recommend reading them all if you are at all interested in the best of Korean music.

(Found via IndiefulROK, of course).

Over at the Korea Herald, there is a decent feature about Korea’s indie music scene, with some profiles and whatnot. Unfortunately, the Herald’s link to that music website at Daum called Indiestory does not seem to be working. I hope they fix that before too long.

Finally, I would just like to point out that May was the biggest month yet at the Gig Guide. We have been growing steadily since this site was launched, and especially since December when the numbers really started to climb. No one is going to confuse us with Rolling Stone or Pitchfork Music, but it is great to see people taking an interest in Korean music. Thanks so much for coming here.

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Urban Explorers Unite

By Jon Dunbar

(Self-promotion alert) If you’ve seen my site, you probably know I have this thing I do where I go to abandoned places. Apartments, amusement parks, red-light districts, 747s, you name it. Now I’m putting on a photo exhibition in Incheon of prints of some of the best photos.

Since Incheon is a little out of the way for most people, four bands will play at the opening on Saturday, June 6. Starting the show will be Pornotarium, Korea’s most multicultural band, as well as new Korean punk band Mateo, hardcore band with a death wish Chadburger, and finishing the show by trashing everything will be noise band Master Musik. The show starts at 3pm so come early and get back to wherever you need to go that evening. For the trainride back, you can pick up a manual to urban exploration in Korea.

The whole thing is happening in Space Beam, a former soy factory in Baedari, Dongincheon. Now it’s an art collective that puts the rest of the country to shame. It’s next to the tracks and you can see it to the train, on the right side seconds before you pull into Dongincheon Station. Click here for the exact location.

RSVP on Facebook.

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May Ends With a Bang

By Mark

UPDATE: Club Day has apparently been canceled. Due to the funeral of Roh Moo-hyun. Not sure what is happening with the individual gigs. I think they are still on… Will let you know when I know.

ORIGINAL POST: A pretty busy weekend coming up, with something for pretty much everyone. We have big shows (the Time to Rock fest down in Jamsil on Saturday, just 20,000 won for a big, long show). We have jazz (Malo singing at Watercock). Of course, Friday night is Club Night, so 20,000 won will get you into a whole bunch of clubs to see a whole bunch of bands.

A lot of bands are even having multiple shows this weekend - Plastic Day, Juck Juck Haeseo Grunge, and W&Whale are all performing more than once. 3-Hosun Butterfly is making a rare appearance (Club Ta on Saturday). I&I Djangdan brings their usual reggae dub sound to Obec on Saturday. And the experimental noise outfit Bulgasari brings its feedback to Yogiga on Sunday.

So, lots to see and do. The weather is just about perfect. I hope to see you at some of the events this weekend.

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Something To See & Hear

By Shawn Despres

Seoul’s Look & Listen will play this Saturday night (May 23) at Club Bbang in Hongdae. The influences cited on their MySpace page include Japanese three-pieces Shonen Knife and The 5.6.7.8’s (who are best known for their appearance in Kill Bill). Fans of the two acts and of poppy, garage-ish indie rock in general will probably enjoy the catchy tunes being crafted by Look & Listen.

Formed by vocalist and guitarist Lee Jung Min and bassist Kim Mi Sook, the trio made their live debut in May 2008. The ladies first met in university and began playing together in the ska punk group Egg Scramble. When Egg Scramble disbanded Lee and Kim started Look & Listen. Egg Scramble’s drummer gigged with the two early on, but was replaced by You Yun Min last summer.

The act hope to record their full-length debut in September. They recently signed on with Seoul’s Beatball Records and with any luck the imprint will have the disc out by year’s end. There are four demo tracks up on their MySpace site and a whole whack of live videos here.

Kim is also a member of Summer Here Kids. The band’s guitarist is traveling to the United States in June, so they won’t be performing until later in the summer.

Saturday’s show at Bbang starts at 7:30 p.m. Cover is 15,000 won with one free drink.

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