A Guide to What’s Going on in Korea
By Shawn Despres
Jisan Valley Rock Festival revealed the dates today for the second edition of their festival. Jisan Valley Rock Festival 2010 will take place on July 30, July 31, and August 1 at Jisan Forest Resort in Icheon City. More details about the lineup and tickets will surface in the coming months. Happy New Year!
By Shawn Despres
We here at Korea Gig Guide wanted to share our favourite live performances of 2009. Check out the lists below to see what concerts KGG staff enjoyed the most over the last twelve months and please feel free to add your own choices in the comments section.
Mark Russell:
For me, 2009 was a good but not amazing year in music. There were quite a few interesting shows, but not many that blew me away. Personal stuff and work kept me from getting to as many shows as I would have liked, and I missed a couple of the biggest shows of the year. With those caveats, my favorite shows of the year were:
- Funkafric & Boostdah at Gochangjeongol on July 4 (along with Sato Yukie and someone else, who I have now forgotten). Great show, with a real loose, retro vibe, dancing, old music and a great crowd.
- Hwang Bo-ryung at Freebird, for her new album release in May. Absolutely packed house.
- Nosaj Thing show at DGBD on June 27. In particular, the Bulssazo set that opened the gig. Bulssazo is a really interesting band, but they did not have many live shows last year. Hopefully they will play more in 2010.
- Mudaeryuk. The small, odd bar Mudaeryuk started hosting live shows in 2009, usually on Thursday evenings. The shows there are usually small and intimate, with a wide range of acts, both domestic and foreign. But the best part for me is the mood of the place. A lot of interesting artists and other people hang out there, with a decent mix of Koreans and foreigners. And they have Alley Kat Pale Ale on tap.
As for non-Korea shows:
- Leonard Cohen in Barcelona. He may have gotten schmaltzy in his old age, but he’s still one of the best songwriters ever. And seeing him in front of 11,000 rapt Catalans was an interesting experience.
- Tony Allen in Barcelona. This Allen was the drummer for Fela Kuti and a whole bunch of Afrobeat greats. Amazing show, outside beside the Barcelona Cathedral, all all for free.
Shawn Despres:
1. The Roots @ Melon-AX on January 21
2. M83 @ Red Marquee (Fuji Rock Festival, Japan) on July 24
3. Apollo 18 @ Geek Live House on May 1
4. Mass of the Fermenting Dregs @ Red Marquee (Fuji Rock Festival, Japan) on July 26
5. The Plastic Day/ Stretching Journey @ 500 on April 3
6. Ennio Morricone @ Olympic Park Gymnasium on May 27
7. Lullabye Arkestra @ Casbah Lounge (Hamilton, Canada) on January 2
8. Cocore @ DGBG on September 12
9. 49 Morphines @ Sangsang Madang on July 11
10. Sagitta @ Jeju Stepping Stone Festival on July 4
Dain Leathem:
1. Crying Nut @ Melon-AX on September 5
2. Nine Inch Nails @ ETP Festival on August 15
3. Serengeti @ FF on September 25
4. Basement Jaxx @ Jisan Valley Rock Festival on July 25
5. Common Ground @ Jisan Valley Rock Festival on July 24
6. Mineri @ Club Freebird on June 26
7. Apollo 18 @ Sangsang Madang on July 3
8. Psy @ Let’s Rock Festival on September 26
9. YB/ No Brain @ Time to Rock Festival on May 30
10. The Moonshiners @ Grand Mint Festival on October 24
By Mark
Guns N’ Roses had their big concert in Korea last week. I thought I would post the comments sent to me about the show by a friend. They are short, but pretty fun, imho. Enjoy:
… went to see Guns N’ Roses (or, “Axl Rose and some other guys he found”) this past Sunday. Actually a decent show, and with the second song being the opening from Appetite for Destruction (“Do you know where the F___ you are? You’re in the F___ING JUNGLE, baby”) all were happy, if for no other reason than total ridiculousness. You will appreciate that after the lights went down, they played Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” on the sound system for about 2 or 3 minutes before starting, I guess to properly set the mood.
Other idiocies included a solo for every band member, Tommy Stinson (ex-Replacements) playing “My Generation,” one guitarist playing the James Bond theme, another playing the Pink Panther theme, the KEYBOARDIST getting a solo and playing the chords to “Ziggy Stardust,” which was basically as good as me pounding on the piano (read: “not that impressive”) and Waxl even playing Elton John on the piano before getting into “November Rain.” My goodness – throw in “Live and Let Die” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Doo-oo-oo-oo-or” and it was like more covers than originals. Anyway, was fun to go and do something, especially given our poor concert setup usually.
On the Washup Tour’s™ second leg, I’ll be seeing Earth Wind and Fire Thursday…
If anyone else there went to the show and feels like commenting, please send in your reviews. Would love to post more opinions.
Or leave your comments in the KGG forum, if you prefer. The forum is on life support these days, but it is still there.
By Shawn Despres
Although they will participate in the “Bad Christmas Party” at Live Club Ssam (Ssamzie Space) next weekend, December 18’s “Almost Unplugged” gig is The Plastic Day’s proper year-end bash.
Set to take place at Hongdae’s Club Ta, the Seoul trio will begin the late-night concert with a rare, hour-long acoustic set. DJ Jiung Yun and Seong Rock from Bomb&Tree will join the band for a track. Vocalist Sun Ho promises that at least one cover will be worked in as well, but isn’t revealing what it will be.
After a brief break, The Plastic Day will return to the stage for a regular 90-minute electric show that will see them tearing through nearly all of the wonderfully noisy rock anthems present on this spring’s “30 Seconds Between The Dreamer and The Realist” full-length and 2007’s “Lady” EP.
The band gets to rest after that, but the festivities will be far from finished. DJ Jiung Yun will set up shop and spin his own electronic dance remixes of his favourite tracks from The Plastic Day.
Doors for The Plastic Day’s “Almost Unplugged” will open at 11 pm and the performance will begin around midnight. The cover charge is 15,000 won.
The Plastic Day had a lot to celebrate in 2009. “30 Seconds Between The Dreamer and The Realist” received high praise from mainstream and independent Korean and English media outlets. They group were invited to appear at the Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival and at Love Camp. They also opened for Tokyo’s Melt-Banana during their South Korea tour.
“30 Seconds Between The Dreamer and The Realist” was recently included amongst Indieful ROK’s Anna Lindgren’s top discs of the year on her London Korean Links “LKL Critics’ Choice 2009” list.
In other band news, bassist Ho Seong and drummer Yun Beom provide backing instrumentation on two songs on Bomb&Tree’s “Sooner Or Later” CD single that was issued earlier this month.
By Dain Leathem
Last Friday I made it to Club Ta and caught an excellent night of reggae tinged/ska focused madness. Re:Ska, now a 7-piece, kicked things off with an awesome set. With their new fuller sound and great energy they have really grown in all ways since I first saw them last year. Busan Ska outfit Wake Up sadly played their last gig (goddamn military service strikes again) and showed a slightly more aggressive rocky take on ska, without resorting to the overdone punk ska sound - very nice. Then the least reggae band of the night, “Ynot?”, actually announced they weren’t really reggae, but with their positive energy, tights skills and distinct taste in covers they fit right in and had the whole place jumping crazily. Lastly, Kingston Rudie Ska arrived and raised their glasses before they kicked off an awesome set. This was a wicked night that displayed the variety, charisma and love of the local reggae/ska scene.
Did I mention this was the first of two big reggae gigs happening in Seoul in a nine-day period? If you missed last Friday’s one, then this Saturday you get a second chance to hear the love.
Club Blue Spirit hosts a more traditional reggae night on Saturday (Nov. 21), “Let Jah Music Play” with Windy City headlining. The five-piece have had a great year, headlining the tent on Saturday night at Jisan, playing after No Brain at Ssamzie fest, and need little introduction. They mix in a little funk and jazz, but remain Korea’s foremost traditional reggae band. Band leader Kim Bang Jang’s other band, I & I Djangdan, play reggae’s mellowest derivative, dub music. To see them live is to feel them, a great Korean take on this genre. Seoul’s newest reggae group, The Seoul Steady Rockers will also be there with their more uptempo reggae sounds. The lineup is completed with Mama Steppa and Bibim Kingman, and it’s a great night of diverse sounds.
Yes, the local reggae scene keeps growing, and it great to see so many acts working together to put on big nights, so go out and taste the sound - Saturday’s gig is 20,000 from 9pm.
Editor: Sadly, Blue Spirit is not on our map. Blue Spirit is down the tiny alley by Ska Bar, across the street from the 7/11 and Club Evans. I have this one map of the club, but it is only in Korean, sorry. I hope it helps, though.
Also, here is a clip of Windy City for you:
By Mark
Just a reminder that the electro band Yacht, together with White Rainbow, will be in Korea this week, playing three shows around the peninsula.
The mini-tour kicks off on Thursday down in Busan, where they play at club Basement at 10:30. The next night they are in Seoul, at V-Hall beginning at 10pm. And they close out the tour in Daegu on Saturday at Skyy, at 8pm.
Full information about the shows, line-ups, how to buy tickets, and more is here.
The Yacht tour is the latest promotion by Super Color Super, an upstart promotion company, headed by Sean from the band Sighborg. It is great seeing someone working so hard to improve the scene a bit, so I hope plenty of people will support the gig (especially if you want more bands to come to Korea in the future).
By Mark
I just found out about this fun new website called Pocket of Sky (thanks to Indieful ROK, as usual), where the blogger Nicole posts her translations of Korean indie band lyrics. How very useful.
She has just gotten started, so there are only a couple of albums there now (Yozoh and Belle Epoque), but hopefully she will keep at it and build up her collection soon. Thanks much, Nicole!
UPDATE:
Anna from Indieful ROK points out a couple more lyric translation sites:
By Mark
Some really good shows coming up for the Halloween weekend — goth party at Sapiens 7, a really strong line-up at Soundholic. But if I may be so bold as to suggest a few that stick out in my mind…
The biggie on Halloween evening will be the Ssamzie Space show, featuring Byul and Baik Hyun-jhin. I have not been to see Byul since the band expanded to have so many more members and instruments, and am very curious to see what they are like these days. Hyun-jin is Hyun-jin, one of the hotter artists in Korea and the former lead of Uh Uh Boo Project, as always he does his own raspy, expressive thing. Together, a very solid combination. The show starts at 7:30 and costs 25,000 won.
* * *
Mineri has long been one of my favorite bands in Hongdae,with a sound that just seems to get tighter and better time after time. Well the man behind the band, Jung-kyu, recently made some moves to the band, removing his drummer and bassist. For the moment, filling in on bass is Blair Lee (of the Animal Dads) and on drums is Ripley (formerly of Jet Echo). Very solid.
Mineri will be playing as part of a big line-up of bands Friday night at Club Ta. About 12 bands will be there, including Ynot? and Kafka. Show costs 10,000 won and starts at 7:30. I am told that Mineri will likely be starting late.
Mineri will also be playing at Rock in Shinchon on Nov. 6 and at Freebird on Nov. 7. Rock is one of the best and most-storied bars in Shinchon, not as well known as bars like Woodstock or Norihaneun Saram, but even older and more important (and it has a great, great vinyl collection). They do not have live music often, but when they do, they have a great set-up for it.
I cannot find the information about those two shows yet (start times, price), but will try to get them as soon as I can.
(Editor’s note: I almost missed this post by Dain about the weekend concerts. He has some totally different advice from mine, but variety is a good thing. Enjoy)
By Dain Leathem
It’s a huge weekend in Korea for those who want to go see some live music, and both Friday and Saturday have great options. Last year, Halloween was on Clubday, leading to an insanely crowded Hongdae, so be thankful this year gives you 2 nights instead of one.
Possibly the pick of the gigs is Blue Spirit Friday night. Where else can you get Crying Nut, No Brain, Windy City & others in a small club for 15,000 won? Doors open at 9pm.
Speaking of Crying Nut, it’s a great time to be a fan of theirs as they seem to poppin up around town in small places a lot. They’ve been in good form at a lot of the big outdoor festivals, have a great new album out, and also will play Sunday night at DGDB.
If you do go to Clubday Friday, you will get to see 2 bands I have wanted to play alongside each other for a while, Telepathy and Gogostar, who both play at FF - be interesting to see them go at it.
Saturday is also a hard one to choose, with a Kimchi-billy night on, Hip Hop & gambling @ Walker Hill, even a little K-Pop hits Blue Spirit, so there is not excuse not to enjoy one of Hongdae’s biggest weekends of the year.
By Jon
Earlier this year, Korea’s two main rock festivals “happened” to fall on the same weekend. To prove that the Korean punk scene is no better organised, there are two punk festivals planned for this weekend. Small in that they’re in regular Hongdae clubs, but each lineup contains a large, expensive number of Japanese bands.
First, at Club Spot, the Korea/Japan Oi/Punk Festival is going down. This is either the fourth or fifth incarnation held in Korea, but the first outside of Skunk Hell. The best of Korea’s punk scene is joined by three familiar Japanese skinhead bands (Booted Cocks, Tabloid Play, and Raise a Flag) along with newcomers 100 Hooligans (who probably had to charter a plane to bring all their members). The show is broken up into two halves, with all the Japanese bands playing the first half. It remains to be seen if it is wise booking the festival in Spot, or having Crying Nut play.
Same night, over at Rolling Hall, the Korea/Japan Unionway Punk Rock Festival is going on. Featuring more skate-punk and screamo stuff on the Korean side, and a bunch of Japanese bands I’ve never heard of, it probably would’ve been smarter to book this in Spot and have the Oi Fest in Rolling Hall. Oh well, I guess 2009 is the year of poorly scheduled festivals.
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