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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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 Posted: Sat Mar 22, 2014 3:07 pm Post subject: |
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| 12ax7 wrote: |
| joeteacher wrote: |
| Would someone give this country some drugs and a guitar? |
There used to be, but that all got screwed up in the mid '70s when the government started cracking down on artists it saw as a threat to their authority, sending some of them to jail for their use of cannabis and then banning them from performing. |
Wow. Interesting story.
Check out some of the songs here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94247883
He'd developed his passion for western music via American Forces Korea Network. "I ended up building my own radio to listen to American music," he says. "It had poor reception and terrible static, but I was just happy that I was able to listen to music. I thought jazz was simply amazing. But, honestly, I enjoyed any music that was played on AFKN.
"During my first performance, the GIs were shouting, 'Hey shorty! Play guitar solo!'" remembers Shin, who duly asked his bandleader for permission. "He gave me this sheet music book and told me to practise … I played my first guitar solo during my next performance: the crowd went wild, and the bandleader raised my wage by 50%."
The following year, Shin cut his first records, covers of Korean pop. His own tastes remained attuned to the west, however. "I remember the first time I heard the Beatles. I was mesmerised by their sound: it was blissful. I tried to mimic them with my four-piece, ADD4."
Shin's pseudo-Merseybeat quartet failed to find success in the Korean market. His embrace of psychedelia would prove a turning point a couple of years later, however, when his new group, Club Date, performed Jefferson Airplane's Somebody to Love live on Korean television, to instant acclaim.
AFKN had clued Shin into the psychedelic sounds then emanating from the US. "I mimicked their music, visuals and sounds without fully understanding what it was," he admits. "Later, I was playing a 'psychedelic' song and some American hippies – antiwar protesters – came to listen. I became friends with them, and they taught me what psychedelic music really was. They also gave me LSD."
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/15/shin-joong-hyun-korean-psychedelic
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In 1972 South Korean president Park Chung Hee asked Shin to write a song in praise of the president.[6] Shin refused and instead wrote a song about the beauty of Korea, called "AhReumDaUn GangSan" (아름다운강산).[6] After this his music career began to suffer from police harassment and governmental interference.[6] Some of his songs were banned as "vulgar" or "noisy", and in August 1975, he was arrested for "involvement" with marijuana.[6]
After his release, he was banned from public performance for years.[7] With the death of Park Chung Hee, he was free to perform, but public tastes in music had changed by then.[7] "It was all, 'Let's work hard,' and 'Let's be happy' kind of stuff. It was completely physical, with no spirit, no mentality, no humanity. That trend has carried over all the way to today..." according to Shin.[7]
During the 1980s, Shin ran a music club in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood popular with foreign visitors and U.S. Army personnel.[7] He opened "Woodstock", another music club, in southeast Seoul in 1986, and ran it for the next two decades.[7] |
The hippies went back to the United States, Mr. Shin said, but left a huge quantity of marijuana at his home. South Korean musicians, interested in experimenting, came to him.
After four months in prison, Mr. Shin found that the government had banned his songs, a ban that was lifted only after Mr. Park was assassinated in 1979. Clubs started offering him gigs again. But by then disco had supplanted his style of music, young waiters told him to play faster, and he was considered out of fashion.
It was only in recent years that his music was rediscovered, and young musicians recorded covers of his songs in “A Tribute to Shin Joong-hyun.”
The lost years, though, have added a bitter edge to Mr. Shin, who never raked in the big money that goes to Western rock stars. He makes about $10,000 a month now, and complains that he is being cheated.
He describes current popular music as “demented.” Like many in his generation, Mr. Shin remains fiercely pro-American and rails at the youth’s misgivings and criticisms about America.
“Young people don’t know anything,” he said. “They’re pathetic. It’s because of the U.S. we have what we have.” |
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Ralph Winfield
Joined: 23 Apr 2013
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| Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 12:17 am Post subject: |
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| So, he is the senior citizen who owns the Woodstock in Itaewon? Wow, I've chatted with him so many times and he did not mention having a musical past. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:03 am Post subject: |
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| It's bittersweet to see him now. There's a sort of twitchiness to him that makes me wonder what happened to him during his time in prison. Wouldn't be surprised if he was tortured under orders from the regime. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 6:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Are you sure that is him at Woodstock? I was under the impression he owned it from 1986-2006 (but I'm not 100% sure, as what I read was vague). Maybe that guy is his friend and/or a new owner? |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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| Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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Great article:
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/n_feature/2013/02/14/16/4901000000AEN20130214003200315F.HTML
Celebrities that were picked up on marijuana charges were made into humiliating examples. Most notable was rocker Shin Joong-hyun, who years earlier had refused to write a song praising the dictator. Shin was tortured, committed to a mental hospital and paraded before the media as a crazed drug addict. His career and rock and roll in general went up in smoke. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 12:44 am Post subject: |
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Interesting, so they've gone for a kind of Russian grandmother in pyjamas look. Don't know how they did it but they've managed to design an outfit that's even less erotic than the cheerleader-trackie-bottoms-crash helmet ensemble.
Best not mention the song |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 2:31 am Post subject: |
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| I'm sure it'll be the customary triumph for the Korean wave. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:53 am Post subject: |
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They are weird so that will at least get them notoriety. (ala Psy) I'd guess western audiences DONT want to see carbon copies of their own hits thrown back at them, but rather something weird and different.
I kinda like the new song! It's so bad it's almost good. They are unapologetically goofy and at least a little different than the other K-pop clones who try to pass off rip-off renditions of western pop.
Also, watch for more K-pop acts to copy them soon. I'm already seeing some Korean videos copying the ultra cutie/weird kawaii thing that Japanese pop act Kyary Pamyu Pamyu does. So maybe that'll be the new thing they all copy. |
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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm curious WT, are you actually a fan of this stuff or just posting it to start a discussion? |
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tatertot
Joined: 21 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 11:41 pm Post subject: |
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WTF? |
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edwardcatflap
Joined: 22 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 12:44 am Post subject: |
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| I can understand why they're on sale at three for the price of one. There's no meat on them at all. |
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Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2014 5:34 am Post subject: |
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Yup, that's the one. Very much a stylistic ripoff of Japanese Pamyu Pamyu. Oh well, you knew it'd happen sooner rather than later. |
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