Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Caustic]

If you want some real good Korean punk check out www.skunklabel.com

My old band is Rux. We played stuff like Rancid, Dropkick Murphys and ... I don't know, stuff like that.

There's no good streetpunk here in Korea. Nothing similar to the Unseen or Causulties or anything like that. Thank your god I have a huge collection of 7" in storage! My newest band just broke up before we even had a chance to play a show, our drummer left Korea. If you guys know of any good punk drummers please let me know

If anyone out there wants to see real Korean punk I'll be glad to show them Good stuff out there but you gotta look for it. Not many shows going on though, we had to close our club recently...

-Paul, the happy heretic-

[The Donkey]

Caustic-
So where do all of you Korean Punk rockers hang out?

[Tiberious aka Sparkles]

Ok, perhaps Ji Yoon has had some work done, but who's to say. Her eyes do look a little altered, I'll give you that. But I don't care. She's my girlfriend. I can't dump her now just because she may have gone under the knife (and who hasn't done something to enhance themself, like wearing deoderant for example?).

Ji Yoon darling: don't worry. If you don't tell my wife that we have something going on, I won't care how many times you visit your plastic surgeon. Even if you do decide to have your breasts enlarged.

What? I can't use the word breasts? How about tchi-tchi? 가 슴? 유 방?

[U.S.A.]

Lecher! One album and gone, but it was a darn good album.

Here's some info about the band, but you need to know Korean:

http://www.bluenoise.com/blueview/newface/lecher/


Not real popular but I did see the following band live once. They're still on the rough side.

http://www.rocktigers.com/

[Caustic]

[IconsFanatic]

I can't wait to get to Korea, because they have damn good live jazz over there, especially barrelhouse jazz.

I've heard numerous mp3s and CDs, and it's brill.

Supposedly the best jazz clubs are in Seoul, Busan, and (yeck!) Ulsan.

[kiwifruit]

If any of you are in Seoul later this year the Eerie taeji festival should be on. For those that don't know it is 'put on' by Seotaeji. Korea's most famous rock musician/group. Who only play together once or twice a year and record an album about as often.

Kind of a weird sounding group. A little like Korn but more melodic and well... beep! I don't know.

This year some useless group from florida played called Scrape. Actually they weren't TOOOOO bad, but I doubt you will ever hear of them. Also Tommy Lee's band played. They were surprisingly reasonable! Also a lot of Korean and Japanese groups played. The Japanese group Hide (pronounced He-dare) were something to stare at.

Does anyone know if the SKA club is still going in Hongdae and what it is like? Everytime I go to club night we get stuck in the other clubs.

There are a few clubs in Hongdae playing good live rock music. Jammers for example.

You just have to get off your arse and possibly bite the bullet first time and go with a Korean.

kf

[sid]

This thread has made me smile, I was something of a lone positive voice in discussions of Korean music with my foreign friends over there.

My favourites included:

Kim Jang Hoon, great voice, saw him in concert
Park Ji Yoon (shame about that home video)
Park Jin Young, GOD producer who did some fun records himself
Brown Eyes, first album really nice R&B, second seems a bit slower and more slushy
Fly to the Sky, pretty standard R&B but it sounds much better when you only half-understand the lyrics
Psy, for his trashiness, and cos my best Korean friend looked like a fat Psy
Cool (a band) I learned to sing Aloha in noraebang, ah happy days!
Wax and J, both female singers fantastic sad voices


I thought all the boy bands did some okay-ish singles, at least compared to the Westlife and Pop Idol stuff we are getting in the UK. Never found a stable position on the great SES vs FIN.K.L. debate, perhaps they are both on the way out now though?

[Cthulhu]

Most of it is very bad, some of it is just bad, and a small amount is tolerable. Of course, the tolerable stuff doesn't get seen much because it doesn't hit the middle-school girl demographic. As far as I can see, if you don't watch it you aren't missing anything. Music isn't made to be watched anyway.

[Harpeau]

My favourite song is Yang, Hee-eun's "Eeroowah Jilsoo Omneun Saram". It's a very sad tune.

Lee Seung-hoon Vol. 1 is my fave. Korean CD. Great melodies.

Also Dool Gook hwa (I'm a friend of their drummer Joo, Chang-won- really cool guy!)

Harpo

[Caustic]

Yeah, 99.9% of the music here is absolutly horrible, even the "underground" stuff is just unlistenable.

A Kyobo punk story...

About 6 years ago when I was just getting into punk I used to go and check out Crying Nut's street DIY shows in Shinchon. That was the most underground stuff in Korea ta the time I knew of. Now look at them- doing ads for converse. Pretty sad really, them caling themselves punk. It's so hard to be in a indie or punk band here in Korea, there's not much money in it. When I was in Rux we took a tour down to Pusan but only got paid about 8000won. We lost tons of money. We had our club open but not enough people were comming. This was about July last year. We had to close it unfortunatly and we had about 5 punks all living there including me, we just couldn't pay rent. This was about August last year. We all had to sleep in the park in Hondae and I played guitar on the street for change (I still do when it's warm). We weren't selling many albums either (we sold them for about 3000won each) so we started working construction. Man, that was a horrible job, 13 hours a day hauling bricks at about 5000 won an hour. That lasted about 2 monthes then it started getting cold. I got a place with the money I saved. We were playing tons of shows, sometimes about 9 a week. I needed more and I wanted to quit the construction job because I was having breathing problems (breathing drywall and sheetrock all day is really bad for you) so I tired to teach english. I cut off my mohawk and went to a few Hawgwons and asked around but none wanted to take because 1. I had little collage, just a few courses in Lit, 2. I looked way too Korean and I still couldn't speak enough Korean. Now here I am, living with my sister in Seoul looking for a English teaching job, no more band. They do tattoos for some cash now and I think sometimes run a vendor cart in Hongdae.

Yeah, way too hard to be an independent musican here in Korea. Even those rock bands you see sometimes are all owned by someone and most don't write their own songs. Welll I'm ranting. Just thought I would share that.

-Paul-

[lawyertood]

I seem to recall the Baek Ji young home video scandal but Park Ji Yoon? Say it isn't so! Perhaps I'm out of the loop.

[Fren Lee]

You people astonish me. Korean music, whether traditional, "serious", or popular, has to be the most godawful racket I've ever heard in my life, and I'm about twice as old as most of the people here, and I'm a musician to boot, and I've heard a lot of music from a lot of different countries.
Koreans seem to have an inverse gift for music.

[Guy Incognito]

That's not opinionated or anything.
I like that "Come Back Home" song. I'm surprised B-Real didnt sue that guy.

[Zyzyfer]

Some's alright. It's hard to find good stuff though. My CD collection entails:

Roller Coaster(4 CDs now)-previously an acid jazz band, but lately they've been moving into remix land and more of a light hiphop beat style. Older stuff is awesome and catchy, newer stuff is repetitive but still has a fresh beat compared to BoAland.

Do Woun Kyoung Band-rock band with a chick singer. They had a big hit song about 8 months ago. Rock ballad. Some of their stuff is really heavy, though, and it's alright overall.

Lee GaHee-I think this was my first CD purchase? Or maybe my second. Very young pop singer, who collaborated with 015B to put out her first CD. Very unpopular, probably because the songs were actually decent.

WAX-They had one popular song that I kinda liked, picked it up, coupla good songs, a lot of unmemorables.

Who Are You? OST-Very good recommendation. A lot of mellow rock bands, like Blue in Green. Also includes Bulldog Mansion and Crying Nut.

Brown Eyes-gift from girlfriend. Pop stuff.

English singers do gayo-Actually I forget the name of the CD. But it's famous Korean songs, done up with English lyrics by English singers. Nothing Celine Dion couldn't put out on a bad day, but I guess it's alright. Another gift from girlfriend.

Cherry Filter-Big right now. Happy rock band. Pretty catchy, but nothing unique.

I forget if I've got anything else.