The Flaming Lips, The Advantage, and all the rest

Some may have already heard, but I am actually back in the States now. So what's going to happen to this blog? Well, for the time being I'm going to buckle down and post all the remaining shit I either meant to, or didn't have the chance to. In some cases, it might even be new and recent. But mostly not. Today you get a massive photo and video dump of the rest of the shows I went to! Which is cool if you are into shows, and I guess, music. I heard that something like 40% of people like music, so good odds you'll like all this. First up:

The Club Heavy Round Robin!

Which was actually 5 bands, and which I actually mentioned about a year ago. Remember when I woke up in an abandoned apartment, with no recollection of how I got there? That was last November, and this was earlier in the night! Fun! So basically a round robin is where bands set up all around a room, with the audience in the center. Each band plays a song, then the audience turns to watch the next band. And here are the bands:



Korean Kanye West was actually called Yamagata Tweakster, and he did kind of a weird looping synth/vocals act that was not entirely unpleasant, mostly due to his insane stage presence. You can't look at him and not smile. If you can, you are either Yamagata Tweakster himself, or a serial killer.



This was Sssiggghhhborrrggg (and yes this is the proper spelling), who you've probably seen here before. They are excellent, and would put on new masks between songs which was fun.



This guy's act was called Spookfish, and I don't remember it being very excellent at all, mostly because I don't remember him at all. Moving on.



Remember Axcutor? Yeah he played. Hardcore death metal was an interesting contrast to all the quirky experimental indie keyboard acts.



This was Zentaffy, who you can't really see, but I like 'em. The drummer sings and is the frontman. A year later I actually talked to him and I can tell you that he is a good guy.

So that was the Round Robin of November '09. One last thing:

He's so happy to be wearing a bowtie! But now:

Big-Ass Punk/Hardcore Show In Seoul!

This show was in January '10, and when I say it was a big-ass show, that's no lie:

We actually got there late so we missed the crossed-out acts, but still. That's a lot of bands. So let's get started:



Some band I don't remember. And another one:



Yup don't remember them. But look here:



Sssiggghhhborrrggg! You guys are just everywhere, and that's great. And you have a cat mask.



Then there was this band, who I remember being kind of a generic skate-punk band, but in Korea you take what you can get.



And these guys wore suits, and had a pretty good punk/hardcore set if I remember correctly. Which I probably don't, because around this time, despite me already being drunk, the coworker I was with keeps buying new drinks. And when they run out of mixers, he suggests we drink Mokkoli (a Korean rice porridge/wine drink) with grenadine. This is a terrible idea, and I do not remember the rest of the night. Apparently I puked in a cab, and in a karaoke room. Did I mention I also went to this show with an innocent Christian girl who had never been to a show before, ever? Terrible.

Some Korean Emo Band I Don't Remember!

Oh yeah, this one's got video:

So....that is something. Do not remember their name, or when that happened. But my Batman detective skills tell me it was definitely at Club Heavy.

The Advantage!

The Advantage is a rad band that plays covers of old 8-bit video game themes. Maybe 16-bit too. I don't know, I'm not in the band. They wouldn't let me.



But this one actually has video too, and I can tell you not only the band's name, but that they played in October '10. Also, the bassist was the guitarist playing with Zach Hill. Now, video game music:


What's that you say? It was pretty good, but you wished it had a little more shredding, preferably finger-tapped and crazily intricate?

Well, that's a weird list of demands, but luckily I am an Internet Psychic:


Juiceboxxx!



Juiceboxxx was a white rapper who was pretty okay. He was definitely passionate, which helps. He basically said he was from Milwaukee about a million times, climbed the amps, crawled around on the floor a little bit, and finally left the club dramatically at the end of his set.



He also played drums a little bit at the end. He was pretty good.



Alright, and now for the last band. A big one. A goddamn expensive one. For the low, low price of 100 dollars plus transportation to Seoul plus a hostel plus food plus booze:

The Flaming Lips! Whaaaaaaaaaaat



Where to begin. This show was on November 20th 2010, the week before I left, and it was on a Saturday. It was getting pretty iffy there for awhile, but in the end a friend and I got the day off from work so we could get to Seoul on time. This was the only Saturday I didn't have to work the entire time I was there, except for my vacation. So what we did was we went up the Friday before, stayed at a friend's place, and the next day went out bright and early to Everland! The amusement park that all my Korean students told me had the best rollercoasters.

Unfortunately, because Seoul is a terrible, cruel place, it takes a hundred fucking hours to get anywhere in the city, so even though we left Everland around 5 o'clock, we were an hour and a half late to the show, which started at 8. Luckily, The Flaming Lips were starting into their hour-long encore, so getting there at 9:30 turned out to be not so much of a problem. More like, an amazing fucking show.



With equally amazing amounts of confetti flying around. Also bubbles, balloons, all sorts of shit. And this:



That ring of blue lights is a gong that would light up every time Wayne hit it, which was always and awesome.



And sometimes the show would get very intense and eyeball-heavy.

So I missed "She Don't Use Jelly" and "Yoshimi", but I was there for this: their crazy-long super encore version of "Do You Realize??" complete with confetti cannons blowing up:


So that was fantastic, but what's this?! Super secret actual last show I went to?! 2 hours before I had to catch the bus to the airport, and I wasn't even done packing?!

Das Racist!

But I didn't get any pictures or video of them, because I didn't have my camera. But their first song was "Who's That? Broooown" which hit all the perfect notes and beats, and one guy from the band shook my hand for about a minute, which was kind of awkward. Then they ended with the "Combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell" song, which they clearly kind of hated performing. And then I left Korea.

Next giant amalgamation post: Korean amusement parks! Woobang Land! Everland! The steepest wooden rollercoaster in the world! Whoo!

Oh My.

Two nights ago I went to a show. This is one of "those" stories, where the most impressive part is that is not titled "Arrest Story Part 3". Enjoy:

The show was at Bar Guess, locally famous for their literal buckets of long island ice tea you can buy for the low low price of 9 bucks:

When I entered the club I noticed this Korean bartender who I had previously had a crush on when she worked at Urban (same girl as the post where I got my coat back). I talked to her for awhile, and after she asks how strong my bucket is, she offers to put even more liquor in. Refusing would of course be impolite, so I allow it and she comes back with a drink that's barely, well, drinkable.

Soon after I've got a good buzz going, the band takes the stage. They're called King Kahn & BBQ, and according to Wikipedia they are blacklisted in Montreal for their crazy live shows. Surely these fellas couldn't be capable:

The frontman with the belly is King Kahn, the guy in back on rhythm guitar, backup vocals, and bass drums is BBQ.

The show was good, the band was more punk than I thought they'd be (and even started a song with the Misfits "Attitude" intro) and King Kahn would come into the crowd and rub up on girls and periodically ask for White Russians. After a few songs the bartender comes up to me in the front and hands me a free gin and tonic, for reasons unknown and awesome.

However, just as I'm almost done with my long island, King Kahn decides to ratchet up his crazy cred, and kicks the bucket out of my hands and onto my shirt. Later, I get clocked in the head with his guitar neck, but I think that might have been more accidental.

Still later I notice King Kahn telling BBQ what songs to play, and BBQ not appearing to know the songs and generally getting pissed off. At the end of the show Kahn announces they have 2 songs left, and BBQ just up and leaves the stage, letting Kahn play 1 more song and then pack it in.

At this point, the coworker I'm with and I decide to head to another bar, but not before the bartender makes me promise to come back before the end of the night. On the stairs leading outside, I pass BBQ, who is on the phone bitching about a certain someone being "a fucking rock star" and how he's sick of it. Neat.

Anyways, we head to Commune's where I get a whiskey coke, and then it's back to Bar Guess where my coworker, the bartender, and I all share shots of 151, while King Kahn draws on my arm with a sharpe and then gets kicked out of the bar for refusing to pay because he's "the fucking band".

And that is when I black out.

I wake up in my coworker's apartment, having made a mess of his sheets and with no clue of what happened last night. My hat and one of my flip flops are missing, and I have bruise on my shoulder and my hip in addition to the bump on my head from getting hit by the guitar.


The bruise on my shoulder, and you can see part of where King Kahn drew on my arm.

Lucky for me, my coworker retained consciousness the previous night and was able to fill in the blanks. According to him, after we left Bar Guess we got in a cab where I refused to pay the driver and then started swearing at him in the car while he looked on like a deer in headlights. Next, apparently I needed to pee so I went inside of a bank. Some might be confused by the simplicity of that sentence, so I'll elaborate:

While my coworker was outside throwing up against the side of the bank, I went inside the ATM kiosk, dropped my pants, and started pissing.

...In front of the security guard.

Now, my coworker tells me he doesn't know any Korean swearing, but he is pretty sure the guard was using quite a lot of it.

Later, he says I kept sitting down on bus stop benches next to people and kept falling while they looked on, shocked. Which probably explains my bruises. Since I lost one of my flip flops, I've been walking around in this tasty combo:

One Guinness flip flop, and one slipper stolen from a Seoul love hotel bathroom.

So now, I've lost in total a ring, a coat (later returned), a flip flop, and a hat. You're welcome, homeless of Daegu. However, this story also has a bonus ending: I went out the next night, and actually saw King Kahn walking around downtown. Which is curious, if you take a look at the bottom of this poster (that I ripped off the club wall):

He was definitely supposed to be in Busan, a city hours away. I ran into another guy who was at the show and also happened to be a music critic who confirmed that, yes, King Kahn & BBQ had in fact broken up on-stage during the show.

The moral of the story: I apparently turn into an asshole on 151, and I didn't get arrested. These feel like important things. Also, I got to see a band break up, which is neat.

Heavy Korea

I know I've been trying to catch up on stories from my first week of training and all that nonsense, but I had quite a night tonight, and I don't want to forget the details on account of being kind of drunk, so. My night:

These past few weekends I've been telling people I was planning to go to shows, and it never happened, either because I couldn't find the place, or I decided I had better things to do (omg Dragon Age). However, tonight I finally bit that bullet and not only went out, but was able to find the place I had previously been looking for, Club Heavy. It helped that this time I just took a taxi instead of obviously flawed subway directions, but seriously fuck paying six times as much to get to the same place. One day I'll figure out how to walk there. Anyways.

I get there a little late, so I catch the first band as their set ends. They're a pretty generic but adequate punk band, lots of power chords and shouted sing-along choruses. The club is mostly Korean punks/metalheads, with a sprinkling of American GIs and maybe a couple teachers. The next band comes on stage, and my goodness. I tried to get a picture, but my camera in its insolence told me its battery was exhausted, so I'll just have to describe their frontman for you. Take a 250-pound Korean, and wrap him in a black butcher's apron. Paint the apron liberally with fake blood, and give his head a giant (albeit lying-down) mohawk. Now cover his face in 2-inch steel spikes. Seriously, his lower jaw looked like Pinhead if he decided to up his gauges to compete with rivetheads. Oh, and he has a bunch of (very real-looking) scars around his left eye, and John Lennon sunglasses. If you guessed the next band played a little death metal, call yourself Mr. Champion because you just won the game. An artist's rendition:


RAWRRRR!!!
(This is what my art degree has come to)

After listening to Scariest Korean I Have Ever Seen and his more-than-adequate death growls, I have a small conversation with one of the GIs, and am then approached by a tall acid-blonde white chick I've seen hanging around. Her name is Jen, she's Canadian, and apparently I look like I'm a big part of the music scene because she starts into a speech about how she's in the next band (but not playing because of some bullshit about how her and the bassist take turns) and we should get each others' info to network and she can help my band out in Seoul or some shit. I should mention that I did buy an acoustic guitar a few days ago, and I do plan to start playing in the area once I have a few songs written, so this is definitely not unappreciated, if a little unexpected. I'll spoil the ending for you though and say I never did get her info, and later saw her getting chummy with her Korean lead singer when I went into a nearby alley to pee.

After peeing (and moving onto my 3rd or 4th beer, despite having only eaten 2 cookies all day) Canadian Jen's band is up, and they're a decent hardcore band I guess. The lead singer is wearing a Straight Edge shirt that I drunkenly wonder about its legitimacy, and mostly wait for the next band to play. I wasn't disappointed.

The final band I saw was another metal band, a little lighter than Scary Fuck's band but still very dark and heavy. They must've been pretty big in the Korean metal scene, because the crowd starts going crazy for them, especially their singer who does some antics like pour beer in his hair and head bang towards the crowd. Interestingly, he also incorporates a lot of "Oi!" chanting into their black metal, and would occasionally exchange the devil's horns for the thumbs-up sign.



Their set ends, and I go outside to pee again. On the way back I notice the lead singer hanging out outside, so I chat him up for a bit. I find out he's from Seoul, he's 35, and he says I should have a Korean girlfriend because I'm very handsome. We exchange numbers, because for the second time tonight he thinks I already have a band, and insists I call him when I have a gig. I agree, and after talking to a couple of white guys next to us who bought his album, he leaves and then comes back with some posters for us signed by all the band members. Turns out his band's name is Method, and you can check out their myspace here (the guy I was talking to is Ryu Min, if you're curious).

So blah blah blah I follow the white guys to get sandwiches and then the train station but it's the wrong one, so I walk around more, get lost, and hail a cab home. I'll take a picture of my new poster when my camera's battery is done charging, but for now just know it says "Struggling LIFE 4 METAL" in sharpe and is hanging above my bed and is awesome.

The End.