Why Korea? The reason is pretty simple. We know nothing about the music scene in spite of the fact that Seoul is just around the corner from Fukuoka and only an hour and a half flight from Tokyo. We have a lot of information on the country's movie and dance music mega stars, but never hear anything about whether Korea has a healthy or unhealthy rock scene. Then we had an idea, "Let's just go there and discover something!"
For the last couple of years, Smashing Mag's editor, Hanasan, has been visiting Seoul with relatively young writers to see what the city is like. The first time was to cover a Japanese band called Ghost, which featured one of our photographers (Nachi) on bass, when they got the chance to play at a tiny venue there in 2004 with Cocore and Nastyona.Two months later, Hanasan returned to interview Cocore as they were scheduled to appear at Fuji Rock that summer. He also spoke with Sugardonut, who had performed at Fuji Rock the year before and Nastyona as he fell in love with their music during his first visit. Hanasan also covered the Gwang Myeong Music Valley Festival last year with Toddy, one of our writers, which was a showcase of the history of Korean Rock music. There we witnessed the Korean equivalent of Bob Dylan,Hahn Dae-Soo, and the incredible guitarist Lee Byung-Woo as well. Admittedly, part of the attraction of going to Korea for us was getting to eat some amazingly cheap and delicious Korean BBQ. However, Korea's economy has grown stronger over the last few years while the Japanese yen has been getting weaker, so we didn't find the prices to be as low as others have said they were. Regardless, the Korean cuisine was fantastic and it was still a major attraction in Seoul, but it was the incredible discovery of great guitarists such as Kim Hong Tak and Shun Jun Hyun who created Korean rock music in the early 70s that was the highlight of our trip. When I first listened to their music, I freaked out! Korean rock was far wilder than Japanese rock at that time. Well, what discoveries are waiting for us this time? With Taisuke, who visited Korea on a high school excursion ages ago, but knows nothing about Korean rock, Hanasan flew to the kingdom of Kimchi (wonderful Korean hot pickles) from Narita. There we saw The Emeralds, a familiar band at the famed South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, and Nicotine and Ellegarden from Japan as well as tons of unknown, but surprisingly great Korean bands. We now are trying to open a door for Korea's fascinating rock scene here in hopes that others will enjoy the wealth of musical talent that the country has to offer as much as we do. |
SsamZie Sound Festival @ Olympic Park (30th Sept '06)
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comment and photos by hanasan |
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The Line Up moonlight a fairy a hard desperate full base home run / Cool Age / Golden Pops / Cockrasher / Cocore / The Emeralds / Starbow / Prana / Loro's / Vanilla Unity, photo document & Transfixion, Biuret, Nicotine, Fortune Cookie, Sugardonut, Lee Sang Eun (Lee-tzsche), Lee Ji Hyung, YB (Yoon Do Hyun Band), No Brain, Ellegarden, PIA, Hajji and TJ with Sim Soo Bong, Schizo＋Hyun Jin Young, Morning of all ＋ Kim Jang Hoon |
 Korean Rock Specials Gwang Myeong Music Valley Festival Special (05/10/07 - 08) : review by toddy, photos by hanasanKorean RockBiuret : photo report (06/02/21 @ Olympic Hall) : photos by hanasanCocore : photo report (04/06/12 @ Ssamzie Space Baram, Seoul)Cocore : photo report (04/02/28 @ Ssamzie Space Baram , Seoul) : photos by hanasan |
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The official site Ssamzie http://www.ssamnet.com/
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check the albums? |