2NE1 I Love You

I can't stop listening to this song.  It's pure, unadultered pop music. Delicious for the ears. 

2ne1 are seriously making waves outside of Korea with their Korean language tracks.  When I was in South East Asia in January Kpop was everywhere.

Wagwak

British readers! One of my favourite bands, Wagwak, are leaving Korea for London soon, with their last gig in Seoul happening this Saturday night.  I can't make it because I'm going to stay in a Love Motel by the beach in Busan.  I'm not too bothered, though, because I'm conveniently coming home for August, which is when Wagwak are hopefully going to be touring around the UK. Yay.

We just did an interview with Wagwak on Chincha, ahead of them flying the Korean coop.  See it after the poster:

Dressed smartly in a clean button-up, suspenders, grey shorts and a Noah and the Whale bag, lead singer of Wagwak Daehyun Kim met up with us last week to talk about his upcoming travels across Europe, Canada and the States. With Wagwak’s last gig in Korea happening next Saturday night, it was great to get a chance to talk about his influences, his aspirations, and the reactions he gets to what ‘Wagwak’ really stands for.

What are you most looking forward to while travelling throughout Europe?

We are hoping to get signed and just travel around Europe. And go to New York or somewhere in the States to just play at shows, of course. We want to play as many as we can. We don’t play that many shows like we used to, right now. In October we played like nine shows. I want to do that again in Europe. When I finally get to perform at a festival, I’m going to cut off my Glastonbury Festival 2009 bracelet!

Why are you playing less shows?

We were mostly playing in Hongdae and the crowd was always the same. So we just started to play less and less shows. Now, we are leaving.

What places will you be heading to? Any particular countries you’re excited about?

We’re going to start in Stockholm. But, it’ll be like a holiday; we’re just going to relax. Then London and then we’re going to Montreal, Canada. I played in Montreal in 2009. I played some songs at Pop Montreal Festival, but back then it was just me without my drummer. It’ll also be easy to go down to the States in November and then maybe back to Europe. The city I am most excited for is London. Of course, I want to live there. The music scene is awesome.

You’ve been to Europe before to promote your music, so what do you think will be different this time?

This time I’ll be with my band. Also, my music is different from two or three years ago.

What made you decide to leave Korea?

I grew up with your (Western) music, not Korean music. Maybe listening to bands from the UK has influenced me? I always wanted to go Europe anyway, so it was good to start from here (Korea). But now it’s time to leave. This isn’t a last minute decision; we’ve been preparing for the last two years.

What music influences you the most?

I listen to so much music. Mostly indie folk like Mumford and Sons. I’ve been to many of their concerts and I’ve met one of the members. When I was at one of their shows, he (Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of Mumford and Sons) remembered me. He was like, “you’re Darren, right??” Darren’s my English name. I’ve also seen Laura Marling play many times. I want to ask her, like, “oh my God, can I buy you a beer??” I’m also friends with a band called Slow Club from Sheffield and they’ll be supporting Mumford and Sons this summer.

Will you be meeting up with them when you’re in Europe?

Yes, of course. I just sent them my new demos so they can help us book some shows.

Where is your first show?

We haven’t booked any shows yet. We’ve just finished our demos, which we are going to sell at the shows. I’ve been sending off demos in the last few days to book shows with. In Europe it’s Summer festival season so it’s difficult to book local shows right now. Maybe we’ll have to wait till Fall.

What do you hope to accomplish abroad?

Get signed to a label and play and support some bands. By supporting and touring with others we won’t have to try so hard to get our own shows. And it’ll be good to meet so many people.

When will you be back?

We won’t be back for at least a year. We’ll go there and we’ll try our music out. It’s possible that we might not feel like we’re that good, that our music isn’t working out. So we’ll tour around for a year, come back and try to work on our music.

How has your music changed over the years?

We are still folk. Before we formed Wagwak we were actually a four-piece band band, but two of the members left for reasons like work, etc. We are still folk, but our sound is getting heavy; heavier than before.

What will you miss the most about playing gigs in Korea?

Friends. Friends. We will miss friends.

What are key essentials from home you can’t leave without?

Just instruments. I don’t have anything that I feel like, “I have to keep this”.

In a previous article in UNSCENE magazine the meaning behind your name, Wagwak, was brought up. Wagwak stands for We-Are-Not-Gay-We-Are-Korean. How do you think this will be perceived in Europe?

Sometimes people get really offended. But we don’t mean it in a homophobic way. If they know the background, people laugh about it. If they just don’t know, then people are like, “oh, they are homophobic”. We were originally called 20th Century Boys, you know, because of our long hair and style. People would ask if my bandmate and I were together and we would say “no, we are not gay”. One day, we were talking to our friends about coming up with a new name because when you google 20th Century Boys so many different things come up, like the Japanese animation. Our friends said to make “we are not gay” our band name, but longer – “we are not gay, we are Korean.” So we just took the first letters of each word and made Wagwak.

I was on a music forum and someone wrote about us, saying we were a homophobic band. I was like, “What! Really??” But minutes later, I forgot about it. It’s okay because it’s not true and those people who said it listen to K-pop, shhhh!

Thanks for meeting with us, Daehyun!

Wagwak will be playing their goodbye show at Freebird in Hongdae from 10pm on Saturday 30th of June. Entry costs 10,000 won. Listen to Wagwak on SoundCloud.

Interview by Brittney Wilson and Rina Kim.

Images courtesy of Daehyun Kim and Brittney Wilson.


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I'll keep you posted on when Wagwak will be touring.  Make sure you listen to their music and go see them.

VLUF Party Video

Yeah, I know I'm like a broken record about all this VLUF party stuff at the moment.  This video is very groovy though, as well as informative, giving the background information behind all the playas that make up the V.L.U.F in VLUF. 

You can catch a glimpse of me in it, furiously grinning for a photographer while sitting on a dirty, vintage sofa.

Which is totes how I roll.  Nahhhht.

VLUF

VLUF is one of the coolest parties in Korea.  Held in a warehouse in East Seoul, the organisers always put on such a good night. 

All pictures from Tororo on Chincha.

BTSU

I only got introduced to this recently but I feel like I'll never get tired of it. I have nothing more poignant to say than this. 

Loose Union Presents

I recently wrote a post for Chincha about Loose Union, a new record and videography company that a friend of mine and some other creatives have started up in Seoul.  The objective of Loose Union is to make live music videos of Korea-based bands, in order to capture the current Seoul music scene.

Loose Union held a launch party a couple of weeks ago where I was introduced to a friend of a friend, an event photographer from Durban, South Africa  He offered to send me some pictures (seen above) to put on Chincha.  I gladly obliged and asked if I could share them here too.  I love them - especially that last one of the sneaky tattoo.  I'm not usually a body art fan but there's something about that rose peeking out from underneath the girl's skirt.

The photographer's name is Matthew Stroud.  You can (and should) 'like' him on Facebook to stay up to date with his work.  

Here's the original post on Chincha.

Images: Matthew Stroud.

SuperColorSuper

SuperColorSuper are a small, indie booking agency with big ideas, located in Korea.  Unfortunately, because of the passivity of the prospective audience in SK when it comes to subcultural, international music, the collective are currently in dire straits financially and have warned that they may have to shut shop on organising gigs using foreign bands.

A poster for an Asobi Seksu gig, which is potentially the final international act SCS will be bringing to South Korea.


Some of my best nights out in Korea have been at events SCS have organised.  Jeffrey Lewis, Gold Panda and No Age (who I saw just last week) were all particularly impressive live, and I hope SuperColorSuper get the support they need to keep bringing incredible acts to this country.  The music scene here needs them.

  

The group made the inspirational video above as a call to arms to get the population of Korea interested in backing their collective.

If you live in Korea and want to support SCS, check out this post on their website. Scroll down for English.

Images: SuperColorSuper

MiniMix

Finding myself unusually and luxuriously home alone on a Friday night.  I'm meant to be at a leaving party right now (this isn't as big a deal as it sounds; people are constantly leaving Korea) but I couldn't face the trek into Hongdae in the minus degree temperature.

In the midst of curling up like a cat to read a trashy novel, downloading cult classic films (Blue Velvet) and eating copious amounts of cereal, I found this MiniMix by DJ Suit on the blog Daughter of Soho Riots.

It's making me nostalgic for club nights in Cardiff and dancing like this:

Maaaaan, I wish I was still a student.

Nicki Minaj

Nicki <3333333333333




All you need in a role model is for them to have pink hair.

P.S, there's Korean words flashing out at me this video.

P.P.S, Jamie Lee Curtis reckons she's just Jay Z slowed down, which if you squint your ears he's sort of right.

M.I.A Exclusive!

I've loved M.I.A ever since some hot Australians played Paper Planes to me on a surfing holiday in Biarritz one summer (good vibez) and now she's baaaaack to receive more of my adoration with her recently released song Bad Girls.

The video is premiering today on Noisey, VICE's new music channel on YouTube and right here:

For more videos, music news and exclusives you can subscribe to Noisey.  Do it, do it, do it.

> _ ^  

At the K-pop Concert

I've been fully initiated into the world of K-pop, as of last week.  I went to the YG Family Concert, which is the cuddly name huge K-pop company YG Entertainment termed the show.  As one of the biggest record labels in Korea, they try to market themselves as a family business, but are really a K-pop factory; a production line churning out  bands in an industrially novel way that can be described as the human version of what Ford Motors was doing in the 1920's.

YG Entertainment are responsible for some of the best K-Pop acts in Korea.  They have Big Bang, 2NE1 and GD and T.O.P on their books, the supreme of Korean music (in my opinion).

The concert was a mash-up of artists collaborating on different projects.  I missed this cover by Big Bang (fave boyband) of a 2NE1 (fave girlband) song, but caught up with this grainy version on YouTube the next day.

Images from my friend Poppie's blog

Customellow Flea Market

When I'm not drinking my life away, I manage to make it to some cool daytime events.  Today I went to the Customellow and Fifty Seoul flea market in Hongdae, which is the arty University district of South Korea's capital.

Customellow have been running this market for a couple of months now, in association with bloggers and online clothing companies in Korea.  There was way more choice of male clothing but I still managed to pick up a cute top (above) for 5000 won (less than £3), so it wasn't a wasted journey.  

There were also some bands playing throughout the day but we didn't stick around for those because the shop was uncomfortably rammed.  Hongdae hipsters clearly like their flea markets.

Global Gathering

Digitalism at Global Gathering Korea were epic.  Especially this song.

Legowelt

Since it's been about a year since I began this blog, I think it's high time that you all had a break from my mutterings.  Cue my first ever guest blog post by Lucy, author of Being of Sound Mind, one of my weekly (if not daily) reads.  She blogs about a variety of random topics but is secretly a connoisseur of electronic music, hence the theme of today's post:

In the often faceless world of electronic music, it's difficult to become endeared to artists because you love their image [David Guetta - if you're listening, please KEEP OUT of your videos, I'm having nightmares that feature your creepy self (mainly about me wiping that inane grin off your face and burning your 'looted' outfit)].

It can also be difficult to feel an affinity with the artiste, sure - their music can 'speak' to you, even move you, but what kind of  personality do these mysterious expert knob twiddlers have to offer?

Well, listening to a 45 minute monologue about 303's, 808's and whatever other Bontempi equipment was used to create atmospheric, spine-tingling music can be anything BUT enthralling, never mind endearing.

Cue Legowelt. Offering his excellent new album to all via free download is enough of a gift. Then you open the 'text' file:

"Hello.  Welcome to "THE TEAC LIFE", This album is free to download and distribute.

Its got a hella lot deep tape saturated forest-techno tracks on it and when I say Techno i dont mean that boooooooooooring contemprary shit they call techno nowadays with overrated tallentless pretentious docuhebag cunt DJs playing a few halfassed dumb mongo beats and being all arty fartsy about it. 

I am talking about: Raw as fuck autistic Star Trek 1987- Misty Forests- X-FILES,- DETROIT unicorn futurism made on cheap ass digital & analog crap synthesizers recorded in a ragtag bedroom studio on a TEAC VHX cassettedeck in DOLBY C with an unintelligible yet soulful vivacity

if you like it you can donate some $ or Euros, Any donation small or large is appreciated u can paypal to: wolfers@xs4all.nl so I can buy more crap synthesizers to make stuff like this and repair my Roland Juno 106 which stopped working during the recording of this album...probably cause this shit is too deep and it just can't handle it."

Take THAT douchebags.  I'm looking at you Basshunter...

Download Legowelt's THE TEAC LIFE here.

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Follow Lucy's on her blog and on twitter @yel0wbird for witty and thought-provoking commentary on everyday life.

The Growlers

I want to go on tour with The Growlers and pretend I’m in Almost Famous.  They can be Stillwater to my Penny Lane.

Any band that sound like The Doors and have Bill Murray as a fan are definitely worth ambling around America for.

Any band in the world are worth living an idyllic, sedentary lifestyle of surfing, eating and vintage shopping for.

Creating Coachella

Whenever I think about Coachella festival my brain seems to go into American mode and I overexcitedly ponder about how 'sick' and 'rad' it would be to be able to go.  I'm already spasming with jealousy when I think about the lucky people who'll be dancing in the desert to MY favourite bands* while I'm stuck at home thousands of miles away, angrily making a shrine to The Strokes out of fake sand and cacti.

(a home-made portrait of Julian Casablancas.  Not made out of fake sand obvs.)

Orrrr just keeping up with the coverage online.  Which I can now start as The Creators Project have teamed up with Coachella this year.  If you don't know much about the project, it started off in 2010 promoting established and up-and-coming artists who use technology to create their pieces.  In 2011 they are commissioning their own art, becoming pioneers in the field of technological creation.  They'll be doing this in a big way at Coachella, fusing music and live art together with huge interactive installations.

In view of this they've created this trailer in the prelude to Coachella, featuring a 'physical manifestation' of Spiritualized's J. Spaceman singing 'Ladies and Gentlemen, We are Floating in Space', as filmed by Jonathan Glazer:

Thanks to The Creators Project I'm no longer jealous of Coachella attendees.  It's made me realise that you don't need to actually attend festivals to enjoy them.  That's like, so 2010.  It's now all about locking yourself in your bedroom at your parents' house and living virtually and vicariously through the screen of your laptop, before, during and after the event.

Right...?

*an extensive list including Angus and Julia Stone, Animal Collective, Boys Noize, Brandon Flowers, Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene, Cage the Elephant, City and Colour, Crystal Castles, CSS, Elbow, Empire of the Sun, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Foals, High Contrast, Hurts, Interpol, Jack Beats, Jack’s Mannequin, Jimmy Eat World, Kanye West, Kele, Kings of Leon, Klaxons, Mumford & Sons, Nas & Damian Marley, Ratatat, The Chemical Brothers, The Drums, The Kills, The New Pornographers, The Strokes, The Two Door Cinema Club and Yelle.


Makes me wanna cry die.

LONDON FASHWAN WEEK OVERLOAD

I feel like I've binged on London Fashion Week and am about to have the sartorial equivalent of a hyperglycemic attack as a result.  I am a single catwalk-show viewing away from pledging never to wear an item of clothing ever again.

As an antidote to this, I'm reading through all of Michael Hogan's satirical '#madeuplfwtweets' (example: 'Stranger asked if I loved bags.  I replied, "Totes!"  She thought I meant just tote bags! HILAIRE!') while listening to the calming influence of Feist.

Already my threat of nakedness has been pacified.  I will instead don a Feist-inspired Breton top and wear it for the rest of my life.  And maybe avoid the internet until fashion week is over.

Art of Uff

The internet is the best tool ever invented for the inquisitive (nosy) among us.  Where else can you browse through the drawers of the rich and famous or check out a designer's wardrobe at the click of a button?

Stylelikeu is a website which takes a mix of people, from 'it' girls to rappers to bloggers to people living in a teepee in their friends' back garden with reeeeeeally interesting dress sense and analyses their style through a video lens.  They go round to the houses (or tents) of these creative dressers to see them rifling through their closets, talking about their dress sense, and generally showing off their quirky selves.

(The teepee couple.  I'm seeing a trend for round sunglasses on this blog.  I think I like them.)

It's kind of like an underground version of Cribs for those of us who are obsessed with style.

It's also an anthropological study into fashion tribes.  The videographers explore where the sense of the person's style came from, and it can often be connected to where they grew up, and who they grew up around.  For example there's one American girl who grew up in Tokyo, who has a clear Harajuku influence in her style, even though she hasn't lived there for years.

(Uffie)

One of the vids is of Uffie (above). If I had to summarise her I'd say she was an authentic and far superior version of the vile Ke$ha.  Even bringing Ke$ha into the equation kind of undermines Uffie, but if you listen to the track I've posted below this video you'll see why I had to make the comparison.

The pink ombre hair, the chipped nail varnish, the quote on her style, 'it changes daily, sometimes it looks like I could be homeless, sometimes I wear really pretty clothes.'

Girl after my own heart.  If I was a super cool female rapper who lived in Paris and had an tres amazing figure, then I'd totally be Uffie.

I Made A Spotify Playlist

Here's a visual interpretation of said playlist:

Not really.  The post looked crap without a picture so thought I'd put a random hipstamatic up.

While I'm on a music related post....my mother's boyfriend informed me yesterday that he once went to a party at Bonnie Tyler's house.  No way?  Yes way.