The Iceberg

Or 내귀에 도청장치 in Korean.

I’d been meaning to write about this band for months, but never got around to it until now.

I first stumbled across Wiretap at Pentaport 2007. They performed late Friday afternoon (day one) on the second stage. I had never heard of them and probably still wouldn’t know who they are were it not for a little luck. I ran into one of my former hagwon students and her friend and they were big fans of the band. They insisted that I watch the show with them and the rest was history.

The four members of Wiretap performed while wrapped in faux-bloody bandages. That alone was worth seeing. But the band had more than a visual gimmick. They had a good sound and a loyal group of enthusiastic fans, which made for a great show and a fun time. And vocalist Lee Hyuk (이혁) - whose stage presence evokes the spirit of Ziggy Stardust - can carry a tune. Here is a very brief excerpt of their performance at Pentaport 2007:

I decided that I wanted to see Wiretap perform again and finally had the chance last December at the Hero Rock Festival. They didn’t disappoint - except for the fact that the guitarist ripped off Slash’s hat. That wasn’t good. But forgivable. I put together some snippets of their performance. Note that I recorded the show using my digital camera with its little digital camera microphone, so the sound is not as good as it could be.

Here’s hoping that Wiretap in My Ear plays again at Pentaport 2008 - and this time gets a slot on the main stage.

Good god!  I’ve been busy lately.  Last July I took over the coordinator position at the school and since then my plate has been pretty full doing…well…let’s just say lots of “administrative” stuff.  A bonus to all of the extra work is that I get to travel to Hanoi in February as a representative of our school to our sister school in Vietnam.  Hopefully, if all goes well there, down the road I’ll have the chance to visit India, China, and Japan as well.

But that’s not what this post is about.

A couple of weeks ago our school held its winter festival.  I’ve got to tell you, the kids at our school are amazing.  I already knew that the majority of them were smart, but I had no idea how talented many of them are as well.

Students study at the school until 10:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.  As if that were not enough, they come to school every other Saturday to take part in their club activities.  Each student joins a club at the beginning of the year.  There are a variety of clubs, including a club that produces an English-language magazine, a movie making club, a modern dance club, a soccer club, a musical club, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese (but sadly this year, no English) theater clubs, a fashion design club, and many, many more.

Many of the clubs use their Saturday meetings to prepare for the winter festival.  In addition to the club performances, a few individuals of extraordinary ability also perform.  The kid who I wrote about here sang and, I must say, he was pretty good.  But, for my money, the kid who stole the show was the first-year student in the video below.  Unfortunately, being the idiot that I so often am, I was worried that I wouldn’t have enough battery life for the whole show so I didn’t record his performance to the end.

Reminds me of when I was 16.  Except that I was a maestro of the baseball diamond.  That’s right, baby, yeah!

While I’m at it, I’ll include a little of the Korean-language theater performance.  The girl who played the lead character (황진이) was particularly impressive.

This morning I read this post over at The Marmot’s Hole about “Real Story: Myo”, the latest television program to run an “expose” on the evil influence of foreign men on Korean women and I thought to myself, “Thank god for these programs.  If they weren’t around to inform everyone about the bad man from another land, Korean girls might soon get up to crazy antics like - oh, I don’t know - dancing braless at rock concerts.”

And then I realized that I had video of the show’s MC, Horan, doing just that.

Oops.

Unfortunately she didn’t sing.

I’ve never been able to understand why Korean audiences are willing to accept that the majority of their “above ground” performers don’t sing at a live concert. I mean, sure, it was nice to see Ivy shake her thang on stage, but c’mon! she’s supposed to be a singer! On the other hand, the concert was free. And the choreography was better than anything Britney Spears has done recently.

At any rate, she does have one of the nicest bodies in the lip-synching business. Have a look for yourself.

Much to my dismay, she didn’t wear a skirt for last night’s performance, but she looked good anyway. Here is some video that I shot. Don’t be put off by the ballad (or the jacket) at the beginning. It gets better.

This year’s Pentaport Rock Festival didn’t quite live up to 2006, but it was a great time nonetheless. Some of the improvements over last year were:

• Much better weather. As opposed to last year’s torrential downpour on the first day, leading to a three-day mudfest (not that that was entirely bad), this year’s weather was mainly overcast with only a few brief showers. In short, nearly perfect.
• A wider selection in food. The food last year, while quite tasty, was mainly limited to pizza and barbequed chicken (or Korean food…primarily stews…which doesn’t exactly go well with beer). This year, in addition to the pizza and chicken, vendors sold burritos, cheesesteaks, bangers and mash, and an assortment of other goodies.
• More scantily-clad models and narrator models. A likely result of the better weather.

The only thing that didn’t come close to last year was the line-up of bands. Unfortunately, this was a very big thing.

On Friday night you had OK Go, who were actually pretty good. They were followed by The Chemical Brothers, who were fun to watch but, while certainly among the best at what they do, are a poor choice to headline at a LIVE music festival. Give me guitars, drums, and vocalists, thank you very much. Save the canned music for the clubs (or full-moon festivals).

Saturday night was even worse. First up was Ocean Colour Scene who, despite somewhat high expectations based on positive reviews of their music from festival-goers, failed horribly to impress. They were fine if you are sitting at a table having a beer, but to watch live…ugh. No stage presence whatsoever. They were followed by Japanese glam band L’arc en Ciel who were okay but - c’mon! - we are talking about the HEADLINE ACT here. Compare this to last year’s Saturday night line-up of the Black Eyed Peas and Placebo. Sorry, you can’t.

Sunday night’s line-up of Crying Nut and Muse was good, though it would have been better had it been Northern Irish band Ash (who performed one act earlier) rather than Crying Nut. I know Crying Nut has a huge following in Korea, but their accordion-influenced rock sound comes across as too much schtick. One could even argue that Muse’s show, which was brilliant, couldn’t quite measure up in terms of fun to the party atmosphere created by last year’s final act Franz Ferdinand.

In spite of my complaints, the festival was still worth the price of admission, which was 165,000 won for a three-day pass.

Part of the fun of attending a festival like Pentaport is discovering some of the local talent. For every shit band you have the displeasure to be exposed to (ie. Vassline), you come across two or three pretty good ones. The bands I was most impressed by were glam-rock band 내귀에 도청장치 (Nae Gwee-ay Do Chung Jang Chi - Wiretap in My Ear) - clad in faux bloody bandages - and rock band Sugar Donut, who were a fill-in for Hellogoodbye. Both bands deserve a main stage slot next year (in place of, say, Vassline). Another group that has potential is The Melody. They need a bit of refinement, however. The lead singer, though occassionally off pitch, has a good voice and is as cute as a button.

Here is the first of many videos taken at the festival. I’m producing them chronologically as I shot them, so the first three acts are Korean bands Diablo, 사랑 과 평화 (Sarang Gwa Pyunghwa - Love and Peace), and 내귀에 도청장치 (Wiretap in My Ear). Please forgive my camera’s crappy mic.

Next up is Ok Go (and a couple of hot cigarette-selling girls).

Here we have some partying “missy” ajummas, fireworks, some screaming/dancing girls, The Chemical Brothers, and, oh yes, a dancing chicken.

Moving on to Saturday, the next video contains the events of the entire day, including long-legged models, cutie tv hosts, whirlpooling rockers (including that chicken again), girls getting their hair done, a Swiss rock band called 69 Chambers (featuring a Paris Hilton-lookalike lead singer), Ocean Colour Scene, and the Japanese band L’Arc en Ciel.

The highlights of the next video were shot early Sunday afternoon. They include The Melody (including the sweetie singer) and Sugar Donut.

Part six includes the group Asian Kung-fu Generation, people in the midst of a variety of activities, some very short shorts, a helicopter, an extremely off-key singer, the band Ash, a girl who I was fortunate enough to get to know a bit, a guy whose pants nearly fell down, and finally, Crying Nut kicking off the evening session.

The final act of the festival was Muse, and this video is devoted to them. I must admit I was getting mildly pissed off waiting for the concert to begin. Finally, about an hour after the scheduled start time, the band started playing Knights of Cydonia and all was well. Muse puts on a fantastic show and Matthew Bellamy is a guitar virtuoso. Definitely worth checking out if you ever get a chance. In the meantime, ignore the shit mic and enjoy the video.

See you next year. I’m guessing August 1-3.

Well, it’s been decided. I’ve cast my lot with the Suwon BlueWings. I went to another K-League game, this time between Suwon and Incheon United. The difference was, this time I went with one of the P.E. teachers from our school, who happens to be a tried and true member of the “Ultras”*. Who are the “Ultras”, you ask? They are a hardcore group of about twenty people who lead the Suwon cheering section behind the north-end goal. Thanks to this man, I was able to venture deep into the heart of the “Blues”(about three rows up from the field). Despite a heavy downpour at times, it was good fun. I was surrounded by shirtless men in their 20s, moshing high school boys, and shrieking schoolgirls. Yes, that’s right. I said it was fun. You’ll just have to trust me. Or watch the video and decide for yourself.

Nice goal by Lee Gwan-woo (이관우), eh?

The first game I attended at Suwon World Cup Stadium (a 3-1 Suwon victory over FC Seoul), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the crowd was chanting. “Suwon….what? Blah-blah-ing” This time I got it. They are chanting, “Suwon BlueWing,” only they’ve got their own interesting pronunciation. It goes, “Su-won Buh-loo-wing”. It grew on me.

After the game I returned to Anyang for some barbequed beef (소갈비살) and beer. Good stuff.

*I also discovered that there is a bus in Anyang that goes directly to the stadium. Actually, it drops you off about a ten-minute walk from the stadium, but close enough.

Since I’m on the topic of Japan (see post below), I thought I’d include this video that I shot a long, long time ago near Harajuku Station in Tokyo. I highly recommend you check out this area if you’re ever in town. Lots of street performers and people just doin’ their thing.

After reading a post over at Scribblings of the Metropolitician about Park Jin-young and seeing his name in the news recently, I started feeling nostalgic and decided to delve deep into the vault for footage of video I took in 1997 at a Gangnam “Rock Cafe” called Venturi. For those who don’t know, “rock cafes” are/were underground clubs. There weren’t any “dance floors” per se. People simply danced near the table where they were sitting - much like many of the clubs in Hong-dae today. The mid-90s were the heyday for underground clubs in Gangnam. Hong-dae was around back then, but it was nothing near the scene that it is today. If my memory serves me correctly, there were about five or six of these clubs in Gangnam back then. My favorites were Venturi, Lexus I, and Lexus II. Oh the stories I could tell about what went on in these places. But I won’t. Don’t ask.

You’ll notice in the video that things weren’t too much different from what they are like nowadays. One thing that was different was that there was a specific dance that accompanied each Korean song. It was kind of fun…and funny…to watch everyone performing the same moves. Also, whenever a foreign song came on, many dancers sat down because they didn’t know how to dance to it. Not much freestyle back then. You’ll notice in the video that there are four foreigners doing the dances. When they weren’t dancing, they were working the bar at Venturi. The four were American soldiers. That was a relatively new development at the time - soldiers roaming out of the Itaewon area, that is. At least it was new for Venturi.

It was fairly early in the evening when I shot this video, so the club wasn’t too crowded. Usually it was quite packed. Alas, as time went on, a few Korean-style “booking” clubs opened up in Gangnam and as the crowds started moving there, the rock cafes slowly lost customers until they finally disappeared; the one exception being 4X, a late arrival on the scene.

Passing through the campus in a taxi, I spotted two female students walking along the side of the road. I stuck my head out the window and hung my wiry plastic fingers over the door. The taxi driver picked up on my intentions and slowed down as we approached the girls. Engaged in conversation, the girls cast a casual glance my way, then did a double-take, followed by a loud shriek that continued until the taxi was no longer within hearing distance.

Perhaps the taxi driver was wrong. Earlier, when I entered the taxi, I looked at his grinning face and asked him if I looked scary. “If you were alone, yeah. But since you are with the others (my co-workers), not really,” he told me. Judging from the girls’ reaction, I concluded that I had the look I was going for. Puhahahahaha!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were going to a Halloween party at a bar called Yellow Monkey, but on a whim I suggested that we spend a little time out and about town before the party. Our first stop was a grilled pork (삼겹살) restaurant called Twaerang (퇘랑) in Yeoseo-dong (the “new” downtown of Yeosu) for some galmaegl-sal (갈매기살). If you ever make your way to Yeosu, I highly recommend this restaurant. The galmaegi-sal is fantastic. I’m told that it’s pork, but you’d swear that it’s beef. And at 7000 won per serving, it’s a great deal.

But I digress. We got out of the taxi (the taxi driver giggled as he took our money; I think he wished he could hang out with us) and made our way to a convenience store for cigarettes. Walking along the road, we were greeted by stares. Not the typical look that foreigners get and not really anything that expressed fear, but more like a “what are these nutty people up to?” kind of stare. Finally someone blurted, “Oh! Halloween!!!” and we knew they were on to our game.

I’d say that there were about forty patrons in the restaurant. When we entered, about thirty-five of them turned to look at us. Then about ten phone cameras swung open and the photo-taking commenced. We received a variety of comments. Nearly all of them positive. One older man typed something into his phone and then approached the woman in our group. He showed her his phone. “Give me a city map,” read the message. We didn’t quite know what to make of that. He was pretty drunk, and a bottle or two of soju later he was looking at me in a way that made me just a little uncomfortable. I started to suspect that he didn’t realize that I was a man. Yikes!!!

After dinner, more photos, and a few handshakes, we meandered over to Wa Bar, which I think I also mentioned in an earlier post is about the swankest bar in Yeosu. Again, we were greeted by a mix of positive comments and a few startled reactions. Inside the bar, more photos taken with phone cameras. Two girls came to our table and sat down and had their photo taken with us.

We finished our beers and left for the party. I must say that the party itself was the lowlight of the evening. Not that it was bad per se. It’s just that, compared with the rest of the evening, it didn’t have much to offer. I don’t know, maybe for the foreigners who’ve only lived in this area it was kind of nice to have a large gathering, but for me it felt no different than a typical Saturday night at Gecko’s in Seoul. Everyone wearing costumes notwithstanding.

After a couple of hours at the party our group decided to go to a nightclub. This was the most fun of all. Upon my first venture onto the dance floor, the phone cameras once again came flying out. I was surrounded by people who took momentary breaks from their dancing to capture shots of me. It felt like I was surrounded by paparazzi. I tell ya, these gweesheen types just can’t get any privacy. When everyone had their fill of photos, I was able to do my gweesheen groove - which is not easy in a costume that was way too large.

To answer the question, “Can gweesheens pull?”, let me just say that everytime I went out to dance there was one particular girl who, apparently attracted to gweesheens (or so I thought), gyrated her way towards me. Showing her my supernatural swing, I asked her if she wanted to join us at our table. Her answer? “No.” That’s it. No hesitation. No, “No, thank you.” No, “Thanks, but I’m with my friends.” Just, “No.” Humiliated, I made my way back to the table and vowed that I would haunt this girl for the rest of her human life.

Now, concerning the video. All I can say to that is, “Good help is hard to find.” The aim for the night was to capture my interactions with people around town. Since it was essential for me to be in the video, I enlisted the help of one of my co-workers to do the shooting. Unfortunately - and I’m putting this nicely - he apparently had a love-hate relationship with the zoom button the whole night. The first ten minutes that he shot (which would have been the best footage) were taken with the lens zoomed completely in, so all he got were a lot of close-ups of people’s eyes and nosehair. However, I managed to weed through it and compile a little bit to show. I zoomed it out twice for him only for him to zoom it back in. In the end, I had to take the camera away from him. He’s been banned from future camera priveleges.

Click photo for video

Inebriated partiers crowd around the stage to get a better view of the scantily clothed woman gyrating in front of them. Said woman shakes her hips, tosses her hair and spins around to the music thumping through the speakers. Her dance oozes sexuality. Suddenly, as the song approaches its end, the woman lifts her top over her head - exposing her cosmetic surgeon’s handiwork. (Job well done, Dr. Kim). As the audience expresses its approval, the woman – shirt in hand – glides off the stage. Another female contestant walks out; this time with partner in tow. The music starts up again and, unlike the previous dancer, the young couple waste little time disrobing. The man takes off his shirt and lies on the floor and the woman sits on top of him. They squirm around for a few seconds before the woman removes her shirt and bra. After another minute or so of simulated sex the woman stands up. She takes off her shorts and panties and again sits atop the man on the floor – this time in the position of, um, let’s just say it’s a certain number. You know it, the number that every overweight beer-guzzling first baseman in slow-pitch softball leagues wears. The woman removes her partner’s jeans and they proceed with their show. The crowd goes wild.

Sound like another wild night in Hongdae? Think again. This scene occurred in a Korean-style “booking” nightclub in the quiet little town of Yeosu last Friday night. And outside of myself and a co-worker, there was not a single Westerner to be found in the club.

Hongdae, you ain’t got nothin’ on Yeosu.

Here’s a peek at the evening. The video was taken stealthily so…don’t expect too much.

Here is some more footage of some (clothed) sexy dancing Friday night. This video is much clearer.

UPDATE: I should note that there was no orifice to orifice contact during the show. Also, I won’t mention the name of the club, because god knows I don’t want to take even the slightest risk of it being shut down. Viva la Booking Club!