What Pyotr just said (only less unpleasantly)

Although I admit I failed Impudence 101, I’m a bit offended that you should call into question the quality of my unpleasantness! Just as you are Korean and proud of it, I am unpleasant and proud of it! I am proud and unpleasant, Mr Jack Son.

Report what?

Well, since you went out of your way to say that you were attending the concert, why do you think that the readers here wouldn’t expect some kind of account of it? A report, an interview, an impression?

If you stand up with your hands in the air and do nothing, nobody is going to be very impressed when you shout “What ball?”

. . . pop, classical and jazz pianist Richard Clayderman

My man does not know Jazz from pop. Clayderman is pop, not Jazz — unless he is hidding some talent away.

Sometimes around ‘89 you visited Korea. Is that true?
Tsöötz: Yeah, even the year’s correct.
Twist Twist: North-Korea!

The interviewer points out that this is about the gig in Korea, not Koria…

Twist Twist: North-Korea-Roll!
Tsöötz: Korea-Roll, yeah…

So how was it there? There hasn’t been much about it around.

Nikki: ‘Cause we can’t remember any!
Tsöötz: Maybe we don’t want to…
Twist Twist: A twelve-day trip, after which I had a five-day hangover and I had to see a doctor about what the f**k’s wrong with me!

So did you find it out?
Twist Twist: Drinking coal vodka for 10 days, that was it, mainly (laughs)
[...]

Twist Twist: It was a quite a red-colored festival, world youth and student festival… What was it, 15 000 - 20 000 so-called students from around the world. There were clubs for different countries, and we played the Finnish or Scandinavian club, must have been Finnish club, and there were all those North Korean couples in their 40s and 50s, guys in suits, and women in…
Tsöötz: …national costumes.
Twist Twist: They wore those kind of fairy dresses, and there they sat courteously watching us when we let it go.

Perhaps the ban of rock took place in DPRK after this group’s visit.

Here’s an audio interview that includes recordings from that folk/country band playing in Pyongyang. Hank Williams and Arirang, anyone?

http://audio.theworld.org/mp3/glohit/06232006.mp3

Re: American country band - it was actually a folk group:

http://www.asianreporter.com/s.....ilband.htm

And the quote of the week (from another source):

Meanwhile, Marv Ross has been invited to take his Trail Band to North Korea. “Pyongyang,” he says, “no problem. We once played Cleveland.”

“One day, one music class was cancelled, so I went to a cafe near my school to drink a cup of coffee, and music from the speakers there — a type that I had never heard before — thrilled me,” Kim said.

“I asked the cafe’s owner what kind of music that was, and he replied it was ‘A Comme Amour’ by pop, classical and jazz pianist Richard Clayderman. It was too good, and that began to change my life.”

Judging from the above quote in the Yonhap piece, the pianist Kim also seems to have a great sense of humor. “I graduated from a DPRK music institute, and studied one year in Tchaikovsky Music Academy in Moscow, but then I heard Richard Clayderman play, and it changed my life.” Ok, perhaps Richard Clayderman is a great pianist, and I’m just fooled by his reputation.

At the end of the article, he says he is using a pseudonym to protect his family, but he had already identified himself as someone who studied at the Moscow Conservatory in 1995. Hmmm, I wonder who this mystery man is? Wow, this is a tough one for the NK authorities to figure out.

And as far as twentieth-century music being banned – well, maybe it was in 1996, but I sure doubt it seeing as one of the major music academies in Pyongyang is named after Yun Isang – probably Korea’s most famous contemporary composer. Also, at the Spring Festival in PY this year, the audience was treated to Bartok played by a Russian orchestra, as well as country music from an American group! Many nations performed in multiple halls (even an Australian band) and lots of imperialist and modern music was heard and enjoyed.

For this reason, the “please pity me” tone of Kin Chul Woong rings a little hollow, but maybe I’m wrong.

Just for fun, where the hell did the wild hotshit capitalist dog drumming on the second half of this NK clip come from?

http://www.robpongi.com/pages/comboGTEENS.html