Comments on: Rock on Shin Joong-hyun!

By: railwaycharm

railwaycharm — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 07:57:55 +0000

Does anyone recall the blues artist that used to pay at “Just blues” in Iteawon? The guy is fantastic, he is a big Clapton fan. Where does he perform now?

By: kayakorea

kayakorea — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 15:15:47 +0000

“Mi In” or Beauty was the first Korean rock song that blew me away with it’s driving rythm, catchy technical riff, high energy and Shin’s unique voice. I heard it first in Woodstock in Shinchon and still request it any time I go to a rock bar. It was at Woodstock years later that I met Lee Won, the amazing guitarist who I heard took his own life recently. I was later invited by a Korean blues guitarist with whom I played drums for a while to a bar in Ilsan for a birthday party. Turns out the bar was owned by professional musicians and had an amazing soundsystem and equipment on a small stage set up for small jams among friends. Lee Won happened to be there and at one point all these talented musicians, some well known, started jamming, at my request and with me on drums to Mi In. I’ll never forget the intensity and joy we all had playing that song or the crazy drunken partiers dancing their arses off to it (or the owner’s hot wife who was all over me after we played). That song and that night will always be one of my favorite memories of Korea.

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » South Korea: rock music

Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » South Korea: rock music — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 05:53:18 +0000

[...] R. Elgin blogs about the “godfather”, Shin Joong-hyun, of Korean rock music in Marmot’s hole. Oiwan Lam [...]

By: bulgasari

bulgasari — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:56:22 +0000

Yeah, I noticed that here, but hadn’t had a chance to post a correction til now. Too bad it wasn’t a little more filled out (with the covers or the instrumentals found on the first 2 albums), but the songs that are on it make it well worth the purchase.

By: Haisan

Haisan — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:18:48 +0000

http://www.eclickkorea.com/sho.....p;uid=3718

By: Haisan

Haisan — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 00:01:43 +0000

The first Pearl Sisters album is one of the Pony Canyon reissues.

By: bulgasari

bulgasari — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 22:17:53 +0000

I’ll have to check at Purple records next time I’m there - I’ve looked in other places with no luck (other than finding Yupjuns). I guess one problem is looking for him specifically and not the singers. I do know that the Golden Grapes album has never been released on cd, and it’s easily my favourite - tight, focused, psychedelic rock songs. It appears the early Pearl Sisters albums have never been released on cd either.

I’ll have to give Kim Jung-mi another listen - I wasn’t too keen on her voice the first time I listened to her. And I just took a look to see if the Lee Jung-hwa ‘봄비’ album is on cd and (bang head against keyboard) no it’s not, only the ‘싫어’ album is (which is basically the same songs, but I think 봄비 is much, much, better. Oh well, It’ll be nice to have a physical copy of it anyways…

By: Haisan

Haisan — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 15:49:05 +0000

Most of the Shin Joong-hyun stuff that has been reissued on CD has been put out by Pony Canyon Korea — a Japanese record label. The owner of Pony Canyon is apparently a huge Shin Joong-hyun fan, so basically put out the materials as a favor. They have released 12 classic albums (although Kim Jeong-mi’s BARAM is out of stock, last I checked). (Kim Jeong-mi is by far my favorite, although Lee Jung-hwa is amazing). Anyhow, Hyang’s Music in Shinchon and (especially) Purple Records in Hongdae both have pretty decent selections.

The other funny thing is how many of the bands from that period covered In a Gadda Da Vida, by Iron Butterfly. Shin did it, He6 did it, and more.

Mr. Moon at the Woodstock bar in Shinchon has an amazing collection of original editions of that old music. Many of those albums are worth hundreds of dollars, at least.

By: bulgasari

bulgasari — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 12:26:42 +0000

Nice article (even if the ending is a bit awkward) - I didn’t know anything about his childhood, or that his songs had been banned in the 70s. Oddly, I saw this article in the Donga Ilbo last night - wierd timing. There’s a lot more information in English about his albums here - kudos to the person who made that site, as it allowed me to track down a lot of his music, by using emule (a p2p program). There are a lot of Koreans using that program, and someone was kind enough to take almost all of his long out of print lps and convert them to mp3s. Do searches (in Korean gets better results, but there’s some stuff in English)) for the Golden Grapes (골든 그레입스), the Donkey’s first album with Lee Jeong-hwa (이정화), and the Pearl Sisters (펄 시스터즈) first album or two. The first Kim Chu-ja album is pretty good (I loved how Jang Sun-woo used the song “꽃잎 (A petal)” in his film of the same name). On all of these albums Shin plays guitar and writes the songs, both of which tasks he’s damn good at. I’ve heard some other psychedelic rock from that time period, like the He6 and Key Brothers, but it just doesn’t compare to Shin’s stuff. One thing that lifts Shin to the top is his songwriting, and the fact that he often recorded his songs several different times with different singers and arrangements.

By: R. Elgin

R. Elgin — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:29:55 +0000

When I ask some artists why they don’t do new covers of old tunes (gayo), they tell me that many times it is because the original artist is still alive and they do not feel right touching their music.

I’ve got a new Jazz arrangement of “고영 역” that I will try to link to sometime soon. It’s pretty interesting to hear what a new arrangement can do to an old but good song.