Korea

Tel, who is in the band Chadburger, has written two brilliant reports to show how alive hxc is in Korea! Get inspired...

Cheongju used to be the second biggest scene in Korea, and there was MF Crew (Mooshimchun Fuckers Crew; Mooshimchun is a river running through the city, 'chun' is Korean for river) who ran a label and promoted regular shows in the city. The scene there seems to have disintegrated since MF Crew disbanded a year or two back.


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13 Steps were heavily involved in MF Crew, they are now signed to GMC. One of the biggest bands in Korean hardcore. I think they're based in Seoul now, though I'm not sure. Their current guitarist and drummer are in the veteran streetpunk band Rux, so 13 Steps are forced into periods of inactivity. Their first two CDs are fantastic, fast NY style hardcore; their new(ish) full-length is much more metallic-sounding which is less to my tastes, but it got a great reception in the scene here.


The only other hardcore bands I can think of coming out of Cheongju right now, though, are Combative Post who play melodic hardcore in a similar style to FC Five from Japan, and Sink To Rise who play old-school hardcore and got a lot tighter after a couple of recent lineup changes. Sink To Rise actually have two bassists, but since no clubs in Korea have the correct equipment to plug in two bass guitars at once, they have to take turns playing shows...!


Both those bands are on Townhall.


Daejeon has a barely-existent scene. The only band I'm aware of is Noeazy, who are a metalcore band signed to GMC.

Daegu is a scene that everyone in Korea is hoping will replace the Cheongju scene. Flagship band Sinklair play melodic hardcore, they cover a couple of Comeback Kid songs so I'll be lazy and use that as a point of comparison.


Their singer Dooho is one of the leading members of Ballaz Crew, along with a guy named Donghwi who is in a new band called Blood Brothers.


My favorite Daegu band is Axcutor; though they regularly play hardcore shows in Daegu (even opening for Bane last month), they actually play a blend of grind and death metal.


Shows in Daegu are generally well-attended, by a relatively young audience; the hope is that enough of these kids will go on to form bands.

Busan has a small but strong scene, which as far as hardcore goes is mostly based around 24 Crew. The four bands in that crew are...

Lazarus Vendetta (grindcore)


FatalFear (melodic death/thrash metal)


Gwamegi (used to be a mix of hardcore and grind, but seem to have mellowed out lately and now play metalcore)


To My Last Breath (deathcore, released an EP on Townhall last year). There's gotta be more hardcore in Busan (and Daegu, for that matter), but I'm so far removed from that city that I don't know about it.


As for 'zines... bROKe In Korea was an English-language 'zine covering all aspects of punk and hardcore here, and published 3~4 times a year; I'm pretty sure that's dead and buried now, though. There are a few Korean-language 'zines such as Rosa Times (named after its editor, Jae-hwa aka Rosa), but I don't speak much Korean so I am not too aware of what's out there in Korean language.

You've probably noticed the word 'crew' pop up several times... coming from the Western world, I always used to associate the word 'crew' with dumb macho idiocy, but over here that's definitely not the case. There is little to no fighting at shows and as far as I know there are no serious beefs anywhere in the scene. In this country, a crew is still what it used to be in the West - nothing more than a group of friends helping each other out.

Straight-edge is also much more positive here than it is in the West, though it's also much rarer. Every straight-edger I've met in Korea is aware that the decision they've made is theirs, nobody tries to tell people that they're not allowed to drink/smoke/whatever. The Geeks are the only straight-edge band as far as I know (and only 2~3 of the five members are straight-edge). I'm straight-edge, but none of my bandmates are, and I don't make it a lyrical topic. I wouldn't be surprised if there's less than 50 sXe people in the whole country, including foreigners (who are usually around for a year at the most). The documentary Edge has just been translated into Korean by Ki and a girl called Mi-Jin, and will premiere in Korea next Sunday; it'll be interesting to see if it has an effect on the popularity of the straight-edge lifestyle in Korea.

I'll try and be more concise next time, promise! (because I won't be sitting here trying to make sure I haven't missed out any friends' bands!)

Korea - Seoul

I moved to Korea in August 2007 to teach English, an occupation that leaves one with plenty extra cash, plus public transport here is dirt cheap, and most importantly it's possible to sit in a train station all night without getting mugged, so I started travelling to shows on a regular basis. Anyway... I live in Cheonan, a small city 60 miles south of Seoul. There is literally nothing in this city, as far as a hardcore scene goes. The Korean hardcore scene in general is very small, for such a populous country (45 million), and the majority of what does exist is centered around Hongdae, which is one small area of Seoul. There are also small scenes in Busan, Daegu, Cheongju and I guess Daejeon, but for the most part there is surprisingly little interaction between each of these sub-scenes. There's a pretty good level of quality though, several bands worth checking out.

In Seoul, the promoters to note are Open Your Eyes (Ki from The Geeks, Cliff from Shellback and a guy called Bomb), who tend to book bigger shows with foreign bands; they just brought Bane and Ceremony here, and in the last couple of years have also brought Strike Anywhere, Terror (twice), No Turning Back, Have Heart, Down To Nothing and probably one or two others that I've forgotten about.

Because of the relatively small audiences here, each foreign tour is a financial gamble for them, and they rely on donations from kids in the scene because they do everything DIY and don't fuck with corporate sponsorship. Then there's Townhall Records and GMC Records, who mostly book all-domestic shows with their own affiliated bands; most bands are either signed or at least linked to one of these two labels, and again, there's not much interaction between the two these days (OYE is linked to Townhall Records and the two often work together).


There's also Unionway Krew, but they mostly deal with pop/skate punk, which doesn't interest me so much... and Soeultari DIY, which is more punk/crust (they've brought Fy Fan, D-Clone, System Fucker and Attack SS from overseas) and have been involved in some controversy recently; I'm not sure if they're still active.




Bands from Seoul... well, the obvious starting point is The Geeks. You're probably at least semi-familiar with them already. They're Korea's longest-running hardcore band (ten and a half years), and the only Korean hardcore band to have toured the States. They tour overseas about once a year (most recently in Indonesia) and I think they're planning on touring the US and/or Europe in 2010/11...? The singer, Ki, is the main guy responsible for Open Your Eyes booking. They're on Townhall Records, so let's have a look at the other Townhall-affiliated bands.

Townhall mostly deals with youth-crew and the more positive side of hardcore. The biggest hardcore band other than The Geeks are probably Things We Say, who were on the Youth Crew 08 international compilation 7". They have a great LP called Our Decisions, which was released in mid '07. Frontman Victor (he's Korean but always uses his English name) got married and had a kid a year or two back, so they're less active now than they were. Ki from The Geeks also plays bass in this band.


Things We Say's drummer (Hoonhee) and guitarist (Seungjae) are also in No Excuse, who have Townhall label head Kyusuck on vocals and 13 Steps vocalist Dokyo on bass. No Excuse are more metallic with more breakdowns; they remind me of Deal With It from the UK, who in turn take their main influence from old Cro-Mags records.


Then there's Burn My Bridges (old school hardcore) who are very popular within the scene.


Shellback are a new band who play darker, maybe more melodic hardcore, something that is different than what already exists in the Korean scene; vocalist Cliff is, along with Ki from The Geeks, one of the hardest working guys in the scene, as part of the Open Your Eyes booking team.


A few bands associated with Townhall but not signed to the label... Vicious Nerds is a side project of Geeks guitarist Joonsung, they make me think of the old Philly band I Hate You, but political and lighthearted instead of confrontational. Joonsung does vocals after a recent lineup change, fellow Geeks members Bong (bass) and Gene (guitar) are also in the band.


BanRan (Korean word meaning 'riot' or 'insurrection') are fronted by ex-Things We Say guitarist Yongjoon and feature drummer Hoon-hee (No Excuse, TWS, others). They play short, fast and loud hardcore punk, and have songs about how much they think Korea sucks. They're fast as shit and my favorite band in this country.

And I guess I'll mention the band I shout in, Chadburger; we also play fast hardcore with short songs, we've been doing it longer than BanRan but they're better :P


And lastly, Veteran are an awesome new crossover-style band mostly featuring members of Captain Bootbois.


I'm not quite as familiar with the GMC side of the scene so I probably won't ramble as much here. Their bands tend to be more metallic and macho, though not in quite the same meatheaded jock way as you might imagine. They're all good people, as far as I know. The label boss sings/raps in Firestorm, who are good fun. MaZe play relentlessly fast and heavy metallic old-school hardcore, with sick vocals. Knockdown are heavy as shit, lots of sludgy breakdown riffs, great music. Ninesin and Vassline are both pretty much melodic death/thrash metal with hardcore attitude. Samchung are a long-running band that started out playing grindcore, then transitioned through NY style hardcore into some sort of macho '80s metal. Captain Bootbois have a dodgy name because they started out as a skinhead streetpunk band, but these days they play a unique blend of streetpunk, metal and hardcore influences that everyone ought to check out at least once; they have some fucking great songs. 49 Morphines play... I guess you'd call it 'screamo', but I feel like I'm insulting a band by giving them that tag, and I love 49 Morphines. I'm pretty much certain I'm missing at least a couple of other GMC bands, but the label has been relatively quiet lately.