Territorial Pissings: Punks in South Korea or: How I Learned to Stop Listening to K-Pop and Start Loving K-HxC

A Parallel Planets piece by Tomi Uysingco

Parallel Planets presents South Korea

in Territorial Pissings: Punks in South Korea or:

How I Learned to Stop Listening to K-Pop and Start Loving K-HxC

Story by Tomi Uysingco

Mentioned: horrid pop music, Japanese fetishism, and heavy drinking culture

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Hello, people of Earth. Let me jump on an assumption and guess that you love music, or at the very least listen to it. Well then, if so, us here in Parallel Planets are dropping on your laps a monthly series that involves just that. Music. Not just any music, but parallel planets music. What does that mean? It means we explore the wide variety of music scenes and genres you wouldn't have thought actually existed in a certain country until we've told you it did – unless you're some guy that has super obscure music taste. Then you're a nerd. Don't worry, we're all nerds here. Welcome.

photo by Youngjun Kim

A good 7 or 8 years ago, I was part of a hardcore band called Tigers are Out, Bears are In. If I was younger I would have said we were a screamo band, but that'll just be really silly and would conjure images of black eye liner, tight jean wearing mall punks. Then we'll argue that My Chemical Romance and The Used are fake, whiny emo bitches and blahblahblah. It would get tiring and would derail the whole point of this article.

During that time, we were very much involved in the hardcore scene, in and out of the Philippines. The whole scene has always treated itself as a community, a brotherhood even, and this is where I learned that there are hosts of underground bands around Asia that play disenfranchised, aggressive, political music just like we did. We all knew each other, released compilations and splits with each other, even played shows together at times. Everyone represented their country harder than the World Cup Series. But out of all these Asian coalition of hardcore scenes, there's this one country that seemed like it has its own orbit: South Korea.

photo by Minami Sakamoto

Admit it, the limited idea we have of a music scene in South Korea is relegated to the burst of technicolor bubblegum pop everyone dearly calls K-Pop. It started with their telenovelas, the incomprehensible music came next, then the inevitable: Koreans started flocking our shores. It's a complete takeover, and along with our Korean neighbors, K-Pop would be staying for a very long while.

So you see, South Korea isn't exactly the first place you think about when one talks about Punk.

But then again, in hindsight, it was most probably my fault why my own idea of Korean music is centered around the horridness of their pop music. I fixed that quickly when, on one of my downloading sprees, on one of those blogs where you download a whole album for free (remember those?) and by chance there sat a Hollow January record. FINALLY.

They didn't sound anything like what I'll expect from a band in Korea. It sounded like Envy, and Envy is awesome so this isn't even half bad. It had elements of post-rock, the melodic rise and fall, the catharsis.

It's no fluke either.

49 Morphines is another South Korean band that sounds like another Japanese band, Heaven in Her Arms, only with better production. I honestly think they also do it better than Hollow Jan, or Heaven in Her Arms for that matter. For a country that has been brought up by their school system to hate Japan, the Japanese fetishism could be anyone's guess. “At school, half the history book is dedicated to what Japan did to us. It's done with a negativity that breeds passive hatred in everyone. Of course people know better, but there is a fundamentally bad atmosphere,” says The Geeks frontman Ki in an interview with Vice Magazine.

Which is a good segue to scene stalwarts, The Geeks. Veterans for over a decade now, The Geeks play 80's youth crew influenced style of hardcore. They are known for their staunch straight edge views; their frontman usually goes up the stage and draws an X on his hand with a fat marker in front of everyone, not for theatrics, but because of the notorious heavy-drinking culture of Korea. Business, they mean it.

They've also toured the shores of the Philippines back in 2011, which went under a lot of people's radar. If you're one of those that missed it, then you've missed one hell of a show and should be super bummed about it.

Ki, along with Cliff of another hardcore band called Shellback and a guy they just call Bomb, also make up Open Your Eyes – a promotion outfit that has brought prominent hardcore bands Bane and Ceremony, and throughout the years has also brought down Terror, Have Heart, Strike Anywhere, No Turning Back, Down to Nothing and a whole host of other Western hardcore bands to Korea's shores. All in a DIY's budget.

The Geeks' and their HxC scene mostly centers around the student district of Hongdae, a small area in Seoul. There are also little pocket scenes around Busan, Cheongju, Daegu, and Daejon. What is quite baffling is the little interaction these sub-scenes have between each other, much like the relationship of record labels Town Hall and GMC.

Town Hall mostly sounds like youth crew and posicore influenced hardcore, while GMC has a much more metallic and macho sounding approach, but in a good way. Both labels boast a roster of bands that hold down the hardcore flag with their respective local showcases. Town Hall is mostly known for its affiliation with The Geeks and Things We Say, another big name in their small scene. Another notable band in THR's little incestuous scene are the Vicious Nerds. Made up of 3 members of The Geeks, they play politically charged but lighthearted hardcore in the vein of now defunct Philadelphia hardcore band I Hate You, only a little less confrontational.

GMC, on the other hand, has bands like Knockdown, who are heavy as hell with tons of sludge like breakdowns, as well as melodic metalcore bands Ninesin and Vassline. GMC is also home of the amazing 49 Morphines.

Now isn't that something? A punk scene, albeit a small one, in South Korea. And here you thought you've seen, or in this case heard everything Korea has to offer. The scene maybe young and there's still a lot of growing up to be done, but at this point, what else are they bound to do anyway? I'm expecting bigger things for the Korea HxC scene, and with an upcoming local show with US hardcore veterans Strife on the bill, I'm guessing that would be happening anytime soon.

Post Script: It is also worth noting that there's also a Black Metal scene in Korea and it's brutal as all hell. They have album titles like Triumph of the Glorious Blasphemy, unreadable band logos with Norwegian sounding names and vocalists that sound like imps screeching. Pretty standard stuff but exponentially more awesome because its from the land that brought everyone the Wonder Girls. Search it on Youtube.

Editor's Note: The cover photo is a film still from Chan Wook Park's 'I'm a Cyborg But That's OK.'