Asian Rock Guitar Overview
McJimi
II. Excerpts from Interviews with Korean guitarists
questions on Korean, Japanese, and American music.
III. Quick Overview of Korean rock guitarists.
IV. B.S. about the author ( pass unless you're extremely bored )
NOTE: Additional info may be posted later.
Email McJimi if you have some constructive or interesting comments, or if
you have any questions. Thanks.
RECREATION:
I got heavily involved in Korea's rock and pop music scene, so this is
what I'll talk about. About the only half decent place to go for quality
live music in Seoul is a little bar called Studio Club. It's owned by Chun
In Kwon, who performs there almost every night with his band. It's in an
area north of the Han River called "Anguk dong". Have a Korean friend call
736-2929. A guitarist who often plays with Chun In Kwon speakes English
well. His name is Joe (Cho) June Hyung. Another guy who sits in from time
to time of Kim Do Kyun, who used to play in a group called Baekdusan. Do
Kyun lived in England for a year, and he can be fun to talk to. He's a
fiery lead guitarist of the old school-turn it up to 10 and let the
amplifier's tubes sing. ( he plays at low volumes, too. ) Just be careful
if you go drinking with him in Itaewon-he loves to party there. You'll be
out all night. Be cool if you go to Mr. Chun's club-it's about the only
place for live rock music and it doesn't need to be ruined by foolish
drunks. Sure, you can get a good buzz there, but if you're prone to absurd
or violent behavior when drunk, there are other places where you'd have
lots more fun. Like Itaewon.
In the Shinchon area, about 10 minutes from Anguk dong, there's a club
that's more heavy metal called Rock World. It's near Hong Ik Univeristy,
just past a bridge that goes over some train tracks. Call 326-1277.
There's also a tiny reggae bar called Heaven very close to Hong Ik
University. I've lost the number. Chun In Kwon was thinking about opening
another live club in the Shinchon area, but I left before it opened.
A little history: In the late 1970's there were quite a few places to go
for live music. But a Korean president decided these places were immoral,
and outlawed them. The only places that could have live music were the
hotels and cabaret entertainment houses that could afford all the
expensive liscences...and pay off the extortion fees of the local
organized crime groups ( "gangpae" ). So if you like paying tons of money
to see sickeningly glitzy hotel bands, you'll have a great time in Korea.
The Korean government is slowly beginnig to loosen up, but it may take
while before Korea's dismal music scene becomes just tolerably bad. One
can only hope that more live rock clubs will open-ones that have good
sound systems, nice interiors, and more than 60 cubic feet of space.
There are a few jazz clubs, the best being All That Jazz in Itaewon.
They often have jam sessions where Americans sit in with the Koreans. I've
heard some great players there. Itaewon is where all the American soldiers
hang out, as well as other expats. All That Jazz is on the third or fourth
floor of a building near the Hamilton Hotel. Get there by 8:30 if you want
a table. In the Hyehwa area, there's a cool little jazz club called FUSION
very near a police station near the main rotary. Have a Korean friend call
766-2003, 763-2123. The owner's younger brother has another jazz cafe
called Getz in the same general area. I've been to a few other jazz clubs
whose names I've forgotten, but they're easy to find once you make friends
with Korean jazz musicians.
I won't bother to tell you about places to see classical music and
concerts of traditional Korean music simply because they're also easy to
find. Just ask your students. I love the kayagum, which is Korea's
equivalent to Japan's koto. There are different types of traditional music
in Korea, some subtle, some very cacophonous. There's a park in Hyehwa
where you can hear some of the latter for free. Hyehwa is a place where a
lot of creative people congregate. College students love playing
tradtitional Korean percussion instruments, so a trip to most universities
will give you a taste of this.
Korea has a fair number of rock and pop concerts. Two of the magazines
which cover this scene are Music Land and Hot Music. Have your students
contact these magazines to find out the details for specific concerts. A
lot of Korean pop music is very bland, with excessive use of sythesizers
and hip hop rhythms. There are lots of crooners and dancers. Korean singer
Shin Hae Chul does sometimes add unusual twists (for Korea) to his music,
including touches of heavy metal and other genres. His current lead
guitarist is a great player, worth seeing in concert.
Korean rock is pretty much in the heavy metal camp. It seems to range
from Mr. Big and AC/DC style bands, to thrash and neoclassical shred
guitar. There are almost no bands which mix the power of rock guitar with
creative, but memorable song structures. Nothing like REM, U2, Nine Inch
Nails, Nirvana, or even the Beatles. Nothing like Peter Gabriel, or even
the earthiness of John Hiatt, Little Feat, the Radiators, or Sonny
Landreth. I find a lot of Korean music has a very synthesized, inorganic
quality to it. Others have commented on the childishness of Korean pop
music. Chun In Kwon often treads the middle ground well, but there aren't
many like him.
There are some good musicians in Korea, but what they play for
themselves and what they play for the Korean market tend to be two
different things.
No discussion of Korean music would be complete without mentioning the
most horrid music I came across in my travels: trot music. ( In Japan,
"enka"). It's kind of based on a European rhythm reminiscent of "oompah"
music. There's an Italian instrumental influence there as well. Simplify
the beat ( if that's possible ), and repeat it until it becomes the aural
equivalent of Chinese water torture. Use the cheesiest synth, guitar, and
sax sounds imaginable. Add bastardizations of true oriental scales and
melodies, and possibly a singer with a bizarre "Ethel Mermonesque"
vibrato. Long and wide.
Take almost any taxi in Korea, and you'll be treated ( subjected) to
a taste of trot on the cheesy taxi stereo. Bring your barf bag. Okay,okay,
so I'm interjecting way too much of my personal tastes into this. Just
wait until you experience it.
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Portions of Interviews with Korean rock guitarists:
1. Im Duk Gyu-lead guitarist for Stranger
Q: How do you percieve the differences between American and Korean rock
music?
A: Of course, America is the source. Korea is very limited in its
rescources. But Korea is developing, and with this development, our music
scene is finally making some headway. There are still enormous
barriers-lack of information, conservatism among the government, record
companies, parents, etc.-but people are listening.
What I'm trying to do is play American style rock with Korean
influences. All of use working in this area are trying very hard to play
well and hopefully, someday create a unique synthesis of Western and
Korean approaches.
Q: What is needed to help this process along?
A: Information. We are so very hungry for information on all aspects of
music.
Q: What do Korean amateurs need to learn?
A: Rhythm work!!!! Both in terms of learning their instruments and
working as a band. They really don't know how to create a good band sound.
After that, they need to go back and take a look at rock's roots;
they need to understand where rock came from. Amateurs try hard here, but
they often lack depth.
Q: Give me your impression of Japanese rock music.
A: Even though they have a great environment for learning music, it
doesn't seem to come out in their music. They've been exposed to a large
variety of music for years, they've got all the money in the world, they
can actually earn a living playing music, yet they still haven't produced
anything commensurate to their rescources.
I think music is tied to the character of a country's people. Japan
seems to eminate a sort of nervous, electric energy, whereas Korea's pace
of life seems a little slower, and I feel that gives our rock music a lot
more punch.
We have more live clubs than we did a few years ago, more listeners,
and more musicians, We need some kind of showcase for good bands. There
are quite a few musicians here, but no real rock stars who are reasonably
independent. We only have pop stars.
2. Im Chang Soo
Q: What are your views on American and Korean rock music?
A: Korean guitarists don't really seem to have their own sound, their own
style. The Korean word for this is "gojun kwanyum". It means someone who
has tunnel vision, who is too single minded. Koreans need to look at music
from many more perspectives.
Q: Who would you say are Koreans who have their own identity as players?
A: Relative to Korean standards, I think Kim Jung Tae, Lee Jung San, and
Lee Gun Hyung are worth mentioning. Kim Jung Tae has what I call a body
tone, meaning that he plays the instrument like its part of his body and
soul.
But realistically, American guitarists have a huge edge over us.
They're still much more original.
Q: Which Western guitarists are popular here?
A: Chet Atkins, Roy Clark, Albert Lee...
Q: C'mon!
A: Okay. Paul Gilbert, Yngwie, and Eric Clapton.
Q: How about Stevie Ray Vaughan?
A: He hasn't made a big impact here. Eric Clapton, for all his blues feel,
has put out a lot of pop music with melodies which are easy to sing.
Koreans, and probably most Asians in general, like smooth pretty melodies.
"Wonderful Tonight" is the most popular-and overplayed- Clapton song here.
Stevie Ray's brand of Texas blues has too much grit for most Koreans-it
doesn't mesh well with Korean tastes. Plus, Stevie's dead and Eric isn't!
No, seriously, it's just different cultures respective tastes. But what
does seem to surprize a lot of Americans is how much some Koreans love
very heavy metal. In Korea, people either like very pretty, melodic rock,
or very heavy and hard sounding metal. Stevie's aggressiveness just
doesn't seem to fall within the bounds of the hard stuff that is somewhat
popular here. But most Koreans just listen to pop radio.
Q: What are your impressions of Japan's music scene vis a vis Korea's?
A: Korean rock music is more soulful and more bluesy than that of Japan.
The Korean peninsula to me has a heavier, deeper energy to it. Japan seems
so fast and chaotic, I wonder if musicians there really reflect on what it
is they're making.
Q: What's the situation here for live music?
A: Pretty bad. The fans here love live music, but we've got a lot of bad
equipment and bad management. Some things are changing fast, but many
things are changing much too slowly.
For example, if someone tries to have a live club, all the neighbors
complain to "the authorities" and so the music stops. Some noise, like an
obnoxious food truck blaring a loud, distorted, penetrating sales pitch
through a megaphone for an hour is perfectly acceptable here.
And a lot of Koreans can't really enjoy rhythm!
Q: Many Westerners I've talked to here have commented that Koreans seem to
have been trained to clap out of time with the music they listen and sing
to.
A: It seems that way to me, too, at times. Before the Japanese occupation
here, Koreans were a much more jovial bunch. My grandparents used to tell
me stories of how people used to sing and dance and party to the rhythms
of music. Koreans were a more outgoing, spirited people before. The
occupation took a lot of our soul, our spirit away.
If you listen to traditional Korean music, you'll hear much more
syncopation, dynamics, and variety than in present day music. Koreans
today pay this music lip service, but they usually just get wasted on soju
and listen to mindless trot music. The flow and livelinesss are gone.
Apathy and complacency have set in. And you can see this in the terrible
sense of rhythm Koreans often have. It's so sad.
Q: Any comments on Korean college players?
A: Yeah, they ain't got no soul!!! I mean, they're playing doesn't.
Q: So how do they get this soul?
A: They have to take their time and reflect a little on their own
feelings, so they can get inside those feelings. Instead of practicing
Yngwie scales for hours and hours, try taking one note and go deep into
it.
3. Ahn Hwe Tae ( guitarist for Mystery )
Q: What are your perceptions of American music?
A: American players are bluesier and more powerful than Korean players.
They also have humor in their playing. And they are much more experimental
than us, particularly guys like Satriani and Holdsworth. FInally, I'd like
to say they have much richer sounds than us.
Q: Why is that?
A: For one thing, we really don't have good amps over here. [note for non
musicians-guitar amplifiers do not just amplify the sound coming from an
electric guitar-they shape it, color it, and expand upon it to the point
where they become a critical element in the chain. Volume is easy-TONE is
hard to get! ] And our studios and engineers aren't up to par with
American standards.
Q: Given your interest in experimentation, would you ever try to mix rock
music with traditional Korean music?
A: I'd like to, but it's not easy. I can imitate some aspects of the
kayagum [Korea's equivalent to Japan's koto] . There's a lot of different
syncopations involved, many rhythmic variations. It'd take some serious
work to get it right.
Q: What do see for Korea in the future?
A: Things have gotten much better, even compared to 5 years ago. Much,
much better. Unlike what I've heard about the States, univerisity band
here are really horrible, just terrible. In the U.S. there are many levels
of bands, but here there are just two-professionals who record, and
amateurs who are amateurs in every sense of the word.
So in ten years or so we many finally get singificant numbers of
good bands. You've got to remember, we're....I hate to use the
word...fighting a very entrenched society which doen'st ake well to rock
music. Maybe something like a branch of G.I.T. or Berklee in Korea could
give us more legitamacy and improve the level of musicianship over here.
But there is hope, things are getting better, and I think we'll eventually
do okay.
NOTE: These are just small excerpts from much larger interviews. If anyone
out there would like to see more, please email me with your snail mail
address, and I'll send you photocopies of the interviews.
Korean Guitarists in Korea:
My Korean friends who are guitarists don't generally get to play
what they really want on albums. So, if you go to Korea, just try to
become friends with them so you can hear what they actually sound like.
Here's a partial list of some good players: Kim Jung Tae, Lim Chang Soo,
Kim Se Hwang, Ahn Hwe Tae, Im Duk Gyu, Kim Do Kyun, Cho June Hyung, Lee
Hyun Suk, and In Jae Hoong (presently attening MI in Hollywood ). These
guys are rock and metal players.
My favorite is probably Kim Jung Tae, who now lives in Pusan-poor soul.
He's got a lot of technique, but he's also got a fantastic melodic sense,
and when he wants to, he can play some really good blues. If I were to
ever form a band in Korea, I'd ask him to join. He's now playing with a
great drummer and super nice guy, Park Chul Oh. The only album these guys
ever played on sucked, so try to get a jam going with them. A warning;
neither of these two speak English for shit. Not that they should have to
speak any, it's just something you should know before trying to talk with
them.
Lim Chang Soo, who does speak English, mixes Satriani stretch legato
with rapid fire blues licks. He can be funny when he's drunk. He's played
some solos on some of singer Shin Hae Chul's albums. He can play very fast
hard rock and metal solos, but he loves listening to African American soul
singers. Go figure.
Kim Se Hwang replaced Lim Chang Soo in Shin Hae Chul's band NEXT.
They're presently working on a new CD. Se Hwang (James) grew up in
America, so not only does he speak perfect Engish, but he has more of an
American feel to his playing. Or at least, that's what they Koreans claim.
He's a bit Van Halenesque in his approach, and he's very into getting
thick overdrive tones. The only album he's played a lot on was an album by
the group Downtown. He's told me that he's getting much better guitar
sounds on Hae Chul's new recording, in part because he's using four or
five different tube amps to get different tones....like I advised him to.
Ahn Hwe Tae is a tall player with large hands . He's very fast, but he
seems to be getting a bit sloppy since he developed sharp pains in his
left hand. His style is ...I dunno...schizophrenic metal? He doesn't have
much of a blues feel. He's into tweaking new sounds from a storehouse of
effects pedals. He plays in a band called Mystery. Their one album was
horribly recorded. It's reminiscent of Mr. Big, I guess. The band is at
heart a Pusan band, though the members now live in Seoul. Pusan is a lot
rougher than Seoul, in so many ways. The members are all nice guys,
though.
Im Duk Gyu was the first professional Korean rock guitarists I met. A
good man, and a good player. He can speak some English. He's more focused
and single minded in his pursuit of rock music than some of his
counterparts in Seoul. He plays like a man possesed live-he looks like
he's having a good time when he's onstage. He plays in a band called
Stranger, whose one album is in a neoclassical vein. Duk Gyu can play
bluesier than his fast scalar runs on that album let on.
Kim Do Kyun is famous in Korea. He used to play in a band named
Baekdusan. He lived in England for a year, so his English is quite good.He
is a funny man. He's got lots of personality, and is a fiery player from
the old late 60's early 70's school. He's absorbed a bit of the faster
techniques of more recent rock guitarists, but at heart he's a "crank it
up to ten and watch the tubes melt" kind of player. I really didn't like
Baekdusan's albums, but I like Do Kyun's live playing. Look for him at
Chun In Kwon's club in Anguk dong.
Cho June Hyung often playes with Chun In Kwon, and is a versatile
session player. Like Do Kyun, his roots are in 70's rock, but he can cover
quite a few bases, and get a wide variety of tones. He's into melodic
solos and understated rhythm parts. He speaks English almost as well as Do
Kyun, and he's a very kind human being.
Lee Hyun Suk spent a few years living in the States, so he's easy to
talk to. He's a kinder, gentler Yngwie ( a famous "neo classical" metal
player from Sweden ). Very accurate technique, and his tone has a
pleasant, warm midrange to it. It lacks the authority that comes from
having a deep bass, so it's not the most aggressive rock sound. But it's
melodic, even when fast. I think he's got two solo albums out now.
In Jae Hoong is another neo classical metal player, who loves checking
out new amps. Something we both have in common. His tone is brighter than
Hyun Suk's, with a generally higher level of aggressiveness. Nice guy,
though somewhat quiet in a gentle kind of way. He's presently studying at
Musician's Institute in Hollywood. His English is decent. I think he used
to live in Hawaii and play in a band there.
All of these players have been very kind to me. The one asshole I met (
an opinion that everyone who knows him seems to share ) was a guitarist in
Pusan. I've forgotten his name. He used to be an Yngwie clone, but is now
playing his version of "fusion". Good technique, horrible tone. His ego is
so one dimensional that it's hard for anyone to actually be offended by
it. It's almost comical. When I first heard and read what he said about
others, the put downs were to one dimensional and extreme, I thought he
had to be joking. Turns out he was serious. Poor guy. But he has talent,
and he's worth checking out if you're into fusion from an ex metal player.
He does a Earl Klugh imatation for some songs, which gives the ears a
break from the transistor fuzz box sound he usually uses.
There are some okay jazz players, but I've forgotten their names. One
guy is really good-he studied at Berklee. He lives out in the country, and
comes to Seoul on the weekends. He hangs out at Nakwon Sangka-Korea's main
music market, located in Chong-no. Ask around for Lee Chae Hak, a
businessman/guitar player who spends a lot of time at the shops (like
Hyunjae Aki )in Nakwon Sangka. Lee Chae Hak knows this jazz player well.
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In the remote event that anyone thinks anything here in edited form might
be publishable, please send it to whatever magazines you think might be
interested. Give them my email address. I've got lots more of this (shit
).
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