[No Reply] Fashonista Gwon Sungwan

Now it has been finallyy revealed. Sungwan is a fashion leader.

As fashionista Sungwan points out the importance of the socks. The socks are the main point of every outfit, so he carefully chooses his socks together with No Reply's stylist before every performance, preferably fitting to his jacket for a perfect look.

Fashion Leader Gwon Sungwan!

Fashion's finish: socks?!

socklove. Sungwan!
This day ... fitting to the color of the jacket,
so you chose these socks ^^

(from Sweet Sorrow's Tenten Club)

[No Reply] Little View on 2010

After finsihing their Encore Concert 'Road 4' successful, No Reply will hold a 'Final Road' concert end of February next year. This will be the last performance for their first album, right after that they will go over working on their 2nd album which is planned to be released around May~June.

During that time Sungwan helps one of his Seonbaes with composing for his new album and Wookjae becomes a producer for a newcomer for the new Mintpaper compilation LIFE.

[Super Kidd] Digital Single for Snowboarders

After their special summer album 'Music Show', Super Kidd comes back with a special digital single for snowboarders in winter 2009. The single has been released 22th already but just got a music video later. The song, produced by guitarist Jwanikim(좌니킴), reminds of an exciting snowboard ride in the fresh snow, so it has been decided that Korea's best snowboarders Bong Min Ho and Lee Ki Young will appear in the music video that was be shot in New Zealand.


some nice carving.

[Broken Valentine] New EP

I don't know how well known Broken Valentine is.

Broken Valentine was first named '6.August' in 2002, 'B.August' in 2004 and named 2007 as the now known 'Broken Valentine'. Their Discographie contains a digital EP 'Alien' that was released in 2005 and a self-produced EP called 'Answer Me!! Is that what you NEED??' in 2007. Now they're coming back under the same label as Phonebooth and releasing their new EP called 'Calling You'. The title track '내 낡은 서랍 속의 바다' is a cover from Panic.

They are getting the most attention being called 'Korea's represantative Rock Band' as they won 2008 in a contest, chosen to representate Korea in 2009 11th Asian Beat Grand Final. Competing against other Asian countries they won first place and the award for Best Composing.

The new EP also brings a teaser. The EP has been released 22th December already.



if you want to know more about them ask me or visit their daum cafe

[Pony] Activities

For People who were curious if Flowerboy Band Pony was planning something new, they're not.

Their Fancafe announced that they will be active performing until the end of 2009 and starting January the members will follow their own activities, thus Pony will take a break starting next year.

[Apollo18] Violet Recordings to Start Soon

Apollo18 Bassist Kim Dae In wrote in the fancafe that despite the cold weather Apollo18 did shoot their teaser video for Violet in a tree garden.
The mastering for Red+ started on monday and recording for Violet will start soon after that.

They are busy but everything procedes well and it seems they can do everything as planned.

[TUNE] And His Tattoo

Tune posted at his blog the history about his tattoo.

Right after Tune's logo was finished he decided to have a tattoo of "TUNE" and his first album title "TUNE your mind". But since it is the first time he has a tattoo, he was also worried ... for 0.03seconds.

Before getting a tattoo he consulted musicians around him that already have one and mentioned that especially the thoughtful and careful advices from Yozoh were good.
The artdirector who made the logo together with TUNE and the tattoo artist sat together planning out the exact size needed and to avoid any errors during tattooing. Even though a lot of people told that it hurts, Tune said that it was just a pricking, not huting at all. The only thing was the tension during the 1 hour job.
Thinking about what he should call his second album, people around him are starting to ask if he will have a tattoo everytime he releases a new album. He said that if he would do it, he would be all over album titles when he's 50 then and no space for movie mementos...

He also warns before making a tattoo, to think carfully about it, since it stays for a very long time, and to not have regrets later.
For people who think "Tattoo=scary guy", he wants them to see it as a kind of art, like hip hop and rock music, like graffiti or videos are, and wants them to recognize the diversity of tattoos.

Actually TUNE wanted the photo with his fist and the tattoo to be a jacket photo, but even though it wasn't used as that, he's comfortable with showing at the beginning and end of a performance.

On another note, his third music video for '달려가잖아' is in work and is probably going to be released in January next year.

[No Reply] Sungwan's New Hair

Sungwan complained about his hair during No Reply's 3rd concert. His front hair has been cut too short and he said that he will never trust the person who cuted it again. See it in one of the photos that were uploaded in their fancafe here.

A casual remark from Wookjae revealed then that Sungwan's hair wasn't cutted, he cutted it himself. Sungwan's words to Wookjae contained a several hatred from this point on and the talk about hair went through the whole concert.

The concert went successfully and beside No Reply's family and friends also collegues like Jung Soo Wan (Serengeti), Naru, Kim Dong Ryul and others visited the concert. Naru was also added as guest for the upcoming encore performance 'Road 4' that procedes 26~27th December.

[Happy Robot] New Artists for 2010

Posting new informations on the Happy Robot Blog, it has been said that 2010 2 new Teams will come to Happy Robot. Both of them are said to be fully male. Probably not being able to hold it back, exact informations may already follow at the end of December.
Hints have been posted in form of little, photoshopped photos. Eagle-eyed(?) fans recognized easily that the second group is Daybreak, who also participated at the Hello Rookie this year.

It also implies a project group, with one member out of each team. Maybe a soccer team. A male synchronized swimming team would work too... that's what the entry says...

[W&Whale] Marriage

W&Whale member Kim Sang Hoon(34) will marry on 12th December.

He will marry the 4 years younger ex-stylist of W&Whale in Kangnam at 1pm.
Who will join the meal hasn't been decided yet but marriage photos have been revealed.




Congratulations~
(He normally plays the Drums, sometimes also Bass and Guitar)

Collaboration Album for Jo Duk Bae

Wheesung, W&Whale, Black Skirts, MBlack, M To M, JK Kim Dong Wook and others gathered for the 25th Anniversary Album for Jo Duk Bae. On 7th 'Part 1' has been released, consisting of two songs; one is the song '슬픈 노래는 부르지 않을 거야' in a new version by W&Whale and for the other one Black Skirts collaborated with Kebee, remaking '뒷모습이 참 예쁘네요'. All in all 10 songs will be published and 'Part 2' and 'Part 3' will follow beginning of the next month. Whereas 'Part 1' was made in an electronic arrangement, 'Part 2' and 'Part 3' will be remade under the R&B and pop-dance genres.

Jo Duk Bae made his debut 1984 with his song '나의 옛날 이야기' and gained after that a lot of popularity through songs like '꿈에' and '그대 내맘에 들어오면'. He suddenly collapsed due to a cerebral hemorrhage in April, what made the singers helping him with an album. He has recovered a lot and also went to the recording studio to greet the singers and participated in the album, watching over the recordings.

[Midnight Stitch] Homepage Open

Midnight Stitch released their first single 'Moonlight' 9th October. Now they come with a new single 'Broken Ear'. Both are digital singles, but an album release is set for March and before that at least one more single.

Midnight Stitch is also the name of their cafe in Seoul. They are also Designers, what is not deniable seeing their cafe. the coffee tastes good too.

Anyway, for a long time the address www.midnightstitch.com didn't contain much but a picture. Now the homepage is finally opened, even though not everything is enabled yet.

They also have a myspace where you can listen into their songs here.

[Annyeong Bada] Mini Album Release

Annyeong Bada (or translated by Fluxus to 'ByeBye Sea')is a band that is in the Indie Scene for 2 years already but has not released any album yet (as far as I know). Now they are going to release their first Mini Album 'Boy's Univers' under Fluxus. The songs and lyrics are written and composed by leader and vocal Namu and are produced by the three guys from W. The five songs contain a story about our generation's growth ache.

The Mini Album will be released December 7th.



Track List

1. 내 맘이 말을 해 (3:25)
2. 별 빛이 내린다 (3:45)
3. Soon (2:52)
4. Beautiful Dance (3:11)
5. 어둠이 깊을수록 별은 더욱 빛난다 (3:01)


Also did Annyeong Bada a shoot for Indie2Go on 26th November in a cafe called 'Mug For Rabbit' where they did a part time job during the last years. Photos where already posted here. And the video got posted some minutes ago -_-; youtube-link

[Rasperry Field] Soy's Acting Career

Soy's list of roles gets a bit longer with the sudden appearance in High kick Through The Roof on wednesday (December 3rd). She plays the ex-girlfriend of Julien, proving her english skills.


The subs aren't perfect (as you will recognize) they're just there to understand the story better and done in quite a hurry.

Listening to the rumors in Rasperry Field's fancafe, Soy seems to be working hard on Rasperry Field's Single, but before that there will be a music video.

[Naru] New Album in February~March?

Sombrero updated his Mintpaper blog with some updates on release dates. One of them is Naru's 2nd album. Seems Naru continued his work on his new album as all the recordings with instruments are finished and just the vocals are done with a guide. Sombrero also stated that listening to the songs, from an unique view someone would think of Seo Taiji.

The album is planned to be released around February~March.
Also for this album Naru is doing all himself, vocal, performance of the instruments and even the recording.

[Oh Ji Eun] tries Anime

News about Oh Ji Eun were posted at the Happy Robot weblog.

Oh Ji Eun will be singing the opening for an animation. The animation still processes secretly and it is not sure if it will be shown on TV or not. Being rather for teens than small children the contents of the Anime will probably be Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller.

Besides that she is also working on an essay book, that is planned to be released between spring and summer next year.

Also, there will be maybe a new album in May next year already. But before that a release of an album with Japanese songs is planned.

[Phonebooth] 2 New Songs

Phonebooth had their first concert 13th November where they also played two other songs from their 2nd album. Over at R.O.K Scene you can watch very well done fancams of 'Glassdoor' and 'Revolver'.

No release date for the 2nd album yet.

[Phonebooth] Making Pizza for their Fans

After 4 years Phonebooth had their first concert on November 13th.
To thank the fans they made pizza with the help of Pizza Hut.



~

[Joa Band] goes Cinema

Joa Band will release their movie 'Joa Movie (좋아서 만든 영화)' on December 17th.

좋아서 하는 밴드 means literally 'Band we do because we like to', so their movie title also means 'Movie we made because we liked to'. The Movie follows the band from their start on the streets with nothing until their first release.



more infos and trailers at cafe.naver.com/joafilm or mintpaper

[Naru] Selfinterview

I translated the Selfinterview Naru did for Mintpaper.
There are still some things sounding weird, but I think besides the lyricspart and the album title part things become clear. And I'm not quite sure what 헐헐 means, I translated it with *sigh* but I am unsure. Also left the parts that were written by Mintpaper away.




Mintpaper gave Naru some guidelines and he himself asked and answered the Questions. The Interview is from March 2008.

How did you become aware of music?

When I was little, I was a normal child listening to music at a random note. I liked national singers. During 6th class of Elementary School, I liked and listened to H.O.T., because they looked awesome…
Coming into Middle School I started to listen well to the radio. Through the music of Panic, Kim Jong Seo, Jaurim, Exhibition(전람회), Deli Spice, etc, whom I got in contact with through the radio, I became aware of the greatness of serious music(?). And at that time I also started to search and listen a lot to pop songs, as good quality pop songs were introduced a lot through the cable music broadcast channels. At the same time, the first CD of an oversea band I bought was Prodigy’s ‘Fat Of The Land’. I can remember that I heard also hardcore music like Korn or Limpbizkit that controlled the end of the 90s.
It’s different from the music I make now, but I still like them and listen to them. Because they were the bands making me to like music more seriously.

[No Reply] Debut

The first time No Reply came officially into the music buisiness was 2006 at the 17th Yoo Jae Ha Music Competition. With their song '뒤돌아 보다' they won the second place. A video of them performing this song as appeared on cyworld.

[Mintpaper] New Compilation

After 'Cat Stories'+'Dog Stories' and 'Man and Woman ... and Stories' the third compilation by Mintpaper has started its production.

The title of the new compilation is 'LIFE' and different from his previous partners takes a change and has no 'Stories' in it. Goal is it to create an album filled with the simplest stories and a strength of the lyrics that go over reality. Like the title implies, it talks about the several moments of living a fierce live and the feelings of it. With a feeling suitable the words 'inexperiences' and 'mood' it is supposed to become an album that is able to catch the sympathy of everyone. It is planned to be released in spring next year; if everything goes fast in March, if it is late in April. (It is planned to release it 24th March but it is questionable if it can be done until then.) The compilation will consist of one CD with 14 songs on it. The artists have been decided already and are in midst of working for it.

[My Aunt Mary] Thomas Cook Blog Update

Episode Park Chang Hak



recording at T studio "never off-turning light"


There are producers that make you go the road with a whip.
There are producers that make you search the way setting traps with cheese.

And there are also simply sleeping producers.^^

My Aunt Mary had a recording for Yoo Hee Yeol's Sketchbook that will be broadcasted on 27th and Jung Soon Yong is also a fixed guest every monday on 'Yoo Hee Yeol's Radio Heaven'.

Indie Photo Exhibition

From 18th November until 1st December a Photo Exhibition will open, showing Photos of Indie musicians. Photographer Choi Gyu Seong selected carefully out of the over 20.000 pictures the best ones, including Jang Gi Ha and The Faces, Crying Nut, No Brain, Huckleberry Finn, U&Me Blue, Guckkasten, Black Skirts, Galaxy Express, 내 귀에 도청장치 (Wiretap in my Ear), GoGoStar, Yozoh, Han Hee Jung and others. Around 80 pictures of Indimusicians, shot at performances, interviews and festivals from 2007 to 2009, will be shown for the first time.

You can also see for a full list and more infos here. If you need help with it, ask~

[Hello Rookie 2009] Results

Leaving the hall in a weird way of walking after standing for 8 hours, I bring you here the results from the Hello Rookie End of the Year Performance.

The first award, the Popularity Award which was chosen through internet polls, went to 좋아서하는밴드 (Joa-Band). The Special Award went to Telepathy. And the Daesang, the Grand Award went to Appollo 18 (whose name -what I certainly found out now- is to be spoken korean, making the '18' 'shibpal' and let it sound like 'sshipal', a korean cussword).

No award for 'Indiedol' No Reply? 'Indieworld's old aged idols' even had a banner from their fanclub - the only banner there. But after all everyone can decide who his personal favorite Rookie was - They all showed a great performance and I am sure it was a win for everyone.

[TUNE] Winning GMF Awards MVP

Members of Mintpaper, so called 'Minter', had the chance to choose their favorite acts out of the performers of the GMF. Awards were given in Best Artist Overall, Best Performance, Best Moment, Best Rookie and Best Oversea Artist. The numbers were made of the voices of 200 Minters (80%) and the Mintpaper staff (20%).

TUNE, who didn't just performed the two days but was also active for environment, being the lead in seperate garbage collection for 2 years.

A lot of Minter stated that his healthy and handsome image of him spending energy from the start of the performances to the end into garbage seperation was left in their minds.

Second for MVP was Lee Juck and third came Buldog Mansion.
Best Performance were Lee Juck, Sister's Barbershop and Buldog Mansion.
Best Rookie were Joa-band (좋아서하는 밴드), Dry Flower and Amado Lee Jaram Band.
Best Moment were Lee Juck, Pepertones (at the end, the falling green balloons) and Sister's Barbershop (doing 'wonderful things/아름다운 것' together).
Best Oversea Artist was Hideki Kaji, The Cribs and Denison Witmer.

[Phonebooth] New Song revealed

Phonebooth, who are having a concert this friday seem to be in preparation for their 2nd album. Through Pressian they revealed a new song. You can listen to it here.

Pressian about the lyrics and the contents:

The song 'Come To Fight' of Rockband Phonebooth who stands out recently, is more or less obscure but draws attention, expressing the heavy feelings of today with metaphorical expressions. If it is expressions like 'he who is as great as his reputation' or 'the New World inside the mirage', trying to substitute them for today's reality, Phonebooth' understanding of reality becomes clear. And lyrics saying 'for a moment a broken voice but it becomes tears again', becomes deeply important after all, connecting it with the Yongsan tragedy and the state after the media's way of rush work.

So one has no other choice but live with 'a sick fallen heart that has stopped', but they will never stop here. Saying “Let's go to fight to find 'the future in the lost time that melted with sweet words' and 'is spread in the garbage heap'” (Come to Fight), that is because it is Phonebooth' conclusion. This conclusion is led by nothing but 'honest tears hidden in the black clouds'. Even in this melancholy state they don't lose their conscience and are enduring a tough live.

[TUNE] Music Video 'Freedom'

TUNE posted his new musicvideo today on his blog, you can watch it here.

Also, a comment left by the video editor states that the next video for '달려가잖아' is in preparation.

[No Reply] Smell of Idols?

On 3rd November at 2pm the ticketing for No Reply's Concert through Ticketlink was supposed to open. But a lot of fans had problems with Ticketlink as the side was first down some minutes after 2pm, then for some it was possible to get to the actual pre-sale page and after about 10 people got their tickets, the program showed some error message at the end of the pre-order-procedure that the place chosen was already taken. It was just able to get tickets through an automatic seat-chosing system which held back a lot of fans to get the seats they wanted. A lot of people were complaining about Ticketlink and asked Mintpaper to say good bye to them. After an apolgy-letter by Ticketlink, Happy Robot and Mintpaper, everyone who pre-ordered will get a 1000won discount on the other Mintpaper Winter Specials.

Hundreds of people tried to get tickets for No Reply and even with the Ticketlink chaos 10 seats were left after not even an hour and soon it was sold out. Already the fact that No Reply as a newcomer was performing in such a big hall was a big issue. Tomorrow, on friday, there will be an additional ticket opening, selling the last places out of 500. The incredible ticketing, the masses that filled even the outside of the Loving Forest Garden at the GMF, the uprising questions about girlfriends in the 'ask-what-you-want-corner'; all those happenings leave a certain idol-smell on No Reply.

let me be silly for a moment, but everything there is true (Ticketlink was a real chaos for the first 15 minutes). And the expression 'idol-smell' is made for real by the korean fans.

[Serengeti] Accident

Serengeti were supposed to have a free performance today, but fans who went there didn't got to see Serengeti, but Oh Ji Eun instead.
According to a fan's report on the Serengeti official homepage, Oh Ji Eun said that Serengeti had an accident yesterday thus wasn't able to come. It is not clear how bad the accident was and how Serengeti are, but since there are no news about it else where, it shouldn't be something serious ... I hope.

[Happy Robot] THEY Live CD+DVD tracklist

Seems the before stated date of release is right. Happy Robot publishes the jacket of the CD+DVD together with the tracklist and the date is still set for 19th November.
Happy Robot also says that it is rather a memory you want to share under the people who went there than a qualitative live recording.
Go over here to see the actuall jacket and tracklist.

Looking at it, is just a little part of the whole concert (one part of it went 4 hours and every artist performed about 4~5 songs), but they surely have picked good performances.

[Mate] Models for jewelr and their Concert presales

Mate was chosen to be model for the jewelry brand LUSUS.

Drummer Hyun Jae is already active as model for brands like UGIZ, Cold Stone, Nikon etc. Not just talented but also good looking, LUSUS found they were the perfect people they wanted as model. There will also be the slogan 'with Mate together the luck comes', under which a jewelry will be designed with a clover and Mate's logo as symbol.

On the other hand, Mate's Concert ticket presales got interest when right after the ticket open 1000 tickets were sold and the concert rose up to rank 3 of the concert presales. Guitarist and vocal Heon Il says that they will show another sound to make the christmas fest brighter and that the listeners will keep the perfromance deep in their heart.

Heon Il also announced earlier on their cyworld fanclub that they will also show new songs from their new album that is supposed to be released around January~February.

[Happy Robot] THEY Live DVD+CD

Like it was reported by IndifulROK some time ago, Happy Robot plans to publish a Live CD+DVD of this year's THEY concert. It was originally planned for October but October is over now and it was announced on a side note on the Happy Robot Blog that it is planned to come out 19.November now. But it is possible that it will be changed again. The 2 CD and 1 DVD set will be printed in a limited edition of 1000 sets.

[TUNE] goes farther than just GMF

Tune tells us how to safe the environment: take the public transport! Tune does it too.


Next to his new experiences of a new Japanese Ramen Restaurant (the ramen there are so tasty that you get teary when eating them) he tells us over his me2day that he also took a seminar about 'Green Jobs' at the Dongguk University (for 3 days - thursday till saturday) He surely takes his job as Tune seriously.

[No Reply] EBS Space Empathy Hello Rookie 2009

No Reply were one of the winners for the Hello Rookie in October, so they got to perform at EBS Space Empathy. (좋아서하는 밴드 and Gate Flowers were also in this episode.) The Episode was broadcasted 27th October.

그대 걷던 길 (The Way You Walked)
끝나지 않은 노래 (Never Ending Song)
시야 (Visual Field)

[Super Kidd] Hacking on the 63Building

it's a bit old, but still.

In September a video called '63Building hacking' became the subject of several sites, blogs and communities. In that video some anonymous men in black were hacking the 63Building, not for real, but is was counted as a clever idea and cought the attention of the Netizens. Normally when you would hack a building, you want to steal data or money, but these guys didn't want to steal anything - they wanted to play games.
2 videos exist, one is the hacking of another building, stating 'We hit on your building next' and the other one with an address 'itispossible.co.kr'. At that time there was nothing behind that address besides the sentence 'What shall we do next?' and a counter.
With the release of another video some days later the case became clear: Super Kidd was advertising Coca Cola Zero.


watch hacking video #1
watch hacking video #2
watch hacking video with Super Kidd

[Mate] Hyun Jae cut his hair

Before the GMF Hyun Jae cut his long hair and I think he looks far better with that one. Most recent pics of them are the ones for their Christmas Concert (23.12~26.12, you can still get tickets at interpark)

Welcome~

So the start of another blog :'D

I'll post mostly about No Reply and Naru, but also about Mate, Super Kidd, Serengeti, Pony, W&Whale, My Aunt Mary and stuff I like. I'll do summaries of articles but also post little information snippets that may be not that relevant but funny, interesting, or just good to know or things like that.

lame intro is lame since everything is still quite a bit unclear, but it will come with the time. I guess I'll change the layout later when I have time.

please to overlook my english fail. And sometimes lacking time on my side due university. :|

Oh, and if you have an article you want to have translated or want to know what it says and it is indie and there is no one translating it, feel free to give it to me. (You can post here, over at livejournal or write me a mail.)