Live THEY 2010 Compilation (missed updates)

There have been a lot of updates on the Live THEY 2010 performance and compilation on the Happy Robot Blog, that I've missed.

The compilation will be given first this weekend at the performance itself and be sold then in official stores starting November 30. There will be a limited edition which will contain so called 'heart cards' (not sure if it’s a name or a weird translation, simply cards expressing someone's heart) with signs and new year's greetings of each artist in a random order (one card each CD). As a special, the about 20 original Polaroid that are used for those heart cards will be randomly put into the CDs too.

The track list looks as following:

01. 추억을 머금은 그와 희망을 보듬은 그녀 (He who keeps the memories and she who clasps the hope) – Tearliner
Tearliner provides the opening and ending for the THEY 2010 compilation ‘Night Train’, serving as entrance and outlet
02. 크리스마스 약속 (Christmas promise) – THEY 2010
written and composed by EZ Hyung; The Koxx’ Saron on drums, Daybreak’s Kim Sun Il and Jung Yoo Jong on bass and guitar, Lim Young Jo on keyboard and strings; vocals are No Reply’s Sungwan, Naru, Daybreak’s Lee Won Seok and Jung Yoo Jo (usually guitar, makes his singer debut here.) and EZ Hyung
03. 들었다 놨다 feat. ROBO(apls) (DJ Schedule1 SNS Remix) – Daybreak
the loved track from Daybreak’s 2nd album, remixed with a hip hop rhythm, using a break beat(?) as base; ROBO keeps with his witty rap lyrics the song’s context of a cowardly man’s heart
04. 밤의 열차 (Night Train) – Naru, Oh Ji Eun
to the soft electronic song Naru made (of course all alone, composing, instrument play, arrangement), Oh Ji Eun put the lyrics to it in 10 minutes.
05. 시야 (Shaun Remix) – No Reply
The Koxx’ Shaun remixes No Reply’s at live performances well received song with a strong electro beat and gorgeous synthesizer arrangement
06. 얼음땡 feat. Joe Brown (Toy Rock remix) – The Koxx
Joe Brown adds his essay-like lyrics in a solid rap
07. It’s You – Daybreak, EZ Hyung
composed by Daybreak, lyrics added by EZ Hyung; guitar pop; sung in a duet
08. 누구라도 있어줘 (whoever you are, be with me) – Serengeti, No Reply
Serengeti’s Boss nova track with Sungwan’s loneliness, touching lyrics telling of the everyday life of an insignificant man
09. Arch – LOZIK(apls), Shaun, Naru
reminding of Havard’s works in the latter half of their activities; English lyrics written and sung by Naru, also contains Shaun’s composing abilities
10. Your Body (Shaun remix) – Joe Brown
Shaun changing the Hip Hop House track to a strong rock sound
11. 사랑하는 나의 악사들에게 (To my dear musicians) – THEY 2010
composed by Daybreak’s Lee Won Seok and Kim Jang Won, lyrics added by Oh Ji Eun; Serengeti playing each their respective instruments, Sooryun playing guitar, Shaun on synthesizer and Daybreak’s Kim Jang Won on piano; vocals are Oh Ji Eun, Serengeti’s Yoo Jung Gyun and Jang Dong Jin, Daybreak’s Lee Won Seok and Lee Hyun Song; following Oh Ji Eun’s words, the lyrics are about a fan who sees his/her favorite musician’s performance
12. 너를 보며 (두번째 이야기) - Tearliner

Trailer and such have been uploaded too a lot on youtube.

MPMG to release THEY 2010 compilation

It has been posted on the Happy Robots blog that the Master Plan Music Group* will release a compilation of THEY 2010.

It will contain the songs that have been introduced already through Serengeti Jang Dong Jin's personal radio show 'Night Train', means EZ Hyung and Daybreak's 'It's You', The Koxx Shawn's remix of No Reply's '시야' and Naru and Oh Ji Eun's song with the same title 'Night Train'. The last episode of 'Night Train' guests No Reply and Serengeti, who are also working on a new boss nova styled song. Besides those there will be some new songs and one song featuring all MPMG musicians.

Another interesting point at this year's live THEY is, that Serengeti's Jang Dong Jin and Naru became team leaders and will separate the MPMG musicians. What exactly stands behind that will be seen when the event starts with a video October 18.

The live performance live THEY 2010 will take place November 27 and 28 at Sang Sang Madang.

* Master Plan Music Group (MPMG) consists of Master Plan, Happy Robots, The Park Studio, Mintpaper and Live Paraid.

Listen to Naru's 2nd Album

Two days ago Naru released his 2nd album after working for 2 years on it. Like the 1st one, he composed, wrote, played the instruments and recorded all himself. There even has been a music video release, made by a friend of him, for '키'(height).



On Happy Robot Nina's youtube account have been also uploaded teaser videos (him playing on a balcony) and full songs from the new album.

[New Albums] What’s Coming Up?

After 5 years Modern Rock Band Monni brought out their 2nd album yesterday, Monday June 14. The album has been produced by Jaurim’s Guitarist Lee Sun Gyu and mixed by Bassist Kim Jin Man. The title song of the album ‘This Moment’ is 나를 떠나가던 and there is also a music video for it. At the same time of the release, their official homepage www.monni.co.kr has been opened.


Today, Tuesday, June 15, the KOXX’ very first EP ‘Enter’ will be released. Happy Robot gave some head ups on the band and the tracks. The Electro Rock band started through at the 2009 Hello Rookie and their average age is 21,5. They gathered around drummer Shin Sa Ron at the end of 2008 and before they had the current line-up, vocal Lee Hyun Song was also drummer and Synthesizer Shaun was also a guitarist. They appeared on festivals and performed in small and big clubs and received attention not just from national clubbers but also foreigners with their Daft Punk medley.
The first song on their EP ‘531’ is an intro to the 2nd track ‘ACDC’, 531 being the number of days from their forming to their first mini album release. ‘ACDC’ has nothing to do with the band AC/DC, it is simply the name of notes, like ‘Ra Do Re Do’. The next song ‘Over and Over’ is a new song they didn’t perform that often. Under the members it’s called ‘super song’; it’s based on garage rock, but has a relatively popish sound. ‘A Fool Moon Night’ is a ballad; the members explain it is best to listen to during a jogging in a bright moon night. The song ‘얼음땡’ is a love song to the expression ‘Koxx’. The last song ‘Trouble Maker’ is a danceable number that represents the Koxx with its dynamic sound and at every performance it made the audience enjoy to their limits.


A lot of you may already know, Zitten releases their new EP ‘Wonderland’ June 17. Yesterday, June 14, Pastelmusic released next to a two part reality video, a music video for ‘TV Show’. A live version of this song will be posted June 22.
After Yoon Hyung Ro came back from army last autumn, they worked on the EP and it looked like they’d be finished in winter, but Sung Yong Uk got sick and it had to be delayed an uncertain time. Yong Uk recovered and they finished the work. The album art will be done by Japanese illustrator Marumiyan, who already worked for the 1st album.


Naru’s 2nd album ‘Yet’ is set to be released on June 29th. A track list and cover have been revealed. You can also listen to 3 previews on Hyang. ‘Yet’ has, compared to the first album, more electronic elements. So is for example the interlude ‘Spring!!!’ that can be compared to ‘Take Off’ a more electronic arrangement.
Even though there have been made plenty of jacket photos, it is still not sure if there will be actually photos in it or if the album will consist like the first one just of Naru’s own drawings.

A new formation called ‘Yellow Monkeys’ has been brought up, consisting of GumX’ Young Won as lead vocal and guitar, Delispice’s Choi Jae Hyuk as drummer and vocal, and My Aunt Mary’s Han Jin Yeong as bass and vocal. Han Jinyeong wrote on his personal blog ‘see you in July’ and some time ago he posted that recording has been finished. They have performed already at the Time To Rock Festival though. Their homepage is yellowmonsters.net


Delight’s dk gives his fans a new mistery announcing that Delight is working on something(a new record) called ‘절름발이’(cripple)

Not so new news

I have been away from blogging for a while, I'm sorry for that.
I didn't really kept up on the news that time, so I will just try to summarize what got under my nose.

- Younha and Super Kidd filmed a CF for chicken together. Younha's 'Password 486' lyrics have been remodeled a bit and Super Kidd changed their positions. You can watch it here.

- There have been lots of updates on Mintpaper's LIFE. Mainly about the A-Live Concert, preorder and such stuff. I uploaded the teaser here. I just want to count up some background stuff that has been mentioned and I thought may be (more or less) interesting.
Besides the Artists of the 16 songs on the track list, a lot of performers(playing the background instruments and chorus and such) and 10 labels participated on this compilation. In the case of 10cm, Lala Sweet and Serengeti, the songs have been discovered at performances and decided to be on the compilation. So it was not easy at first to decide on one theme that fits to them all.
Sweet Sorrow's Sung Jin Hwan worked for the very first time together with Serengeti.
No Reply's Wook Jae worked for the first time as a producer for Lala Sweet.
Joa Band was the very first team that got in mind of the organizer when they decided for the compilation LIFE.
Earip's song 'our house singer' are episodes about her all day life with her cat 'Nawa', so the cat sounds in the song are not recorded accidentally.
Omega3's Go Kyung Cheon participates at Lonely H's Band's song playing the keyboard.
For a better feel for the lyrics, Autumn Holiday's song has been simplified compared to the demo.

- 10cm got Model Jung Hye Sun as their stylist. As she liked the band from the very first time, she decided to try out as their stylist. You can watch her 'challenge' on the Elle homepage, here.

- Some Musicians of Happy Robots are currently working on their 2nd album, which includes Naru (who finished his mixing process, bought a new guitar and will have a haircut soon and a profile photo shoot tomorrow), Daybreak (rumor has it that it will come out around July), No Reply (who are at the preparing status) and Tearliner (who also works on his Travel Essay).
Besides that, No Reply's Sungwan also participated with '완벽한 추억' at Lee Seung Hwan’s 10nd album and Joe Brown will be the director for KOXX’ music video ‘Trouble Maker’.

[Naru] New Infos on 2nd Album

Happy Robot twittert new infos about Naru's 2nd album.

Naru's 2nd album will be out soon and it contains 11 songs, under it a huge song that goes over 8 minutes. The title of the album will be 'YET'.
Naru performed the song 'YET' at Soundholic's 'Holiday - Promenade' at February 7. A video of that has been posted at the Happy Robots blog, but it has been taken down again to raise the anticipation for the 2nd album.

[Naru] The Name 'Naru'

As I was asking myself how Naru actually came to his name, as it is usually translated with 'ferry, ship', I found accidentally an article (from may 2008) where he explains it.

"You ask why 'Naru'? Friends called me 'Kkangnaru'. When I wrote on the Ssamji Sound Festival Board, I left without thinking the 'kkang*', which is the last name, away and wrote as 'Naru'. At the end this became my name. It really has no meaning. It's a bit boring, isn't it?"

* His real name is Kang Kyung Tae, Kang being the last name.

When Naru was in a school band in High School, playing the guitar wasn't more than a hobby, but listening to friends he participated at the Ssamji Sound Festival (which takes place every year), uploading two of his home made songs (meaning he did all - guitar, bass, drums, singing). Even though he didn't came through, Happy Robots who heard his songs was calling him and taking him into their 'family'.

Next question that has to be solved: How did the friends come to call him 'Kkangnaru'.

[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.

[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.