Coming to Korea put us in an interesting position as musicians. We had been recording and assembling our first CD up until the very day we left Florida for Chicago (and then on to Seoul), and we left most of them with our friend Bonnie in Indiana to mail out as needed, thinking we'd possibly not even get a chance to play here or that our mellow music wouldn't find a place between the hip hop and the K-pop. A lucky demo drop-off (coordinated entirely by Dan and made possible by Facebook), coupled with a Korean affinity for "Once" has happily proved that not so.
On Friday night, we were fortunate enough to play with Miyu and Jang Min Woo, both talented, emotive performers and house artists at Cafe Soul Underground. And I would say that we were even more fortunate to speak and connect with Shin Hyun Yo, the cafe's proprietor. As I said, Dan dropped off a demo to Shin about a month ago after finding out about the cafe on Facebook. We attended an art opening/concert and left a CD with our contact info and a note expressing our desire to play in Seoul. Shin told us on Friday that he kept forgetting to listen to it at first, but then he contacted us on Facebook a week or so later and put us on the schedule for May.
I don't think it's hyperbole to say that Shin is probably the kindest person I've ever met. He implored us to stay after the show for some free Seoul Beer and a chat. And I think what happens sometimes, when we call things surreal, it's just that our brains have no context for what's occurred, nothing at all to relate it to, and it makes life seem realer, sharper, closer. And that's how our conversation went. Just something about the kindness and enthusiasm of this man we'd just met, his encouragement, his desire to help us play in Seoul, even the mention of printing a run of CDs in Korea to sell at the cafe. It was surreal and so lovely, and such a fine introduction to music in Seoul.
Everyone we know in Korea came to see us, and that was quite nice of them. All of Dan's co-teachers came, and some took pictures:
Dan tuning. Photo by Luke Shackelford.
Me watching. Photo by Luke Shackelford.
Playing. Photo by Luke Shackelford.
Photos by Korrine Byrnes.
Oh, I haven't gotten to mention the open mic we played on Thursday night. We played the closing spot after four acts of experimental music, some of it extremely so. And we survived! Actually, everyone we met Thursday was also wonderful, and I particularly enjoyed how sciency it seemed. Several of the musicians were able to infuse such musicality, basically, into machinery. I think we will continue on with our ordinary folk tunes, though.
-Serenity
