Zach Hill at Theater Zero, 9/18/2010

For my first live show here in Korea, I was incredibly excited to find out that drummer Zach Hill, whom I was familiar from his work with Hella, was going to make a stop off in Seoul during his Asia tour.  While technically my first live musical event was a performance by the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, it honestly wasn't particularly noteworthy.  The featured performer of the evening, cellist Alban Gerhardt, seemed to be a really big fan of himself.  I'm not going to pretend to know much about classical music, but is it customary to exit and reemerge on the stage 4-5 times to bow after each selection?  While he was certainly impressing to watch, I was much more interested hearing the force of the full orchestra, which unfortunately too often took a backseat to his showboating.  Although the weather prohibited much outdoor enjoyment, I did get to see a bit of the massive Seoul Arts Center, where the concert was held.  Once inside we had to walk another 5 minutes through a massive outdoor plaza, passing several other performance halls on the way.  The auditorium we were in was absolutely beautiful but I unfortunately was not allowed to take any pictures.

While I am much more interested in experiencing local music, I considered myself quite lucky to be able to get an early foothold in the music scene here through an American artist.  Theater Zero, along with the vast majority of other indie venues in the city, is located in the Hongdae neighborhood, about 25 minutes west by subway from my guesthouse in central Seoul.  This was also my first visit to the neighborhood which, despite being similar to my own neighborhood of Pil-dong in that the majority of businesses cater to college students, has a much more vibrant and lively feel to it.  Spreading out in all directions from its heart at Hongik University, the area consists of many small byways lined with clubs, bars, clothing shops, and restaurants.  There is constantly something going on and on weekend nights the party often spills out on to the street, with performances of various sizes springing up in parks and along the sidewalk.  More on that later...

After stubbornly wandering around for roughly 25 minutes trying to find the place on my own, I finally stepped into a Cheap Monday store and had the guy working there direct me back to a building I had probably passed at least 5 times.  After following some other foreigners down a flight of stairs, I finally arrived at Theater Zero.

While encompassing only a small basement area, the owners of the place really did some cool stuff with the space available.  Cardboard cutouts rotate around the ceiling, sheets hang with projections of several artists' works-in-progress cast on to them, various paintings adorn the walls, and the bands play right on the floor among the crowd.  Couldn't really ask for more in my opinion.

 

While there were several openers, only the final two really deserve mention.  The first of these, Bamseom Pirates, just completely blew me away.  After enduring some silly Euro synth-pop and two indie rock bands, the Pirates came screaming on to the stage with a blend of hardcore, grind, sludge, and rock.  Take a look:

The drummer was just phenomenal, and the bassist mixed speedy fingerwork with some thick, heavy riffs.  This video definitely captures the hardcore/grind side a little more, but a lot of their stuff recalls Man Is the Bastard for me.  I heard from the member of another Korean band later that they are "a bunch of assholes," and I definitely think their sarcastic banter during the show about hamburgers, North Korea, and America being #1 definitely could have rubbed people the wrong way.  I think I only fell in love with them more.  Luckily, the recordings I made of they're set were some of the only recordings I made that night that came across nicely.  I'm going to put together a little live "e.p." to post along with a link to get your hands on one of their albums proper.

 

The second opener of note, Sighborg (officially Ssighborggggg), put on a surprisingly enjoyable set themselves.  Consisting of two expats from an undisclosed location, the duo dawned homemade masks (so maybe they're from Providence?) and played synth-heavy improve (at least what appeared to be) backed by drums and the occasional guitar.  Blogger won't let me upload audio files directly so I made a quick little video to accompany the audio recording.  Take a listen:

 

 

 

 

And finally, the one and only Zach Hill.  The short video I took of him and his guitar accompaniment Carson McWhirter (formally of Hella and bassist for a band I just discovered, The Advantage, who apparently specialize in doing covers of old NES games) doesn't quite do the set justice.  The man demolished his drum set for 30 minutes straight, playing at speeds beyond any I thought humans were capable of.  As far as McWhirter's contribution to it all, the guitar sound was completely overblown and muddled which unfortunately detracted from an otherwise solid set.  Once in a while his meddling would shine through and bring the duo together as they were intended to be heard, but for the most part Theater Zero dropped the ball on the mixing.  Hill ultimately made up for any shortcomings however and somehow managed to make the manically improvised set seem carefully structured.  As a result of the overblown sound, however, I wasn't able to salvage any of the recording I made.  Hopefully my skills with the audio and video will improve as I get used to my equipment.  Anyway, make sure to see the man if he comes through your town.