Sunny Side Up, Moody Side Down: A Review of Bleak Night (파수꾼, 2011)

Read @ elegiacomo

coz im nawty nawty: the best Kpop of 2011

girls generation - Visual Dreams

t-ara - roly poly

sunny hill - midnight circus

4 minute - mirror mirror

10cm - hug me

super jnr - mr simple

wondergirls - SuperB

Of Great Importance: The Best K-Pop of 2010

Best K-Pop of 2010, by MYBLEEDINGNOSE

5. Girls Day - Tilt My Head

4. Foxy - Why Are You Doing This To Me

3. Narsha - BBI-RI-BOP-A

2. Jo Sung Mo - I'm Gonna Cheat

1. Miss A - Breathe

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Best K-hop:

Onesun - Like Your Boy

Best performance:

Brown Eyed Girls - Sign (acoustic)

Apocalypse! (short story dedicated to the madness of Korea)

Read the whole story here.

Medley (lost chapter from a work in progress)

MEDLEY (Shampoo)

Three girls strip and mime on a podium, on fire in the blinding purple-blue light.

I’m in Suwon, a city known for trannies and homosexuality in a country where such things are not so much hidden as rare. Korea isn’t Japan. Gay doesn’t even translate into anything.

an excerpt from Apocalypse! (White Day)

Apocalypse! (White Day, not today)

I laugh way too much.

It's 2 o'clock in the morning as I stand arms crossed, eyes bewitched in the light as the stage show begins, the all night darkness of dancing to electronic beats now giving way to the revelation of a Korean girl in a Viking helmet miming to Pussycat Dolls. The stage is her deck as Korean men dance in sync behind her with bare oiled torsos and fake snakes round their shoulders.

Lazers

Bye Korea x

fly penguin

Texas please

Packing away my worldly possessions I bust the zippers on my suitcase. This in turn led me on a rounded tour of various Jukjeon tailors, ending with me in the hidden corridors of Shinsegae Department Store as a nice chap with an English lisp endeavoured to help me with my plight.

Walking out I heard some nice synthpop beaming from the poles outside Shinsegae. I stood by one trying to work out the Anglo voice - Lily Allen maybe? Turned out to be overhyped starlet La Roux, Reflections are Protection. A rather brave choice; maybe Universal decided to take a gamble after all and try push her in SK along with Japan (I was privy to a conversation with Universal execs after a day of posing as Eminem to promote his Relapse CD in the COEX. I never blogged about that, did I? Well I have now).

I'm listening to her album now; it's okay. She definitely won't break Korea.


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Being unemployed and caught up in a civil petition as I await my return home, I'm finding all the days mould into one, livened up by Friday/Saturday excursions to foreigner-heavy Seohyeon down in Bundang. The tune of the moment is most definitely Poker Face by Lady Gaga. A song I originally dismissed for its euro-diva chorus has now snuck up on me and nothing gives a headier thrill in the club when it pans in with a subterranean wave, turns into rude blue guttertronic stutters and nasties up into the skanky army trail of the first verse


I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas, please
Fold 'em let 'em hit me raise it baby stay with me
Luck and intuition, play the cards with spades to start
And after he's been hooked I'll play the one that's on his heart


The club goes wild. I've heard it forever, these passing days as one.

I should go home and work.

Jeongtonsa

Behind a petrol station I found this lovely temple.