St. Patty's Day

I had a rather eventful St. Patty's Day this year.. Started out at 10am with my first gayageum lesson. The gayageum is a traditional Korean 12-stringed zither instrument. It sounds cool and looks even cooler and I was stoked to stumble upon this beginners' gayageum class thats every Saturday for the next 2 months, culminating in a big peformance at the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Centre. The first class went over well but I have zero skills in reading music --- if the dot is on this line or that line I don't know off hand what note/string to hit. Anyways I'm glad I'm checking this out and actually accomplishing something during the day on the weekends!

Next I headed to a St. Patty's Day party in a park in Hyewha put on by some Irish society. My friend & roomie Mark's band, St. John the Gambler, were playing and also there was some free Baileys going around and it was a solid event. Next I booted it down to the CoEx area to catch Japanese band Mono. I managed to arrange a free ticket for myself in exchange for a Jambands.Ca review which I am yet to write. The venue was a sterile and boring auditorium with amazing sound. Mono blew me away once again -- very atmospheric, all instrumental, peaks and valleys and extremely intense. All 300 of us (approx.) walked out of there with our jaws hanging down and minds fucked.

I forgot about this effect that a Mono show has on the brain and it wasn't exactly conducive to my next segment of the night, which was heading off to Hongdae to see DJ Vadim at Cargo. A Mono show is quite dark and introspective and doesn't exactly make one want to go out and bust a move right after. I made a pit stop at home and did manage to come around. The Vadim show at Cargo was packed and he delivered the goods. It was great to see a DJ in Seoul who knows how to manipulate turntables. I was bummed to see that Blu Rum 13 (the MC in Bullfrog) didn't show up. MC Yarah Bravo did a good job though. She was all hoochied up compared to the 2 times I saw her & Vadim in Peterborough, Ontario. Good show though and an action packed St. Patty's Day!

PS - The last picture features Mark and I eating a delicious homemade tomato soup created by the lovely Elinza. That's in the kitchen in our new pad, with the living room in the background. Nice eh?

Stick It In Your Ear!

Several albums have been rocking my world as of late.. Here's some of 'em:

• The Sea & Cake - Everybody (the new album)
• Neil & Crazy Horse - Live From The Fillmore East '69 (The 1st release from The Archives)
• One Step Beyond - Life Out There (a recently rediscovered gem)
• Passengers (1995 sideproject involving U2 & Brian Eno... who knew? Not me, 'til now.)
• Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere (the new album)
• Benevento Russo Duo - Play Pause Stop (!!!!!!!)
• Do Make Say Think - You, You're A History In Rust
• The Junior Boys - Last Exit
• The Slackers - An Afternoon In Dub
• The Slip - Eisenhower (growing on me more and more)
• Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars - Brotherhood of Brass (looked for it for years, finally got it, and it rules)
• Tom Russell - Hot Walker (a beautiful narrative album)