stay tuned for more!!

it started back in 2002, first year of college at UCR.  i had never really listened to anything foreign other than tokyo ska paradise orchestra (from japan, obviously) and i didn’t have any real interest in music i couldn’t understand.  anyway, it was first year of college, new life and new experiences.  rommel and i lived next to a girl named michelle, and a few more doors down lived these 3 other girls, elisa, jessica and jen, all 4 of them being korean.  on top of that, i had a good friend named loni and her roomate mina, who were…surprise, surprise…korean.  it started with hanging out in each other’s rooms, watching korean music videos.  now, i have no idea where they came from because youtube didn’t exist back then, but somehow we had them.  as i recall, the first video they showed me was H.O.T – Candy.  i guess they knew we all had a weird obsession with boy bands.

even for 2002, this video was considered “old school.”  after this video, i think the 2nd one i was exposed to was that really really sad one.  i believe it was called “because i’m a girl.”  keep in mind that i’m typing this entry as i think it so i’m kind of just writing down my train of thought.  gonna search for it on youtube…

ah, found it. it’s long, but i think it’s worth the watch.  if you cry easily during movies, better grab some tissue.  don’t say i didn’t warn you.

anyway, the girls were always telling us about this girl named hyori, who, apparently, every dude had a thing for. she was in a girl group called Fin.KL, with 3 other girls.  the first video we ever watched of them was from their 2nd album, and the song was called “forever love.”  i guess you can say that this is what started my current interest in korean girl groups.

now, i’ll have to admit, we only watched these MV’s because these girls were incredibly cute.  like, “the kind of cute that you just want to hug, put in a box and bring home with you” – jenny wong.  my good friend, elisa, actually let me borrow one of their albums which i have yet to return to this day, haha (sorry!).  there were more groups too, like SES, BoA and all those groups that were associated with SMtown.  here’s a video/song that basically reminds me of every event that happened during first year of college. the video WAS my first year of college.

*edit* thought i’d throw this video in as well

there was something about korean pop that made it so damn good.  it had this formula that i still can’t, to this day, quite put my finger on.  i’ve only come to conclude that it is a combination of the super catchy hooks, chord structures and beat, oh and of course, the fact that every single singer/group/band is incredibly good looking (even the dudes).

unfortunately, after we all moved out of the dorms, my supply of kpop came to a halt.  throughout the rest of college, i basically just listened to the same 20 songs over and over again without any real way of discovering new music.  so between 2003 and 2007, i know almost NOTHING about what happened in the world of kpop.  it wasn’t til around 2007/2008 that i started getting back into it.  hello wondergirls.

my bff (boyfriend forever), james park, started listening to this super catchy song called “nobody.”  we always heard it from his room, catching ourselves singing the chorus because that’s the only thing that was in english.  it wasn’t before long that we would hear this song blasting over the speakers at our favorite bars in koreatown.  since youtube existed (thank god), it was only a matter of time when we discovered that the wondergirls had started a new sort of trend in korea, the super well choreographed catchy song trend.  so good.

in addition to the wondergirls, we were also VERY into girls generation.  the first video i ever saw of them was for “gee” but i think my favorite video at the time was for “genie” i’m sure we weren’t the only ones that said “DAMN LEGGGSSSS” when seeing it for the first time.

now, korea is not short on amount of enormous girl groups.  apparently, back when i stopped listening korean music, all the big record companies started these training programs for pop groups that started kids as early as 12 years old.  i guess it makes sense now why there are so many now.  i won’t go too much into girls generation because i’ve already dedicated a post about them already. all you have to know is that they are by far my favorite korean group.

another song/video we came across at the time was super junior’s “sorry sorry”  we never really thought anything special about it, but when annie and i moved to taiwan, it was apparently the biggest dance crazy to ever hit taiwan.  everyone knew it.  you can ask anyone on the street here to dance “sorry sorry” and they’ll at least know to put their hands together and start rubbing them as if they were trying to light a fire with a stick.

like “nobody”, this song has been waaaay overplayed over here.  but it’s still a riot when they play it at clubs and everyone instantly knows the dance.  we don’t know what any of the lyrics mean or how they’re even supposed to be spoken, but we somehow know all the words to these songs, haha.

last winter, annie and i met up with our homies in korea for the first time and it only furthered our obsession with korean pop.  i think the most fun i had in korea was in our hotel room, drinking soju and watching live music performances on tv.  the first song of the new year was sung by girls generation.  we were introduced to such groups as 2am, SHINee, brown eyed girls and t-ara.  this song super reminds me of our time in korea:

after we got back, we spent the new few months just keeping up to date with a select few groups that we liked.  we mostly still only paid attention to girls generation though.  the other girl groups were good, but none of them even came close to our beloved girls generation.  this school semester though, i met a girl from korea in my class.  taiwan’s only knowledge of korean music is basically the wondergirls, girls generation and super junior.  upon telling her that i liked korean pop, she kind of rolled her eyes and assumed i meant “nobody” and “sorry sorry.”  she then asked me who i liked and i basically told her everything that i’ve written in this post.  the next day, she came to school with a flash drive full of the newest music and also said that she would update me whenever something new came out.  since then, i have found my runner up to girls generation.  they’re called after school.

there is so much synth used in their songs that i can’t NOT like them.  AHHH so good.

well, i think that basically sums up everything.  i think i’ve made this post longer than it needed to be.  so i’ll end it here!

hooray for good music!

i know i keep saying i’ll post pics from our last show but we honestly haven’t gotten any but i will post this one that eifeh took

rock on

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here’s some info in case you wanna drop by and say hi!

地下社會 UnderWorld @ 10pm

Address: Shi Da Road, No.45, b1, Taipei, Taiwan
http://www.underworld-taipei.blogspot.com/

地址: 台北市師大路45號B1

Roxy Roots @ 12am

Address: 90 Songren Rd, Taipei City

地址: 台北市松仁路90號

rock on!

i’m usually pretty keen on when my favorite artists come out with new material but i do lose track of some bands. i guess i don’t really keep up with dashboard as much only because the “so impossible EP” will be all i ever need from him. that’s 4 tracks that i will never, ever get tired of….almost to the point where i could less if he wrote a million other great songs.

anyway, he came out with a new album not too long ago and i just got it. i haven’t really had a chance to listen to it yet but i got the deluxe version which has 2 cd’s. i loaded that sucker into itunes wondering,”how could he have written 2 cd’s worth of songs? that’s insane.” well, i noticed the 2nd cd has all the same tracks as the 1st one, except they’re all ACOUSTIC.

so on this turkey-less thanksgiving, i would like to give thanks to you, chris, for having the most awesome idea of having 2 versions of the same album.  in fact, i’ll probably listen to the acoustic version first, then the full band version…but i know in my heart that i’ll probably only listen to the acoustic version, thinking back to the days when i used to sing your songs at the top of my lungs.

happy thanksgiving ya’ll!

as we all grew up and eventually transitioned to the internet to get new music and watch new videos, i have come to believe that we have lost a certain appreciation for the music that basically defines who we are.  back in middle school, i would have to wait for my mom to have free time so she could drive me to the record store to buy a new album that i couldn’t afford.  so i would have to first do some household chores or whatever to make the $13 to buy the album, then carefully decide which album i wanted.  once i bought the album, i would go into my room, close the doors, turn the volume up extra loud and read the liner notes while listening to my new investment.  it was funny because i didn’t even care if the album was horrible, i would force myself to listen to it because, well, it was better than listening to the radio AND it was something new.

nowadays you can download 100 albums at once without even thinking about it.  you can go on youtube or myspace and listen to an album by just searching the band’s name.  back in college, i would get 5 new albums a week on average.  i would listen to each album once and if i didn’t like it, i’d delete it…wouldn’t even give it a chance.  if one of my favorite bands was coming out with a new album, i’d just download it on release date or sometimes even before the release date.  by my 4th year of college, i started to realize that getting new albums just wasn’t that exciting anymore.  i then decided that i would start buying albums the old school way.  i wouldn’t even listen to preview tracks online because i felt that it would spoil the whole “new” factor when i listened for the first time. anyway, i’m getting way off topic here…i think you get the point, haha.

so now that i’m living in taiwan, i have begun to start loving mtv again.  why? because they still play music videos.  one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, artists is a guy named crowd lu (盧廣仲).  he’s sports giant glasses, a bowl cut and some pretty awesome running shorts.  when i heard he was coming out with a new album i was super excited.  when it finally came out, annie and i took the bus to the nearest record store and bought it.  the excitement was back.  i went home, took pictures of the album (for my blog, of course) and proceeded to listen to the album over and over and over again while reading the lyrics and looking at the pictures included with the cd.  it was awesome.

i find myself watching mtv just waiting to see his new music video.  i actually didn’t know that he had come out with a new video until one day, as i was casually watching mtv it came on.  i was so damn excited and so happy that i seriously almost cried (just kidding, but not really).  i guess the reason why i’m writing this post is because 20 minutes ago, the video came on again.  annie and i have been sitting here on the couch for about an hour while i was secretly waiting for the video to come on.  when it finally came on, i stopped everything i was doing, turned up the volume and sang along to my favorite song on his new album.

excitement!!!  now i’m not writing this entry because i wanted to tell everyone that they should do what i do or bash on the thing we all really love (the internet)….i really just wanted an excuse to post this video and it turned into this long reflection about everything.

YESSS!!! best halloween ever.

我已經知道這個專輯一定好聽拉!!!

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i think this was probably the first time any of our necks have been measured

the only problem was that with a professionally directed music video, we needed a studio-produced recording of one of our songs.  i don’t know how, but we somehow managed to secure some time with an awesome studio producer by the name of jungle.  you may have seen him as the lead role in jay chou’s 陽光宅男 video.  you can youtube it if you want!! anyway, it was the first time we had ever been to an actual studio before so i was super excited.

with jungle

THE GLASS!

we decided our video would be of our song 不可能 (bu ke neng).  we recorded it in just under 2 hours and i think it sounds pretty good!  we were supposed to start filming over the last weekend but due to all the damn typhoons running around, we had to postpone.  we’re supposedly shooting in mid-november so hopefully the video will be out my christmas!!

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a brief history:

for those who have seen us perform before, this story is probably nothing new…but since a lot of you didn’t go to college with us, i’ll tell this story again!

when i was accepted to uc riverside, i was convinced that i could try to change my personal image.  back in high school, i was always known as that band geek with a bowl cut who could play sad songs on his acoustic guitar and do a few tricks on a skateboard.  i wanted to leave that image behind start a new.  i worked at tapioca express, drove a rice rocket and hell, even spiked my hair up real high for good measure. i put away my guitar, started listening to a bunch of kpop (i know, what the hell) and did nothing but play counter-strike (haha).

everything was going as planned until i found myself in loni’s dorm room, just hanging out and eating her food, as usual.  on one particular day, i found an acoustic guitar just sitting on the side of her desk.  i hadn’t played guitar in quite a while so i asked if i could play around with it.  i started playing some nsync or something when this random guy named matt walks by and goes “DUDE, DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY YELLOWCARD?!”  i was like “UH, YA I DO ACTUALLY.”  he then ran off down the hall and in about .02 seconds, came back with his violin.  we played a song called “cigarette” and the rest is history.

we played at some talent show during our first year, took a break in the summer and then finally moved out of the dorms into our first apartments.  matt and i didn’t live together, but i would go over to his place pretty often to crank out some yellowcard covers just for fun.  i guess matt had gotten a pretty nifty little webcam for christmas 2003 or something so we decided to test it out.  it started as “hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we made a video of ourselves playing covers” to strategically planned videos to be released to fans of yellowcard around the world.  we recorded a song called “avondale” with a special guest, alex.  he would just pop in every so often, singing a lyric or two.

we posted it on some yellowcard fan website and within a couple of weeks, it found its way to the front page of the official yellowcard website!  keep in mind that this was all before youtube, vimeo or any other video sharing website were available.  it came to a point where people on campus would recognize us…we were sort of internet celebrities for a while — and it was pretty damn cool.

so we made video after video, trying hard to get more stuff posted on their website.  even though every attempt was basically a failure, we slowly started gaining a little fan base.  people would request songs to be done and we would do them.  once youtube started, we literally started filming EVERYTHING.  we eventually got another video posted up on their site.  it was a cover of their classic “cigarette” and was filmed while matt and i were down in new orleans.

after this video, we decided to up our musical value a little more and add an extra guitarist in the mix.  we met this guy named tom after he heard us practicing in the dorms one day and decided to give him a call to do a song or two.  we filmed “gifts and curses” and “october nights” in his garage.  “gifts and curses” is probably one of my favorite videos, only because it took SO LONG to get it right.

after tom, enter won.  i had known him since high school but never really got to know him until he came to riverside.  i had always known that he was an amazing guitar player and singer.  we had jammed with him way way back in time for an unreleased video of “one year, six months” but with all of us being so busy with “studying,” we never really got a chance to really play together.  we decided to play a little show for our “fans” at won’s dorm.  surprisingly enough, a good amount of people showed up.  here’s a clip:

we got to a point to where we could basically learn and play a new song together whenever we wanted. it was pretty cool.  we decided to try and tackle another challenging yellowcard bside called “firewater.”  we always tried one upping the entertainment value in every video so we thought of the best way to up the value: bring back alex.   this is by far my favorite video by us.  not only was it fun to watch, but it was twice as fun to film.

as time went on, yellowcard’s popularity slowly started dying and we started running out of material to cover.  they were releasing a new album at the time so we decided to cover one more song and call it quits.  we recorded and released a video for “how i go” on the day of the album’s release. it’s the only video to feature a piano!

when we thought we were done as a group, matt’s club was doing a culture show that revolved around musical performances and acting.  we decided to do one last show with a melody of 3 songs.  we were supposed to have an HD recorded version of this performance but the camera guy’s computer exploded or something and all the data was lost so all we got was this version. this would be the last video that the 3 of us would record together.

well, this was definitely one of the posts that i had a hard time writing.  there were so many things that we did together that i couldn’t even imagine writing without writing a novel.  i just like to remember it as one of the most influential and fun times of my life. we’re all doing our own separate things now but this is one thing we’ll always have!  who knows, we may even do another video in a couple years.  if this was the first time you’d ever heard of these videos, just go to youtube and search “jon hom matt dinh yellowcard” and you’ll find all of our videos.  gah, i don’t even know how to end it so i’ll end it with this:

“i only need one more day, just one more chance to say, that matt and i really aren’t that gay.”