So this past wednesday Craig and I and a few friends (groupies) headed to Commune in Daegu. The Love Guns played a short set and were a relative hit. Many nice things were said. Things like ‘I’ve never heard a bass guitar sound like that, that was awesome’, ‘That was the best live band I’ve seen in Korea’, and even the owner said ‘it fucking rocked’ and gave me a beverage on the house. All these wonderful things were said and the boosted my ego, yet they weren’t any of our songs, so any gain in ego, was lost in internal embarassment, only because I know it’s long, long overdue since I should be moving on from cover bands. But alas, I knew this was just a way for me and Craig to feel eachother out. Just rock out on tunes we both love.

Craig and I decided to start writing today. It went well, I think. I think we have enough chemistry when we play to build on. One thing I think, time and time again, that I excel at is my performance abilities.  I have so much freakin fun when I perform, I think people can smell it. I’ll be the first to say that I’m not the best guitarist. I’m not much of a lead guitarist, and I get pretty sloppy live. It’s never my skills that complements.  It’s my ability to swagger, and sway, and stomp, and yell. But Craig said it best when he said ‘When playing live, dude, it’s style over content’ (though, I’m not sure if he said ‘dude’ in there).

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Love Guns will progress. I think the mindset we both ahve at the moment is to make the best of the 5 months we have left here. Who knows, we could make something really. We both got some kind of connections in our respective home towns. People who would give demos a listen if we gave’em to’em. So, who knows. Perhaps the Love Guns will grow into something really fucking cool. And I really hope so. S’not often I meet a guy like Craig. Solid drummer, good taste in music, and great personality.

Anyways, we decided to stay and party until the 4am train because it’d probably be one of the last times I’ll get to party with Adam and Vanessa who are leaving next week. I got plenty of photos, but none of the Love Guns actual performance.

Also a pleasure was Ian Reid, from Guelph, and Jimmy from Irelend. They both had solid sets, and I think I’ll be seeing those two around often. Hopefully they’ll come out to Gumi to play some shows at the Waegook Cook once in awhile too.

Below is a collage of some neat photos I took on the train ride home.

July 14th, 2006 | Life, Life in Korea, Photos | No comments

Many weeks ago I met Craig Marsden from the UK. We got talking about music one night at Pyscho, and I found out he was a drummer. A previously signed drummer. A previously signed drummer who hasn’t rocked out in a long time.

We had many overlapping interests and generally got along real well. We kind of hit it off when we discovered our mutual love for Death from Above 1979. Which was ideal, since there was only two of us. We decided to start a band by rocking out some DFA1979 tunes, and chemistry permitting, seeing where it goes.

A few weeks after we bought a bunch of gear and I arranged a practice space at the Waegook Cook.

The Love Guns were born.

For the show, my buddy Antnee, who hails from Newfoundland, made me a stencil for the Love Guns T-shirt design. That’s right, not even a single gig, and we got shirts. I also made this video that ran behind us while we played. It consisted of Sesame Street, GI Joe, Mr T, David Hasselhoff, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Transformers, etc.,

Here’s a few video clips of us, last night, playing at the Waegook Cook’s Birthday. There’s the sweaty, sweaty, sweaty, me on the left doing my best JFK impression, it seems.

Link to YouTUBE Video.

On top of playing a show where I could really rock out (and not pretend to rock out behind an acoustic guitar), I got to hang with Emily, Don, And Angelo, all of whom I never see enough of. With Dongelo, more often than not, we have a better time hanging out in whomever’s apartment before and after a night out.

This particular entry had very little humourous content, and I apoligize for that. I can’t be funny all the time. I’m not Don. Who, by the way, is funny in English AND Korean. Korean people love him, too. Mimi says he reminds her of the pitbull from Tom and Jerry. Awwwww.

July 10th, 2006 | Random shiz | 4 comments