Last night’s show was pretty good. We performed as part of the Dongmun Festival, which is some kind of animation and film festival. We saw the most unusual Korean and Japanese animations, including our band’s apparent favorite, Frank, about a psychotic dog who goes ballistic and even perhaps homicidal when his Hominid-dog friend gets too chatty with a frozen chicken. I want the guy who animated that film to do our next album’s cover art. As Myoung said, “There’s a little bit of Frank in everyone…”

Hell, some days there’s a big fat Frank in my saxophone, even.

Anyway, we played with two other bands – one, another foreigner band from Jinju, and one a local band we’re friendly with, Sunny Days. It was pretty loud, but having listened to the recording I made, I found that the sax was audible, which is nice. I also learned that it’s much better to record audio right off the sound board, instead of via a microphone. I think I will pick up some cabling and try again tonight, because all of what I recorded was staticky and crackly, unfortunately.

Luckily, the Jinju band (which goes by the name Nang Jung Go, or as Yellow House when they are unplugged and playing acoustically) recorded the whole show as well, and right off the board. I’ll email them for a copy of the minidisc, and when it arrives I’ll rip copies of our new, unrecorded tracks and make them available on the Dabang website… maybe I’ll even post our whole show if there is room on the server, plus tracks by the other bands.

We were lucky enough to be paid a visit by our friend Min Gyu Kim, the lead singer and guitarist of the Seoul band Plastic People. He sat in with us for a song from his band’s album, one of the catchier tunes on the album in fact.

After the show, I went for a drink with my friend Young Ja, who had come from Iksan to see us play… it was the first time she’d seen our band in exactly one year, and it was the first time I’ve seen her in a few weeks. So it was good. Then, I ran out to catch up with the band, who was hanging out with Kim Min Gyu. Apparently he is going to produce our next album, which is nice. We chatted about music, and about other things. It was funny when the conversation got to the TV show “V” (and here’s an interesting review of the show), of which I was happily mentioning having downloaded the first episode. When I mimicked eating a mouse, he got it and it turned out he remembered the show better than me, even remembered the name of one of the first alien characters in the show, Diana.

The bar I had my drink with Young Ja at was, as usual, the Deep-in (which, I discovered, has a website here!) but then when I caught up with the band it was at a little place called Sul. (That’s a Korean word for “Alcohol”, which is a refreshingly direct name for a pub.) The place is pretty small but has a very nice decor and played an excellent assortment of music, from African percussion and singing through Latin jazz, Korean bongchak music (think orientalized oompah music) and modernised bongchak as well. At once point, between songs, one of the customers began to sing an apparently very sad Korean song, and everyone quietly listened. It was cool.

Then it was time to go home and get some sleep… which I did. Now, I’m just having a bit of a day off, relaxing until it’s time for another soundcheck, another show. Strange to think that tomorrow morning it’s back to work, back into our crazy schedule… three rehearsals a week is intense. Good, but intense. Ah well, that’s how we will have enough new songs for our next album. The Jeonju Jew is coming along nicely, and we have several more songs each in Seong Hwan’s and my pockets (as well as, I’m sure, a few goodies up Myoung’s sleeves) so things should progress well, even if we are busy as hell.