Pipi Band and Po-keu Song

Yay! Lime got me a few of the CDs I asked her to order for me. Among them, 불가능한작전 by �‚?ì‚?밴드 (Pipi Band). Often referred to as “punk,” I find them more a kind of mixture of freakiness, electronic, and rock. Apparently they spat onto a camera or the ground or something while they were on TV once, and people thought they were bizarre and rude as a result. They’re not really around anymore, but that CD was still available. Bizarre stuff, moreoso if you’ve had the lyrics explained. As I have had, though I may sit down and try to translate some as a start to studying Korean again. Maybe I’ll start with the last sone, which has the repeated line, in English, “Piggy in the night! Piggy in the night! 꿀! 꿀! 꿀!”

[“꿀! 꿀! 꿀!” — “ggool! ggool! ggool!” — means “Oink! Oink! Oink!” in English. Now you can see why I am interested in the song, and the band!]

I first heard this CD when I borrowed it from my friend John Wendel, and a Korean friend, Young Ja, translated the lyrics of the song playing — “It’s about chewing gum.” Seriously. There’s a song about how it feels to chew gum, or that’s what I remember. Anyone who likes Hwang Sin Hye Band would like this one too.
Also in the pile: three double-CD sets of folksongs from the old days. Yay! I am amused at the Koreanization of the word “folk” in “folk song” — í?¬í?¬ — because it sounds to me more like the word “poke,” as in poke you in the eye. Except less dangerous than that, and more cute.

I also finally broke down and ordered the three main CDs by Hum, a rock band from the late 80s and 90s that I really like. (Here’s the best fansite online.) I only discovered them a few years ago, but really enjoy them and listen to them a lot. Here’s hoping a little of the money actually gets back to some of the band members.

Last music-related thing. Lime said she recently googled the name of the band I was in several years ago, 다방밴드 (Dabang Band), and discovered that there are still people out there listening to the band, digging the tunes, and writing about it online.

I was personally quite surprised when she said the two most popular songs were “Deep End” (still sometimes called “YMCA”), and “Taxi Blues,” with the former as the most popular, and the latter as a lot of people’s gateway song — the one they heard and noticed: “Hey, what’s with the accent? Hey, wait! That’s a foreigner singing in Korean! What’s this all about?” I’m chuffed since, while I can’t take credit for the whole thing — songs were collective creations in 다방 — “Deep End” was my baby, with the lyrics and melody thought up in the shower of a Korean YMCA swimming pool, after my Wednesday night swim class. Collective or not, it was one of the few babies I brought in that made it past the idea stage, and I’m pleased that people are still into it. (And the “Jeonju Zoo,” another of my babies that survived — except in name, for it was originally “The Jeonju Jew” — is still pulling strong too, she said, sporting a klezmer jazz sax line I came up with all the way back in freshman year of university, back in 1992! Not so bad for retrofitted-jazz-turned-Korean klezmerized rock!)