Rock and Roll is Not Paying the Rent

For the third time, last Thursday I went down to play at the Open Mic Night at The Big Electric Cat in Itaewon, Seoul.

There was only one other player. So I had the stage for over an hour. Last week, same story, and I played for over two hours. No one else showed up to play. My first night there, I was the host. For some reason, the host had disappeared.

It was great for me to get some practice time in. But the Big Cat was famous in Seoul, especially for its Thursday night open mic. It was a bit sad to see the bar empty.

A new owner had recently taken over the bar and remodeled. But the only advertising she’d done to keep the open mic alive was a piece of paper taped on the door.

The pub is in a dark cellar room on a narrow back alley. No one saw the little piece of paper.

So it sounded like if wanted to keep this thing going, I’d have to do some leg work myself. But it was too late for that even. She tells me she’s clearing the instruments off of the stage and putting in a pool table. It’s going to be a girly bar – her words, not mine. She said – I have to pay the rent.

This story is not special. It’s typical. Rock and roll has been banished to the underground, as little Steven would say, where it probably belongs.

The live music scene in Seoul is concentrated mostly around a few areas of town. There’s Hong Dae, dae meaning university, which is the largest party district. There are a ton of night clubs. It’s a University environment. So you can find just about anything going on there.

Then there’s Itaewon. It’s a multicultural neighborhood near the Young San American Military Base. In Itaewon, you can get a Yankees baseball hat or a Mexican taco or a Sunday morning Caesar with your truck stop breakfast. On the weekends, there’s some live music going on. Two of the venues are owned by Canadians – Stompers and Rocky Mountain Tavern.

The scene seems to rely heavily on foreigners for talent, and customers. I spoke to a blues player from Virginia named Carlos. He plays slide with the guitar sat on his lap. He tells me that Seoul is an easy town to find gigs in. There are more bars than bands, unlike the situation at home. So if you put a decent band together, the phone starts ringing. No one is making more than a dime, but the gigs are there.

Next week I’m going to Hae Bang Chun, near Itaewon, where I’m told there are a few little pubs keeping it real.

The situation is similar but a little different in Japan. There seems to be more interest in rock in Japan. They get more of the big international tours stopping through. A band that skips Seoul entirely might play five shows in Japan. But at the grass roots level, rock and roll is suffering the times.

If a band in Japan wants to play a show on a Friday night, they first have to rent the bar/venue from the owner – shelling out hundreds up front. Then they have to do the promotions on their own and hope to sell enough tickets at the door to make their money back. All drink money stays at the bar. Bar owners take no risk at all.

My friend Shuichi in Hiroshima is a huge fan of American music. He is a small-time concert promoter. He goes to the south-by-southwest festivals in Austin, Texas, meets the bands he likes, mostly independent bands, and does his best to bring them to Japan for a tour.

The venues on his circuit are great. I’ve been to two of them. The bar in Hiroshima where his bands play is an awesome room. Very cool.

This is not his job. It’s his hobby. He has a desk job in a company. But live music is his passion. He makes it happen because he loves it. He picks the band up at the airport in his car. But he gets down and discouraged with the results.

He has a mailing list of friends and supporters who will buy up enough tickets to break even and make it happen. But that’s as good as it gets. He can’t afford mass advertising. People won’t pay to see a band they don’t know, someone who just isn’t famous.

I really wish this was Shuichi’s full time job.

Rock has always had a life in Japan on both big and small levels. Talking with the old guys in Mac Bar in Hiroshima was how I wasted a lot of time in Japan. Mac is a “music bar”. He has just about every CD you could imagine and if you request something he doesn’t have, he’ll go out the next day and find it. They also have a lot of recordings we’ve never heard – the classic Asian bootlegs.

Mac himself was a bit of a famous guitar player back in the 70’s Tokyo scene. He loves to talk about seeing Neil Young play in Fukuoka. And the Japan tour that Bob Dylan did with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is still legend here.

Rock and roll is definitely about storytelling, and its fans are knowledgeable, especially in Japan – but it’s a shame that it’s not current. Is it really just a cult of old boys living in the past?

In Korea, it’s even less than that. It never happened. I was in Wa Bar last Sunday. It’s a bar that specializes in imported beer from all over the world. A bottle of moosehead is 8000won, about $8. Local beer is 3000won. The music they play is awful. But it’s just down the street from home – the only decent pub in sight.
These Korean guys asked me what kind of music I liked.
So I said – I like rock and roll.
They said – ohhh, Elvis Presley !!!
I said – well, not really, more recent, like the Beatles.
I’ve had this conversation too many times now. You say rock. They say Elvis.

The thing is, I think that rock and roll is missing a chance for a new life here RIGHT NOW in Asia, especially with China opening up for business. The culture is rich here of course, but popular music is something they borrow and emulate.

The Hip Hop scene and the Latin Music scene have both jumped on this horse and run away with it. They’re cashing in on Asia.

A friend of mine was in Shanghai last year. Telling me about the trip, her fondest memory was of this massive night club that featured two rooms – one was a hip hop dance party, and the other room was latin dance party. This is an exciting night out in Shanghai. Same goes for here. Similar clubs here in Apgujeong charge $30 at the door – for the slow line.

As China opens up and millions of Chinese have money in their pockets, they are learning to break dance and learning to salsa. It’s not just the club scene that’s cashing in. There are the dance schools, the experts, the dj’s and the fashion retailers.

Do people dislike rock and roll because it sucks? I think people tend to like what’s recommended. The top 40 formula. And no one with the bucks is pushing rock and roll.

If the essence of the club scene is the dance floor, the essence of rock is the live stage. If rock and roll is ever going to see the light of day again, it’ll have to be about the stage AND the dance floor, like in its glory days. It has to get Groovy again. The ROLL part. Not rock. Rock AND ROLL.