It’s not hard to find many different music these days. Apple Music and Spotify give you plenty and I myself mostly go on YouTube to listen to music. However, there’s clearly a limit if you want to dig into specific music as before. In the early 2000s, Soulseek was the best music archive for listeners looking for underground music and Myspace was the best online music community platform. I also used these platforms when exploring the diversity of music ten years ago, but I also used Blogspot(Blogger) a lot. Blogspot pages owned by individuals had many different kinds of posts, like .zip albums, old stories from punk scenes and interviews with bands or artists as well as just life updates from the owners.
It’s been over a year since I moved to Australia. I regret that I haven’t shared enough updates with my people and moreover that I haven’t talked enough with people whom I’ve known here. Now I’d like to share some recent stories on this nostalgic Blogspot which once was a source of inspiration.
My typical day starts at 4 in the morning. My arms and hands as well as my face are fully covered having to work on roofs in the scorching heat that rises above 35 from Sydney’s strong sun. There’s no shade and I reluctantly swallow the warm water that’s been heated on the ground. The director of the Korean company I work for visits the site now and then to say to me and my colleagues, “What are you doing? What do you think those white bastards will think of us? “These stupid Asians.” Do you know how much you’re getting paid for this? You want PR(Permanent Residence), right? Yes, I am threatening you.” And I only try to get used to it.
It wasn’t just the physical situation such as working on 20-metre-high roofs that put me in danger. I had to live eating instant rice and a can of tuna a day because I was put on leave for two months. I had no income, watched $1,800 disappear on living expenses, had a birthday in the meantime and heard the passing of a friend from the punk scene in Seoul. I barely managed to get a 3-week temporary job at a painting company which involved using very dangerous lead paints and I had to do it wearing a raincoat, not a full PPE, because residents in Darlinghurst were worried. One day my skin got some of the lead paint and melted.
When I finally came back to my original company, I worked in a cloud of uncertainty of not knowing if I would be able to extend my visa. The visa expiry date was impending and I would just manage to be eligible for an extension if I would not miss a day of work written in the contract. My neck and knees were in bad condition because of the hot weather and heavy lifting and there were countless times I nearly fell over, walking half asleep on the bumpy roofs. Every time I looked down, the view was chilling and my consciousness fell even deeper than the frightening height. The life of an immigrant was a tough one, but I could live through it because of what happened in the past few months.
Ki, who has been in a hardcore band in Korea for 20 years, let me know a few months ago that he would visit me in Sydney. We had more chats after that and he told me he could come in August this year. We always had a good time together in Seoul, visiting places and meeting new people, and this time I wanted to introduce my friends here to him.
A while back, the members of Speed came back from their Japan tour and told me about the people who came to see them in Korea. They said that my friends in Korea thought I was having a good time in Australia. In fact, I had no idea I would meet so many people in many different areas here. I guess I’ve been a people person like I was in Korea.
In less than my first two weeks in Australia, I met Speed and the members of 1300 at an awards hosted by FBI Radio based in Sydney, the members of Nomad Radio and Decay Audio, friends from 108 Warehouse and Edward and Shal of China Heights Gallery, but this is only an outcome of my tendency to explore all around the place. Since I met them, I began to understand Sydney better and it was just wholesome to make new connections with new people, both Australian and Korean. A few days back I helped Hypnosis Therapy, a Korean duo group, to play their DJ mix set live here, and it was rewarding to hear from them that I should try a promoter career in Sydney. It would be really cool if that could really happen and help me get a sponsor visa as well.
Anyway, it was exciting news that Ki was gonna visit me since not many of my friends did and it got me thinking about whom to hang out with and where to go. Another reason that excited me was that Fiddlehead from America was about to do a tour in Sydney and that even though I knew Ki and Dan from Boston, I had never met Pat Flynn, a friend of the two and also a member of the band. Before Ki came here I FaceTimed Dan, but he did not pick up maybe because of the time difference or his busy schedule.
To be honest, it was their tour that made me listen to Fiddlehead’s music first time in depth. It quickly became my go-to music because I liked Basement, a band of Alex Henery whom I met on Turnstile’s tour in Sydney last Feb. Before this, I didn’t pay much attention to them even though people had always told me that it’s a band by members of Basement and Have Heart.
What people talked about the upcoming tour of Fiddlehead was, as expected, Have Heart. It’s undeniable that they were influential in their rather short 7-year period from 2002 and 2009. There were other good bands like Free or Wolf Whistle which I saw in 2016, but many people still like to reminisce about Have Heart and their music. I watched a video on YouTube of their one-time reunion live in 2019, which attracted about 10,000 audiences, and the shock I received from watching their performance with an intro made of Bluebird, a poem by Charles Bukowski, and Bob Marley’s cover of Sinéad O’Connor, was just huge. However, I watched a lot of interviews with Pat Flynn because I was more interested in his stories than their music.
I was mainly into punk music and its world before I was introduced to hardcore. I would talk with Korean punk friends about activism or protest songs while digging bands and collectives such as Aus-Rotten, Toxic Narcotic, Disrupt and Resistant Culture, Profane Existence etc. When I was exploring hardcore punk, I looked up a lot of bands like Catharsis and Racetraitor and respected values such as DIY or alternative. I enjoyed having a chat about music with people from the hardcore scene but it got a bit banal sometimes when I heard people over-analysing or adulating bands. Because I always think about punk and hardcore with connections between music and real life.
For this, When I watched the video of Have Hearts’ last live in 2009, which was also when I was busy exploring hardcore, it was burnt into my memory. In the video, some police officers who have never seen a hardcore concert come up to the stage, killing the mood. Pat then explains to them, without a sweat, that everyone there is enjoying the concert in the care of others and that all the profit made will be donated to a women’s shelter. Watching the video reminded me of when I led my parents to the last performance of Things We Say in Seoul a long time ago(even though they didn’t enter) and the big and small things that happened while I did performance planning in Korea before coming to Australia. I wanted to confidently show what I liked to my friends as well as my family, and I wanted to share the efforts of my friends' band in Seoul and the value of Seoul's punk and hardcore scene with everyone. When exchanging ideas about performance planning to be sponsored by big brands, they once mentioned the name "punk party" and I remember fighting with numerous concerns on how to overcome the reality that punk and hardcore performance culture were not majorly known.
As a result, Have Heart, which left an impressive afterglow with just one episode, naturally began to shift my attention to Fiddlehead. The unique sounds and lyrics were a motivation to understand them. Pat Flynn was making a band that portrayed precarious realities in life, capturing the message he wanted to convey to the new generation while going through the process of his father dying, having a family, having children and having a job as a school teacher.
It must have been the fourth week of August. Ki told me in advance that he would arrive on Tuesday, and Fiddlehead was scheduled to begin his tour in Brisbane on Wednesday. I was working in a new building for a company called Salesforce and it must have been one of the big buildings in Sydney. I was in the upper part of the building when Ki contacted me early in the morning, saying he had arrived in Sydney. There you can see everything in Sydney at a glance. I took out a film camera and took a picture of the view of Harbor Bridge, thinking about when I would have another chance to come to such a high place. When lunchtime approached, we decided to meet on the ground.
Because of the eventful days I had here, I felt that my life in Korea was far away, but Ki, whom I met after a year, was just the same. He came with only shorts and a shirt in the Sydney weather that would be fine in the day but would quickly get cold after sunset. Still, he was busy with work and had some work stress, but he seemed to find some peace of mind as we met after a long time and ate good food. After I finished work, we met again and talked about what to do, but I also didn't have any plans or people to gather. However, when Ki told me how long he would stay and follow Fiddlehead to Melbourne, I just said I would come with, even though I was skeptical due to my financial situation.
In the evening, we met Matt just as we were walking out of Westwood after having some pizza, and went straight to Aaron's house and ended the day by meeting and having chats with Joel and Aaron. I finished work the next day and met Minji for the first time in a long time. Minji, who’s a similar age as me and stayed in Sydney for as long as I did, is one of the few people whom I shared my experiences with, just as I called her to the backstage during the Turnstile tour and watched the performance together. I didn't have many Korean friends, and it was quite nice to meet Minji before returning to Korea. I asked her to buy flowers before leaving. Now Fiddlehead's performance was getting closer and expectations grew.
On the eve of Fiddlehead's Sydney performance, there was an occasion where we all ate together, so I also joined. Entering a Chinese restaurant, everyone sat around the round table and started talking. Next to Nick, who’s a bassist at Fiddlehead, I was sharing a wine he bought and Ki was talking to Pat, whom he had not seen in a long time. After the meal, we had gelatos, going on to talk about another topic and only then did I greet Pat. After that, Pat and his party returned to their accommodation and the rest headed to the casino. Ki and I followed, but soon came out for the next day's schedule and booked a Melbourne flight. I wondered if I had anything to give Pat on the way back. When I came back, I found a book in my room.
While living in Australia I didn’t do as much reading as before, but I read at least a few pages a day when I had a book to read. Recently, however, I had a few chances to gift books, which was also due to the influence of P. P wasn't a punk or hardcore listener, but she would always ask me with an interest in new things. Starting with saying that she had a lot of questions about me, I met her a few times and whenever I showed her things that I was interested in, she took interest as well and shared them with others without hesitation. Until now, P is the only person in Korea and Australia who has responded sincerely to the efforts I made to introduce the hardcore scene.
One day I roamed the streets with P and recklessly entered whatever bookstore I found. While looking around the inside of the bookstore, I found a yellow book and showed it to P. Michelle Zauner's "Crying in H Mart" was already released two years ago, but it was the first time I saw the book. I asked P, who read this book before, about her impressions. She stayed silent for a while and said she remembered his late father a lot. Afterwards, going to a Weyes Blood performance with P, she said it reminded her of her father too. Concerned by her grief, I asked Speed’s Jem what to do when I have a sad friend who had a bereavement. Jem gave me heartfelt advice that it would help her regain peace by not being nervy with her, but just being as normal as ever. As he said, I took P to a different performance the next day and made a pleasant memory by introducing her to Gemma and San Jose friends. That day, I gifted "Crying at H Mart" to Gemma and afterwards to others when I met people to whom I wanted to show gratitude while living in Sydney.
I wanted to give the book to Pat as well, but considering that he is a history teacher, I began to think about the right book for him. I was also considering Dan in mind since I was given two books from him. Fortunately, there was one of my favourite books in my room, "The Martyred" by Kim Eun-guk in English.
I was working at a job with a schedule from Monday to Saturday, but I was very tired this time having to work for about 12 days without a break, including Sunday. Still, after finishing painting work on Saturday, I went straight to the concert venue to check on the guest bands, and Ki also arrived after working on his schedule with Fiddlehead. I told Tom Maddocks of Last Ride Records, also a member of Secret World who performed as a guest band and arranged the Fiddlehead tour, that I was trying to go to a sold-out Melbourne performance the next day and he willingly handed over the AAA pass. Afterwards, I followed Ki to the waiting room to avoid the bustling stage and greeted the members of Fiddlehead again.
Unlike the noisy stage, the waiting room was quiet and the Fiddlehead members began to get a little busy as the time for the performance approached. While the other members went out for a while to set up instruments, I approached Pat and said there was a present. When I gave him the " The Martyred " and told him to write down his signature and year, showing the part where my name and year were written on the first page of the blank, Pat kindly wrote down his. Then I asked him that when he finished reading the book, pass it on to Dan and ask him to record it the same way. He then recognized me and asked if I had guided Dan during the Olympic season in Pyeongchang. Not only did he talk about Dan, but he also talked about the book for a while and left, saying “See you at the stage”.
The venue, named Crowbar, where Fiddlehead's Sydney performance took place, is a large-scale stage where overseas bands would typically perform. I've seen some performances here, but it was the first time I've seen it so full, seeing people gathering while the three of Fiddlehead were getting ready. In addition, the age groups were also diverse, so it was fun to just watch people. I looked at some people and noticed that they were generations who also remembered Have Heart, one of whom was wearing a long-sleeved button shirt and a Have Heart sweatshirt. The outfit normally seen in the hardcore scene in the 2010s was something I've seen it in a long time in recent years.
 |
| Photo : Sabrina Loong |
Fiddlehead's Sydney performance was by far the best I've ever seen at Crowbar. In particular, many younger generations came to the stage and did a lot of diving and singing. Encountering a heart-beating performance for the first time in a long time, I went from place to place recklessly performing stage diving from the intro of the first song. The day before, it was the anniversary of the passing of Riley Gale of Power Trip, and I didn't forget meeting him in the U.S. and South Korea and he was a great inspiration and encouragement to the Korean hardcore scene. With this memory, I scattered flowers on the stage which Minji and her Korean friends bought beforehand. Pat, who was wearing a Crass shirt, continued to sing, clasping a flower in one hand, even though he said, "What kind of wedding ceremony is this?"
After the performance, I saw Ki, Gem, and Gemma talking. I can't remember what they were talking about, and people came and went busily right after the performance. I gave Gem and Gemma two big flowers that I had put in a separate bag in a hurry and left the concert hall after 12. I stopped by home, packed my things, and headed straight to the airport. I arrived at the airport at 4 a.m., went through procedures, took a 7 a.m. flight and arrived in Melbourne. In the middle of the flight, I couldn’t keep away from thinking about 5,000 aud for my new visa and expiring date.
I woke up at four in the morning to work and came over to Melbourne all night, so I was exhausted. I filled my hungry stomach by swallowing coffee and bread in a hurry and waited a little more than two hours to join Ki. We headed straight to our accommodation, and as soon as we checked in, Ki got a call from Pat and headed to Supply Store in the Melbourne City area.
Not long after they arrived at Supply Store, we were able to meet and talk for a while. In the meantime, the members of the Fiddlehead took Polaroid pictures to post on the Instagram of Supply Store and left their autographs on top of the pictures. Meeting Pat again, he told me that he didn't know who Richard Kim was at first, but realized that he knew him when he searched before coming to the shop. We headed for the coffee bar Path, briefly talking about the history of Korea and Camus whom Kim Eun-guk considered important. From there, the members of the Fiddlehead headed straight to the concert venue and the rest of us talked in front of the bar until Zac and Akira pulled up and picked up Ki.
Zac had to go somewhere else shortly and Ki headed for Akira's house. Akira said that he was gonna take what he needed from home before joining Fiddlehead's performance as a guest band. Ki and I met Akira's mom in the backyard and she welcomed us. Akira's mom, who was with her friends, asked us many questions. She knew that we were from Korea and said that she wanted to see Akira's performance as well. They were so energetic that their energy was transmitted to us, but Akira was embarrassed and told her to stop. How can I receive such energetic welcome like this again?
There was still time before the performance, so I lingered outside. Ki hadn't eaten yet and was curious about the food he should try in Australia, so we headed to a kebab restaurant. We bought a snack pack and tried to eat it together, but had to leave it unfinished because of the bad taste. After that, I went out to meet a Korean friend who was coming to see the performance and Ki headed to the venue. Conveniently, the street was familiar to me because it was where I found a bookstore when P and I roamed around after watching a tour of Sunami. I took some photos and sent them to P.
The venue where Fiddlehead's Melbourne performance was going to take place looked larger than Crowbar. Looking at past performance posters on the walls of the waiting room, we could see that it was the place where Billie Eilish and The Killers performed. So I wondered what kind of atmosphere it would be like if the performance went on, but people who watched the guest bands were surprisingly quiet. I brought my Korean friend up on the stage, unsure of how they would react during Fiddlehead, and waited for the headliner together at the right end.
I was anxious because it was Fiddlehead's last tour. As well as the sight I saw in Sydney the day before, their music was so good that I felt sorry as the performance time approached. As soon as Fiddlehead's first song intro came out, I thoughtlessly dived into the audience. It was only then that the audience began to move busily. I came back to the end of the stage and posted a video of Fiddlehead playing on Instagram. Dan made a FaceTime to me shortly after. Unable to speak because of the loud performance, I waved to Dan and showed Pat performing and finished the phone call by waving my hands again.
In their live, sometimes quiet and sometimes passionate, people responded with singalongs and stage dives took place constantly. Pat kept playing ‘till the end, even as my heart sank to see him being pushed, trying not to miss the microphone, being hit in the head by the feet of stage divers and suffering. He left the last impression he had on the tour in Australia. Later, Ki said he talked about me during the performance, but I couldn't hear him well at the time. After the performance, I thanked Maddow for planning the tour, went to Ki and Pat, took the last picture, and parted ways with Fiddlehead. It’s odd but I clearly remember that I was full of confidence when I met and talked to people there even though I felt absurd in my life and unsure about my future.
The next day, Ki and I spent time working on the Melbourne schedule, and I arrived in Sydney at 8 am to get to work the next day and returned home at 11. Later we met again on Tuesday for dinner, where Gem and Gemma joined. I had a severe headache having worked in the cold that day, but I showed up because I missed them. I hoped to have another opportunity like this next time and wanted to leave something of it, so I went ahead and took a photo. In response, Gemma also took a picture of us with a disposable camera.
So Ki spent a good time in Australia and went back to Korea. Two days later I finally got paid in three months to my account with only $17 dollars left, which was a result of my hard work of saving everything I could. I also returned to my original workplace and filled the number of days of work to meet my next visa conditions, and received a new visa four days before the expiration of the original one. Everything was uncertain, but I kept holding on and achieved my goal. What made me able to survive to the end were the people I knew in Australia, whether Korean or local, who acknowledged and supported what I knew and was interested in.
Fiddlehead's tour of Australia were extraordinary days from which I could get so much inspiration and motivation again. Since then, I still had a bumpy life, but I managed by recalling the memories of that time. People congratulated me on my first year anniversary in Australia and I saw my colleague who passed away before everyone in the movie "Return to Seoul." I introduced new people and performances to P and she responded with a bright smile on her face. November 10th is the first day I met Speed and 1300 friends. I look forward to continuing to share a positive influence with many people in Sydney in the future.
“to the memory of Albert Camus, whose insight into ‘a strange form of love’ overcame for me the nihilism of the trenches and bunkers of Korea.” - Introduction of <The Martyred> by Richard E. Kim
Editing : Kim Jung-shin
Photo : Sabrina Loong, Changwook Yeo
