The End Is Fast Approaching

MP3 Chinese Farmer / The Ten Speeds

Left Seoul and returned to the States, so WPNOB will retire in a few short days, though the content will remain online. If all goes according to plan, this is the second-to-last post. As a courtesy to circles, it's a song by the mildly-Korean rockers The Ten Speeds, whom I wrote about at the very beginning.

Read the first banana note here. Read the last one soon.

A Teeth-Whitening Pep Rally

MP3 Lovely / Kim Jong-guk [down]

This is the very beginning of the soon to be eminent We Pass Notes On Bananas, so the two songs for today are supposed to represent the opposite extremes of music in South Korea. This one's by Kim Jong-guk who's been around ten years and still has the voice of a castrated angel, not to mention hair that appears to be unshatterable. "Lovely" is from his third album, This Is Me (2005), and can currently be heard on every radio in every convenience store throughout the land. I'd tell you to buy the album and support Mr. Kim, but the melody is so catchy and the song so ridiculous that you probably won't want to. Plus, he's got to be a jillionaire by now.


MP3 Ping / The Ten Speeds

In contrast, The Ten Speeds barely exist. They only record when their London-based guitarist visits Seoul. They have no drummer. And their bassist is a Canadian who's been living in Korea for ten years and plans to leave soon. (He wears a Paul McCartney hat and drives a purple scooter.) But "Ping" is good, if unpolished, Ian Curtis worship, and the band somehow continues to survive in an underground scene focused primarily on punk and noise. I'd tell you to buy the album, but it's not an album and it costs nothing. "Ping" and five other tracks are available at the website for Double Riche, the band's moniker before it was rechristened The Ten Speeds. Like, you know, a bicycle.

More on The Ten Speeds...