Indecline Archives
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December 31 2005

New Year's Eve
The Christmas show had been great but New Year's Eve at Skunk wasn't so exciting. I think we went to FF for midnight but I took too many pictures of people kissing who shouldn't have been kissing so they've all been taken down. All Skunk had was an acoustic set when the minute rolled around. Quite a letdown.
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December 24 2005

Christmas at Skunk
Skunk always has a big Christmas show every year. I started a new tradition this year, Skinhead Santa. Next year I would do a lot more with the costume. There were some good sets this night. Not only did Couch play, but Spiky Brats came out of obscurity, and Seungpa joined Dirty Small Town onstage for some old Jiraltan99 songs. It was a merry Christmas after all.
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December 10 2005

Aggressive Dogs in DGBD
I didn't get that many great pictures of Aggressive Dogs, but I got this crazy picture of Chris evaporating outside. What's that guy made of?
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December 10 2005

DGBD
I had only been to DGBD once before, but we were starting to get closer with Anthony who worked over there so I was willing to give it another chance. A band called Aggressive Dogs was in the country from Japan and the openers were good so I gave it a chance.
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November 29 2005

Leaving Japan
Tuesday was my last day in Japan. Jung and some of the other Korean punks had opted to stay a full week, which meant we were all separating. Because the Korean punks had a plan to skip out on the bill at the hostel, which meant we'd have to make ourselves scarce, Jung tried to connect with her friend staying in Tokyo. But because of work they didn't meet up.
I left Jung in Shibuya with her suitcase and hurried to meet up with everyone and catch our plane. They had aborted the plan to escape from the hostel because they were afraid, which means me and Jung were robbed of a peaceful morning.
Anyway, while waiting for her friend who never showed up, Jung accidentally tripped an old man with her suitcase. He got up and started yelling at her and was generally abusive. She didn't let on she didn't speak Japanese. Anyway, as he was walking away she decided she'd taken too much, so she hit him on the head with an empty plastic bottle. He went down, and she panicked and ran. She hurried to the airport hoping to catch us, but was just too late. She spent the night in the airport, a horrible place to stay, and caught the next flight home.
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November 28 2005

Odaiba
Jung and I went together to Odaiba, an artificial island in Tokyo Harbour. It's kind of what Yeouido would be like if it were out in the middle of nowhere. The architecture out there reminds me of an episode of Astroboy. Anyway we got up close to the Fuji TV headquarters, by far one of the freakiest buildings out there. Other than that it was kind of a wasteland covered with parking lots and the occasional strip mall. The monorail was cool though.
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November 27 2005

Sunday in Japan
On Sunday we went off on an adventure with the Korean punks. Our first stop was Harajuku again, on the day that everyone is at their freakiest in that area. I didn't get many pictures of the freaky costumes. Then we formed a smaller group with Paul and Jonghee and went exploring downtown, hoping to find the sleaziest that Roppongi could throw at us. It never got even close to the average background noise of Itaewon but Marc assures me it heats up late at night.
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November 26 2005

Korea/Japan Punk Festival
Here are some more pictures of Captain Bootbois, as well as Ghetto Bombs, Booted Cocks, Discocks, Suck Stuff, Oi! Valcans, and Rux.
Marc wasn't doing so well so I hailed a taxi and sent him home. Unfortunately the taxi driver tried to rip him off and he was aware enough to argue with the guy. When the cops showed up and he stepped outside of the taxi, he was charged for theft and spent a week in jail without any charges pressed. Worse, he still had all that stuff written on his body which we'd been responsible for. I have to admit I'm extremely impressed with his supernatural ability to laugh it off.
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November 26 2005

Korea/Japan Punk Festival
Here is the second gallery of the Korea/Japan Punk Festival. The Korean bands in this gallery are Shorty Cat, Cock Rasher, and Captain Bootbois. The Japanese bands are One for All, Raise a Flag, Anger Flares, and the Basements. The first band in this gallery is One for All.
Also, you can see the infamous pictures of Marc totally losing his mind and passing out, which begins a long (well, two time) tradition of someone getting screwed up and waking up with stuff written on him whenever we get together. Fortunately the next time it would be someone else who suffers.
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November 26 2005

Korea/Japan Punk Festival
Here are the first pictures of the Korea/Japan Punk Festival. The first band up was Royal Shamrock, which was a shame because they're probably one of the most outstanding. I think they played early because one of them had family there for the show. Also I added some One for All pictures in this gallery.
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November 25 2005

Going to Japan
For the Korea/Japan Punk Festival, six Korean punk bands flew to Tokyo for a one-night show. There were also a bunch of hangers-on, including Jung and me. In this gallery, we escape from Korea and land in Japan. On our first night I called up the infamous Tokyohoon, a Canadian skinhead who'd been living in Japan for several years. He gave us a tour of Shinjuku I'm convinced he's done several times for multiple people (I know Dorian and Bryn experienced the same tour). Then the next day we saw where the venue was and then went to Harajuku to see what it was like.
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November 19 2005

Halloween Take 2
Jay and Spanky were disappointed they weren't around for Halloween, so we agreed to dress up again. For our costumes we decided to go as normal people. That meant putting on clothes we hadn't worn for a while, trying to look normal, and lots of shockers.
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November 11 2005

Remembrance Day with Empi
What better way to spend Remembrance Day than by watching a Japanese band? Empi used to be one of the big skinhead bands of Japan but judging by this appearance they've gone a bit wigger. Looking through these photos you can see most of the Korean skinheads have also thugged out a bit too. The only two still dressed like skinheads at this show were Laewal and Jonghee, and Jonghee later told me he wasn't having a skinhead relapse. Kind of odd.
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November 5 2005

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?
I'm pretty sure this show was put on by Gunhee from Pulgasari. It had a lot of Chaos Class bands and it was a show about peace. Have you ever seen Paul and Verv so close before?
Well, the main problem was that too many soldiers showed up. When Pulgasari began they received some good-natured heckling from Paul and me. Between songs they would have their say in English and Korean respectively, and some of the soldiers in the audience didn't like that. One of them started hollering "Play some fucking music!" which pissed Gunhee off. He said he would never play in Skunk again but fortunately didn't mean it. I'm sure those GIs didn't ever come back.
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October 29 2005

Halloween costume
It was the closest we'd have to a Halloween show so I needed a costume fast. I always make my best costumes when I'm in a rush. So I took a couple markers and etched a few tattoos on my arms, then cut out the bottoms of two dixie cups and taped them to my glasses, and I had myself a Verv costume. I spent the night wandering around acting more drunk than normal and had a few people worried.
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October 29 2005

Suck Stuff girls' show
Suck Stuff was booked to do an unusual show. There was a program at this girls' middle school to introduce the students to contemporary music genres such as punk and hip-hop. They were bussed in to this venue in Sinchon where Suck Stuff played for them along with two hip-hop acts. It was damn odd and the girls seemed to enjoy it. They'd obviously never been to a concert before and weren't sure what to do, so they stood watching the band and trying to clap along with the rhythm. It does seem like a worthwhile project to me; just too bad more students don't go on field trips like this.
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October 29 2005

Waeg Cave
Some time in 2005 a few people had the idea to share rent on an apartment near Hongdae to use for sleeping at on the weekend. It was a reasonable price which unfortunately was shovelled mainly onto Grant and Unity's shoulders. Each week they'd pack the place with waegs until there wasn't enough room left.
I only went one time to take pictures of Mousey getting a mohawk. Jung later found these pictures and somehow constructed a narrative to them that revealed to her that I was cheating on her with apparently Mousey, Unity, and Annie. It would've been funny in different circumstances.
Anyway, the Waeg Cave didn't last long. Eventually it folded under pressure from scene bullshit and lack of support on the rent.
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October 28 2005

Ssamzie Space
I went out to a Friday show to see Ghetto Bombs, Kingston Rudieska, and Suck Stuff. The star of the night was Mousey, who was planning to get her head shaved for a mohawk. Anyway, the show was pretty good too.
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October 22 2005

Ni Hao show
This show was put on by Tuung!, a promoting group run by one creepy old English dude and a few Koreans. At the time they had a preference for bringing chick bands over. Later they'd go on to bring Guitar Wolf and a few less fetishy acts but they disbanded recently.
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October 15 2005

The Return of Couch
This was Couch's first show since Music Camp. Urchin had just been released from jail and this was the first time I'd seen him since then. He told me jail was pretty cool; they gave him three square meals a day which is more than he's used to, and he'd actually gained weight. Anyway it was good to see him free.
I also discovered ISO settings on my camera, which meant I could drastically change my camera's ability to take pictures in low-lighting settings. Over the coming months you'll have to get used to extremely grainy shots, but in this gallery I use it to my advantage.
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October 8 2005

Cutthroat Radio Show
Unfortunately Cutthroat Radio is gone, but Skele from Captain Bootbois had a plan to launch his own online radio station. This show was put on in honour of that site.
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October 2 2005

Ssamzie Sound Festival
The three bands I was most there to see were Rux, Crying Nut, and No Brain, who played back-to-back on the same stage. I certainly could've gotten more photos but the stage was too high.
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October 2 2005

Ssamzie Sound Festival
This was Rux's first big show after the Music Camp incident and nobody was really sure what to expect. Boram and some of his friends were planning on unofficially working security, which probably means kicking the shit out of anyone who gives us trouble. Fortunately nothing happened and it was a pretty decent show with no nudity and no violence.
I amused myself by taking pictures of kids dressed up in punk clothes who have never been to Skunk Hell before. There were a lot of closet punks out there. Too bad they don't support the punk scene full-time.
Also in this thread is the Oh Brothers, who I stopped liking after because they put on a show for Marilyn Manson lookalike and Seoul mayor Lee Myungbag to show him that not all rock and roll bands are full of deviant drug users who magically fool all drug tests.
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September 24 2005

Zines Release
I put out a second issue of Broke that came out this night. It was months later than I'd hoped because I'd been hoping to release it bilingual, but the translations were taking forever so I gave up and printed what I had. I also think Red Flag released an issue this night, and of course Ducky started selling his homemade pins.
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September 17 2005

Chuseok
Just a rainy Chuseok weekend. Of course most Koreans were off with their families, leaving us non-Koreans and dysfunctional Koreans stranded in a ghost town. It wasn't a big show but it was a good time.
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