Good news, music dweebs

I have been introduced to an excellent hole-in-the wall named Jazz Rock, about a 2 minute walk from the Hongik University subway station.

Hongik reminds me a lot of Athens, GA; tons of bars, clubs, and strange haircuts all in a very condensed area.

Jazz Rock is run by an aging Korean hipster and his aging Korean hipster girlfriend. I knew the bar was going to be cool when I walked in and noticed the album covers decorating the walls, sporting musical variety ranging from Miles and Thelonius Monk to T. Rex, Neil Young, Sonic Youth and Ted Leo.

To top it off, the darkly-lit, living room-sized bar has a pair of gigantic high-quality Bose speakers to blast his collection of vinyl records and CDs (about 1000 by my count). A nice touch, albeit arrogant in that “there’s nothing you want that I don’t have” kind of way, is the pens and paper at each table for taking requests. The drink prices are also reasonable, only 3 dollars for a Jim Beam and Coke (in a country where a 1/5th of Jack Daniels costs $40).

There’s another bar close to me in Sunae named Wa Bar that plays decent tunes as well. Its kind of a random mix between played out pop songs and excellent classic rock like Led Zeppelin or the Velvet Underground. The Wa also sports the only dart board I’ve seen so far in Korea, which is pretty exciting.

Just decided that I’d make a post that at least attempts to fit the supposed theme of the blog. It’s certainly comforting to know that its possible to escape the onslaught of K-Pop and musak you’ll hear in most other establishments.

~ by David Ogles on July 29, 2007.