Beijing underground band returns to Korea

Struggle Session

By Jon Dunbar

The Beijing hardcore punk band Struggle Session returns to Korea this Saturday and Sunday for two concerts in Seoul celebrating the release of a split album with local hardcore act Arryam.

The first show is Saturday at GBN Live House in Mullae-dong, and on Sunday it's at Club SHARP in Mangwon-dong. Each show has seven bands, including Struggle Session and Arryam.

Any foreign band touring Korea is always cause for celebration, but this one is especially meaningful as it brings back guitarist Nevin Domer, who previously lived in Korea in the early 2000s.

"We're hoping this release can be a foundation for creating deeper ties between the Chinese and Korean underground scenes," Domer told The Korea Times. "The international hardcore punk community is supportive, and active participants find they have friends around the world."

First moving to China in the 1990s for university, he came to Korea on a Fulbright scholarship to study the Gwangju Uprising and teach. He later studied Korean language at Seoul National University, while also staying active in the local punk scene with his two-man grindcore-noise band Pulgasari.

In late 2005, he returned to China "to drop out, play in a punk band, and waste my life getting drunk with local musicians."

He added, "Despite my slacker intentions those drunken nights became productive days." In Beijing, Domer handled booking from 2006 to 2012 at D-22, one of Beijing's most influential venues. He now works for the label Maybe Mars and runs his own Genjing Records, while also helping U.S.-based distro Far Out Distant Sounds, organizing and managing concert tours and consulting for the Chinese music industry.

And on top of his promotion and management roles, Struggle Session keeps him busy, averaging a concert every five days over the last two years. The band toured Spain and Morocco last summer, hit Korea last December and are planning a 34-date, seven-country South American tour.

The band is like a living history of hardcore punk with a fixation on extreme music, using the diverse ages of band members to draw influence from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

The band name refers to a form of public punishment used in the Mao Zedong era to shape public opinion and persecute political rivals. Domer says the English translation is unfamiliar to most Chinese so it doesn't cause political problems.

However, his previous band Fanzui Xiangfa (Criminalized Thought) had explicit political lyrics in Chinese. "We would have had a hard time performing in China under the current ― and possibly permanent ― leader," he remarked.

But despite the political climate, Domer is optimistic of the future.

"The Chinese underground music scene is bigger and better than ever," he said. "It faces its own unique challenges but is truly an unstoppable cultural and economic force. In some ways the government keeping the scene underground has allowed it to incubate and become stronger both musically and in terms of active participation."

He admits he has seen hurdles to Korean acts touring China. "Recently when I was trying to organize a tour for the Geeks I discovered it was impossible to permit shows by Korean bands in Shanghai or Wuhan, though Guangzhou is still okay. My contacts in the larger industry confirmed they had a similar experience with K-pop," he said.

"I'm not sure if music is part of China's THAAD retaliation. This is probably more about China protecting itself against the cultural pollution of K-pop. I'm not in favor of missiles in the hands of any government but I can see the need to protect an innocent public from the vices of K-pop. My bassist, on the other hand, is a massive fan of Red Velvet."

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