I've had this C.D. for more than a year now, but for some reason, never put it up. Meet Shin Jung Hyun, Korea's Godfather of Rock n' Roll. Since the 1960s, Hyun has been popular with everyone, from U.S. and U.N. forces protecting a post-war Korea to the small, but one-time fierce hippy/democratization movement that took its roots from the late 1960s to the 1980s in Korea under the oppressive rule of president Park Chung Hee. In a weird twist of irony, Hee at one time asked Hyun to write a song for him, but Hyun refused. Instead he wrote a song about the beauty of Korea in a slightly-confusing "fuck you" to the autocrat Hee. Later Hee became famous for being so bad and dictatorial, his own head of the Korean spying agency shot him.
Now-a-days the 70-something year-old Hyun plays occasionally around Korea, even after apparently retiring sometime last year. Here's his collaboration with his former band The Yup Juns, which is about as dirty, garagey and as pysch-ish as pretty much any record I've ever had. It's also about one of the best. Enjoy.
