You Never Know Who's Listening

Artistic creation and its processes can be an incredibly lonely place, and that’s the say nothing of the arguably even more suffocating isolation of the doldrums. I wouldn’t be surprised if you know exactly what I mean. “Is it good enough?” “What do I do next?” “Will anyone appreciate it?” A feeling of inadequacy can take its root, self-loathing and undesirability further nourish the nastiness towards ourselves. As we often say, these feelings do not represent the truth. In fact I can give you a contradictory example right now. It may be hard to listen to reason right now, but even if that is the case, I don’t expect you to take it on board right away or at all. But I hope, when you are feeling like this in the future, the idea pops into your head, if for no more than a brief moment to tell you in the kindest way that it is not true. There is someone out there in the unlikeliest place.

I should know after all, I’m one of them.

From right: Jung Ho-jun (guitarist/vocals), Won Zena (bassist/vocals), Gun Choi (drums)

Startline were a Korean band, active between 2013-2016. They released a couple of singles, a few EPs, and they were gone. There were no reasons given, though as with any band one can fill in the blanks to their hearts content with scenarios relating to creative differences or a breakdown in communications and relationships between band members. To most passing by, unaware of the nature of the Korean rock scene, they would seem like any other band that tried and failed to make it in an ever competitive and clustered market. The vastly underrated variable of lady luck being as unkind to them as any struggling artist would know. Even in death they made me feel ever so alive.

For better or worse, I’m not like most and when it comes to art that catches my attention, rarely do I ever pass by without at least momentary interest.

I’ve already written a piece touching on the difficulties of making it in a Korean music industry largely controlled and operated by the pop music and money making machines that have very little interest in rock music, let alone the vibrancy of it’s sub-genres. And as you can imagine, that applies to Startline as well. Having to survive primarily through the underground tunnels (so to speak) in which Korean rock music and its organic appeal can be “allowed” to exist. 

To understand my reverence for this particular band I think that there are important aspects to understand. My exposure to Korean music had at that point largely been from the pop music side of the equation. It’s not as though I hadn’t enjoyed what I had heard, but after a while the similarity and overlap started to wear out its novelty. I wanted new sounds from Korea, but I didn’t know where to look, or if there even was a place to look that I could realistically find anything. Such was my knowledge of the industry. The rock music being well-tucked away from the more easily digestible genres and sounds. Smaller record companies obviously help but not as much as you might think. Whereas bands like Startline are a dime a dozen in other markets, to say they truly are one of a kind (at least as far as my knowledge and scope can stretch) wouldn’t be an exaggeration.

They are a three-piece pop punk band. Whose sounds are a combination of blink-182 with cleaner production value of the late 90s and early 2000s and a Japanese skate-punk band known as Hi-Standard whose more organic and naturalistic sound was rough and unapologetic for it. Startline were able to comfortably sit in the niche between the two. A fantastic balance of power and precision. Melocore focused on fast tempos, guitar sounds a combination between feedback and clean, drumming not to dissimilar to Travis Barker’s efforts in the aforementioned blink-182, and female/male vocal harmonies which are WOEFULLY underrepresented in pop-punk regardless of language. While never openly partisan, their lyricism often explore the discourses of modern Korean society and the injustices and the common people are facing as a result of the ignorance those with the power to change lives are living in, but are always imbued with a silver lining of hope and momentary peace. In a way their works can be interpreted as a micro-commentary of how they feel towards the music industry titans that hold dominion over their ability to do what they love for work, or at the very least having that possibility exist at all.

A personal favorite of mine “Now We Go On” and its accompanying music video is a defiant and simultaneously uplifting visual and auditory dream. It’s sound conveying a belief, a willpower to exist, even if you don’t want to hear us, even if you don’t want to remember us we’re gonna do our damn well best to make sure that we are heard, even if it’s just by one person. The band members walking individually in the crowded streets of (what I assume to be) Seoul. Taking in the sights and sounds of 25 million in reverse. Uncaring, unaware, uninterested in their presence, intermittently cutting back to the band playing on a rooftop, the almost sepia-like colors conveying a sense of age, their music of choice as irrelevant to the mainstream consciousness of Korea as it ever has been. 

In the closing seconds of the three paths intersect come face to face (to face) in the middle section of a crowded street. Our interests may be off the beaten path of the general population that surrounds us, but the opportunity to meet someone, anyone, who understands what makes us tick, what keeps us going in the exhaustive human experience, is out there somewhere. That chance for intersection will exist as long as our collective population remains as high as it does.

I think about this moment a lot. And specifically right now, in times of strife, uncertainty, and fear. These former bandmates, living in individuality, now blending in with the crowd (not in terms of ideology, but public presence), have absolutely no idea that some random American who does not speak Korean well (AT ALL), who is most definitely exposed to music just like theirs in my own market exponentially more often, not only is aware of them, but is actively choosing to listen to and remember them. Who is to say I couldn’t have been the fourth person to meet them at the bustling fork in the road?

Your work may not reach millions of people, you may not have a large community of excitable support behind you, and you may not ever. And why does that make it illegitimate? All it takes to enjoy art is one soul who has opened itself up to the darker sides of life. Without someone else art is just noise, colors, and potentially unintelligible symbols. The quality of your art only needs one other willing to engage with it. Don’t ever be afraid to be someone on either side of the agreement. Career or no career.