Playing, playing in the band.

Last Friday night, The Odds Against had a gig at a sports bar in Bucheon called The Park.  And thanks to one of my students, Hyeji Shin, who happens to be a photography major, we finally have some decent shots of us performing!

Robbie and I having fun on stage.

Austin Kaufmann

Robbie Kara

Rob McManus

Good face.

Better face.

Great face!

My favorite shot of the night.

Following our set, The Mad Cannons blasted through as set of their own.

Simo, Robbie, (Moon), & Stan of The Mad Cannons

(All photos by Hyeji Shin.)

My latest band project has been designing some promotional materials for the band: 

T-shirts!  (Available in time for Christmas.  Order now!)

Concert posters to promote our gigs

Gwangalli Skyline

Weekend in Busan

Victoria and I took the KTX bullet train down to Busan for the weekend with my brother and sister-in-law, Lane and Mandi.  This was our second trip to Korea's second-largest city.

The KTX website boasts of top speeds of 305 km/hr (190 mi/hr), which does not place it in the top tier category of speed trains worldwide, but for my American standards, it still seems pretty fast.  I have to say, however, that the ride is so smooth, it hardly feels like you're moving at all.

When we left Seoul, it was gray and rainy, but the weather in Busan was warm, sunny, and absolutely beautiful. We scrapped some of our sight-seeing plans and just hung out on Gwangalli Beach.

Gwangalli Beach is probably best known for its yearly fireworks festival, when -- according to reports -- more than a million people flock to the beach and surrounding areas to catch the spectacle.

As we did in our last trip, we spent some time poking around the Jagalichi Fish Market marveling at some of the craziest creatures that human being will actually put in their mouths...intentionally!

In a previous blog post about seafood, I posted a link to a YouTube video of some very phallic sea creatures called "spoon worms."  Well, on this trip, we found their yonic counterparts in the form of some mollusks:

Here was one mollusk who wasn't hanging around to be served for dinner:  

She was making a break for freedom,
albeit a very slow break. 

After the fish market and dinner, we walked around the neighborhood near Jagalchi Station.  As headquarters for PIFF (Pusan International Film Festival), it's a fun area with several cinemas, good shopping, and loads of awesome street food.  Our favorite of these delicacies was hoddeok (호떡), or sweet pancakes filled with a brown sugar and cinnamon filling.

Victoria waiting for her 호떡 

For more about hoddeok, follow these links to watch them being made by a street vendor or to learn how to make them yourself.

The next day, we took the cable car up to Geumjeong Fortress and hiked along its walls:

The South Gate of Geumjeong Fortress

The recently reconstructed wall

Near the entrance to the park where we caught the cable car, there was more street food to be found.  This vendor was selling a number of goodies including ginko nuts (far left) and bondaegi, or fried silkworm larvae (in the silver bowl and pan).

We passed on the bondaegi, as do most of the foreigners when offered the Bondaegi Challenge.

After two days of beautiful, sunny autumn weather in Busan, we were welcomed at the train station in Seoul with thunderstorms and rain.  Sigh.

Halloween!

For Halloween this year, Victoria, Lane, Mandi, and I headed down to What's David's? in Songdo for a fun night of costumes, music, and dancing.

The event was a blast!  Hee-kyong, the manager, and the What's David's staff had the place decorated spook-tacularly, and there was pumpkin pie and candy galore!

Hee-kyong, rockin' the 'fro!

Though David's is, in the evenings, mainly a bar, there were tons of little kids there, all dressed up, because -- hey -- it was the only place in town that was celebrating Halloween.  After all, it's not even remotely a part of Korean tradition.

They yelled "Encore!" after every song!  BEST FANS EVER! 

After a particularly energetic burst of dancing and jumping, one of two little Supermans (not the one pictured) ralphed up his candy.  Thankfully, no photo of that.

Guess we got a little too loud for the little guy on the right!

The Odds Against opened up the show.  Rob McManus wasn't able to join us for the show, unfortunately, but Robbie and I soldiered on without him:

After our set, Robbie and I joined the Songdo Social Club (some of us in costume) for another hour and a half of music:

So, when was the last time you heard an ensemble featuring electric
guitar, 5-stringed bass, mandolin, violin, and trombone?

Robbie, doing what he does best.

Simo, screaming through a solo

Here's a clip of the last few seconds of our final song, a Latin version of "House of the Rising Sun":

Then, it was time for costumes, drinks, dancing, and a good ol' fashioned dance-floor limbo contest:

Who you gonna call?

GHOSTBUSTERS!
I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

The loyal late-nighters who danced till 3:00 am.

At least if I fall, I'll land on my inflatable Proton Pack!

NOTE:  Our camera has died, so all of these photos are courtesy of Lane & Mandi, and Lune Kim's and Suzanne Johnson's Facebook albums.  Thanks, you guys!

The Odds Against gets a shout-out!

The weekly publication Good Morning Incheon recently ran a 3-page feature story on What's David's?, the restaurant/bar in Songdo where we my band, The Odds Against, is the house band.  There are two photos of us and we even got our own sidebar blurb:

Sadly, the picture quality from the website's PDF is poor.  When I get scans of the print version, I'll repost with better resolution.