The Old Pop Bar

Johnnie Walker came for a visit again last night. He brought his friend, Bud. Bud Ice.

We were listening to music in this cool bar and I am trying hard to recall some of the great songs, that were played - I want to make an iMix for you.

Regular readers of the Bongorama Blog Network know that I love to recommend my favoruite bars from around the world. Recently, I've profiled some glamorous ones (coverage here and here), but this time around we are talking a Real Bar. A no-nonsense, whiskey-beer-cigarettes-loud music bar.

I am in Seoul, Korea, and it is hot. Kim Jung-Il has just declared nuclear war. A thundering typhoon is on its way. I need a drink.

Downtown Seoul - the Myeongdong shopping district to be precise - is packed with coffee shops, restaurants and shops. There are no bars, it seems. But, hidden behind a folder door on the second side street on the left, you will find a secret treasure for bar connoisseurs: The Old Pop Bar.

This bar is amazing: it is extremely small, it only has eight seats. But it has a giant, state-of-the-art sound system with huge speakers (seperated tweeter horns mounted on the walls and subwoofers on the floor) and a fantastic record collection. Vinyl and CD's. Pop classics, jazz favourites and rock music.

The bar is operated by a Korean man (I forget his name, I am not good with Korean names, especially when Johnnie & Bud is around), who is the host and disc jockey, and his assistant a beautiful, big Korean girl, who serve the drinks. Both of them chain smokes, hurl down whiskey shots and drink beers constantly, but at the same time offer great bar service. Since the bar is so tiny, the total of ten people (staff included) automatically become party friends.

They love requests, which you write down on little paper notebooks on the bar. And he usually finds the song, that you requested, be it a pop song, jazz standard or rock hymn. Actually there was only one song, he couldn't find last night, but I think that was because he was too drunk. It was very late. I wanted to hear the opening track of Boston's second album. Maybe he didn't.

So here we are, in downtown Seoul (which I prefer to Itaewon, where there are too many foreigners): my new friend, Michael (a belgian, who is a manager for Volksvagen China and knows all the cool bars in Beijing), his german girlfriend, a japanese businessman and four Koreans, two of them girls in the movie industry, who I movie quiz with all night, mostly Kubrick and Schrader questions. One of the Korean men is sleeping with his head on the bar. He was drunk at six o'clock.

Michael was there the night before and with a big smile on his face proclaims: "He has all the classics".

These are some of the songs, we listened to:

Cheap Trick "Live At Budokan" (side 1 of the vinyl album - original American pressing!)
Journey "Any Way You Want It"
Styx (two or three of their biggest hits)
The Doors "Riders Of The Storm"
Jimi Hendrix "All Along The Watchtower"
Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit" + "The Man Who Soul The World"
David Bowie "Space Oddity" (the Mellotron was louder than normal!)
Blondie "Heart Of Glass" + "Call Me" (my requests)
The theme from "Hair" (sic!)

This morning I thought we also listened to the Walther/Wendy Carlos soundtrack for "A Clockwork Orange", but I think it was just a quiz question, not a playback.

Make sure you visit this pearl of a bar, the next time you are in Seoul. It is almost impossible to find, but well worth the search.

Note:

I accidentally turned on my digital camera in video mode, left on the the bar it recorded 10 minutes (more than 800 MB!)of hilarious footage.

The Korean bartender asks me: "Where you from?"

"Copenhagen, Denmark", I reply with pride in my voice.

"Denmark? Hold da kaeft, mand!", shouts the bartender (Danish for "Get out of here" or "No kiddin'").

Absolutely priceless.

I will find some way of publishing this large video file for your viewing please soon (perhaps the Google Video Desktop Uploader).