Music Notes: rock of Asians
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Park, the leader of the critically acclaimed Chicago band Seam, says he wanted to put out the record “because when I was growing up I could never picture a legitimate Asian American songwriter. . . . There weren’t any.”
Park and Shin met last year in Seoul. Park was visiting relatives after breaking up with onetime Seam bassist Lexi Mitchell, and Shin was under parental pressure to get his shit together and benefit financially from the proliferation of multinational corporations in South Korea. Neither of them was happy in his ancestral homeland, but they alleviated the effects of sweltering heat and personal misery by jamming together. They returned to Chicago with Shin ensconced as Seam’s new bassist and the idea for starting a record label.
Due to be released next month, Ear of the Dragon mixes various styles, from the ska of California’s Skankin’ Pickle to the manic indie-rock of Washington State’s Kicking Giant to the slick hard pop of Boston’s Dambuilders to the cute pop of Vancouver’s Cub. For the most part the effort betters the majority of theme-oriented compilations, which suffer musically in order to provide conceptual unity. A tour partially sponsored by the Asian American life-style magazine A is set for May with Venus Cures All, aMiniature, and Seam, whose third album is due out in June. The tour concludes in Chicago with a May 27 date at the Double Door.
