Old-timers soak in tunes from live Misari stages

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Old-timers soak in tunes from live Misari stages

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A folk singer performs live last Sunday evening on the stage of Rome, one of the Misari live cafes, while those in the audience sip drinks as they watch. By Jeon Min-gyu

Even in the drizzle late Sunday evening, it wasn’t easy finding an empty seat at Benhur, a live cafe shop located in Misari on the border of Seoul and Gyeonggi.

Members of the crowd, some with white hair, had their eyes and ears glued to a man singing his heart out on a small stage in the corner. They appeared transfixed by the music.

There is a wide variety of live music cafes around Seoul, including jazz bars, but here at Benhur, the music is old school and so are most of the customers.

There’s nostalgia in the air.

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“I come here once in a while when I feel like listening to good live music,” said Park Sang-ho, 54, who was listening to the music while sipping a beer with his wife and friends.

“You can’t hear music like this on radio or television shows,” Park said, adding that listening to the music here brings back his younger days.

“I heard so much about this place and it’s good to hear music that is different from what I usually listen to, like hip-hop and Korean pop music,” said Kim Byeong-chul, 33, who came to Benhur with his girlfriend.

There are several live cafes along a route heading from Seoul to the Paldang Bridge in Gyeonggi: the Benhur, Yeolae, Rome, Athens and Uncle Tom.

They’re easy to spot, bedecked as they are with bright neon signs.

Next to the main road is another separate one that directly heads towards the live cafes. The roads are divided by small blocks of concrete.

The large pictures of popular singers from the 1970s and ’80s, like Kang Soo-ji, can be easily spotted on the side of the road.

Some cafes are two or three stories high with an open courtyard in the middle so that patrons can watch the stage from their seats.

Misari began around 1996 and 1997. And between 1998 and 1999 live cafe shops started to pack the streets.

People flocked to this neighborhood to listen to their favorite singers who no longer appeared on television. And singers enjoyed their newly regained popularity.

Misari’s popularity even appeared in the Korean movie “Radio Star,” released in 2006. In the movie Choi Gon, a singer who topped Korean music charts in 1988, saw his popularity drop over the years.

As an over-the-hill singer, he drifted to Misari and sang on cafe stages before being hired to host a small local radio show in Gangwon. Like in the movie, it’s easy to spot the large posters of singers that commanded the music scene in the 1970s and 1980s.

“When we first started we used to hire folk singers with no names,” said Oh Gyun-ah, chief executive of Yeolae. Cafe Yeolae was one of the early live cafes in the neighborhood when it opened up in 1996.

“Park Gang-seong, now a popular singer in the music industry, was one of the singers who gained famed from singing in Misari.

Oh said that in the beginning there was just a handful of cafes that provided live music.

But once word spread, others started popping up.

According to the Hanam local office, in its heyday there were 38 live cafes.

“Misari has the perfect geographical condition for setting up cafes,” Oh said.

Misari is not only close to Seoul but it is also located on the way to Yangpyeong, where many people spend their leisure time.

“There are a lot of cars passing by this way and the live acoustic guitar was a fresh cultural event in Korea, where entertainment is limited, especially for the older generation,” said Oh.

He said that housewives visiting the cafe to have a cup of coffee during lunchtime enjoyed the live music and they started to tell others.

Soon places like Ilsan established their own live music areas.

The popularity of the neighborhood has extended overseas.

“Since four to five years ago foreign tourists, most of them Japanese, started showing up,” said Kim Joon-bae, manager of Benhur, who has worked at the cafe for the last eight years.

“Some visit the cafe by taxi or ask their tour guide to bring them here,” Kim said.

Oh of Yeolae says with the increasing number of foreign customers, some of the singers slip a few Japanese songs into their routine.

Kim of Benhur says on a Saturday there are about 200 customers that visit while on the weekday the average is about 100.

However, this is only 40 to 50 percent of the number of customers that used to visit.

The cafes started to fiercely compete with one another, which started a price war for entertainers.

As a result, the price of beverages shot up. At one time, a cup of coffee shot up to 30,000 won. Soon, customers started turning away.

Today, a cup of coffee costs 9,000 won during the day. In the evening, the price can double, particularly when a popular singer comes on stage. Meals go up 30 percent at night as well.

And the recent economic downturn has had a major impact on the cafes. Some, including Roxy - one of the early live cafes - closed just a couple of months ago.

Others changed their businesses but not their names. Instead of live cafes, they changed to Korean, Chinese or Japanese restaurants.

“The name of the cafe is so well known we decided not to change the name,” said Shin Ji-ho, who has been running Santina, a former live cafe and now a Chinese restaurant. “Many of our customers are former regulars of Santina who come to this place for past memories,” he added.

The neighborhood still has a lot of pride as a cultural icon. “This is the place where acoustic live music cafes began and no matter how others copy it you can’t beat the original,” Oh of Yeolae said. Business at the cafes begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 2 a.m.


By Lee Ho-jeong [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]
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