Chapter 54 : Government Support Project (1)

A wiki entry.

[It’s not a small number of visitors, but it’s not exactly a large number either].

This is the most accurate sentence to describe Club Paradox.

In the Hongdae indie band scene, Paradox’s role was like a gateway.

By accepting any band for open mic, they encompass a variety of genres and bring people into the scene.

Then, they send the people who have been trained at Paradox to other clubs, dividing them into their respective areas.

For example, metal bands go to MM, jazz bands go to Riverhall, and so on.

They categorize people and send them off, and if anyone gets tired of the hardcore atmosphere, they hold them back again.

They send them to a new genre.

In this way, Club Paradox served as a ‘hometown for everyone’.

But despite this, there were few regulars at ‘Paradox’.

Because everyone just stops by for a while.

But even Paradox was gradually changing.

The biggest thing was a rumor that started circulating among people at some point.

‘If you go to Paradox at 4 PM on Saturday, you can see something interesting.’

Most people who heard that ignored it as nonsense.

“The opening hours of Paradox are from 6 PM, so why would you go there at 4 PM?”, “Is this that Neapolitan urban legend thing?”

they said.

But a few people who went there said, “Hey, it’s really good.

It’s fun.”

And as they continued to visit Paradox at 4 PM on Saturdays… people’s curiosity grew even more.

And like lemmings, more and more people started visiting Paradox at 4 PM on Saturdays.

As if they didn’t know what was at the front, they just followed the lead.

But there was definitely a difference between lemmings and Paradox at 4 PM.

Lemmings collectively die by jumping off a cliff, but at Paradox, after watching a performance once, one person becomes two, and after two or three times, it increases to three or four.

And the number of people who increased like that was definitely not one or two.

“Why are there so many people now?”

“I know.

Now, if you want to see the kids in front, you have to come out ten minutes early.”

Before the performance, Ah-yoon came out of the club for a moment and grumbled in a voice that wouldn’t be heard by others around her.

Her friends responded to her grumbling.

It had been about a month since she and her friends started stanning the band ‘Group Sound’, which started performing at this club.

On the first day of the performance, there were hardly any people because it was too early, but now there were quite a lot of people.

And it was gradually increasing.

When Ah-yoon came to see Group Sound’s first performance, there were really only a few people.

Ah-yoon and her friends who came with a half-hearted “Is it really fun?”, one or two older people who were there for some reason, a couple of drunk college students, and a few people who came to see why the club was open at this time.

It was a stark contrast to the crowd that had gathered during the open mic.

But now?

Quite a lot of people come to see the performance even at this time.

The scale was clearly different from the beginning.

People who seemed to have come just once, a hipster guy leaning against the wall with his arms crossed just like in anime, and even people who secretly brought in alcohol from outside despite it being a performance for minors.

And most surprisingly, even to Ah-yoon, the audience composition was quite diverse.

Unlike during the open mic when most of the people seemed like ‘people who would listen to rock’, now the age range and fashion seemed to be quite diverse.

Still, Ah-yoon felt grateful that it wasn’t enough to fill the club yet.

No, should she be grateful?

Isn’t it better for the band she likes to succeed?

‘But if these kids become popular, then I won’t be able to see them like this…?’

What is the right attitude to have as a fan?

Is it greedy to hope to see them up close while also hoping they do well?

While Ah-yoon was having a serious internal conflict, someone’s voice woke her up.

“Unnies!

What are you doing here?

Aren’t you going in?”

“Gah!”

The cute-looking bassist, Choi Lee-seo, with the trendy hime-cut hairstyle, a green beret, and a jacket.

It was a bit of a stretch to say her physique was cute, but even that looked very cute to Ah-yoon’s eyes.

“Gah…

Gah!

Yi, Lee-seo…”

“What, what?

Aren’t you going in?”

Lee-seo naturally clung to them, and the kids thought they had hit the jackpot.

They were about to ask for an autograph on the Group Sound T-shirt they were wearing, when they heard a voice from behind.

“Aren’t you going in?”

“Oh, just a moment.

There are… fans?

Can I call them fans??

Fan~ There are fans here.”

Next to Lee-seo, guitarist Ha Su-yeon stuck her head out.

While Ah-yoon’s friends, who liked Ha Su-yeon more than Choi Lee-seo, reacted enthusiastically, Ah-yoon handed Lee-seo a gift she had prepared from her bag.

“Here…

This!”

“Huh?”

“It’s a keyring!

A keyring.

I thought it would look pretty if you wore it…”

An anime mascot keyring.

Lee-seo very naturally hung the keyring on her jacket and made a V-pose as if asking for a picture to be taken.

And then the two disappeared.

“Did you take a picture?

Wow, I’m jealous.”

“Didn’t you take a picture?”

“Um…

She said taking pictures doesn’t leave anything in life, and that the really important things are memories and sensations, and she shook my hand.

She even gave me words of encouragement.”

“Huh??”

Is this a new way of refusing?

But the comment is a bit strange, isn’t it?

What’s with the words of encouragement?

Ah-yoon thought so.

“Why did she only shake your hand?”

“The important moments are to be kept in your memory.

Not taking pictures with some piece of junk phone or some strange machine and then stashing it away and never looking at it again.”

“No, if you don’t want to take a picture, just say so.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to take a picture…

Sigh, what’s the point of talking about it.”

Su-yeon was saying something incomprehensible again today.

Lee-seo just let it go and entered the waiting room.

Hyun-ah and Seo-ha, who had placed a metronome in the center of the waiting room and were checking it, greeted the two.

“So, today’s performance will go as planned.

As I mentioned before, after today’s performance, we’ll talk about the government support project.

Is there anyone who really can’t make time all of a sudden?

No one, right?”

After gathering the three, Su-yeon brought up the ‘government support project’ that they had been hearing about for months.

‘Is she finally going to talk about this…?’

Originally, it was supposed to have already entered the judging stage by now.

But it was delayed by a few months, so the online judging will start at the end of this month.

Su-yeon continued.

After the online judging, they will select the top 8, have another offline competition, and then select the final 2 teams.

Something like that.

At those words, Lee-seo remembered what Seo-ha had told her before.

“That support project…

Band Pioneer?

Have you heard anything about it?”

“Well, I’ve heard quite a bit about it.

There are people around me who are participating, and I have acquaintances who have.”

During a break in practice, Lee-seo and Seo-ha met outside the practice room.

The atmosphere became a little awkward, so Lee-seo hurriedly asked a question.

Fortunately, Seo-ha accepted the question very naturally.

“I told you before, right?

The band of an older guy I know just got eliminated.”

“Did you?”

“I think I mentioned it when we first talked about it.

Anyway, um…

From what I remember, this year’s prize money per band is 6 million won.

4 million won for album production costs.

Support for collaboration with established musicians, and a chance to perform at a festival.

There aren’t many projects with better benefits than this.”

“Gah.

That’s crazy.”

A total of 10 million won, a collaboration, and a festival.

Lee-seo understood why Su-yeon suggested applying for this project.

“Moreover, this project is for new bands.

5 years.

So, it seems like the competition isn’t that fierce.”

“I guess so.”

“And the preliminaries are just recorded and viewed online.

So, the hurdle seems really low.

But that’s why the competition is even fiercer.

Because it seems doable.

I heard that over a hundred teams participated in the online preliminaries last year.

And now there are rumors that this year will be an open field, so it might be even fiercer this year…”

‘I think that’s what she said.’

The conclusion is, this year the prize money has increased, there’s no clear favorite to win, so it will be very competitive.

But Lee-seo didn’t care about that.

Because, they just have to do their best.

Ultimately, the victory goes to those who are skilled.

“It’s been quite a while since we performed at this time, right?

About a month?

Maybe not that long.

Anyway, I want to thank you for always listening to our jumbled setlist.”

Another song ended, and a calm voice spread throughout the venue.

Judging from the laughter coming from various parts of the audience at the phrase ‘jumbled setlist’, it seemed that the audience also thought of it as the charm of this band.

Like listening to a radio that plays requested songs, the songs that popped out without context, except for a few pre-determined songs.

Except for the fact that they were band songs, there was no commonality.

There were times when metal came out, J-pop came out, anime songs came out, and blues came out.

And most of those performances were not 100%.

Songs that showed 70-80% quality.

There were many shortcomings compared to the original songs, and there were also many empty spaces in those performances.

But despite that, the reason why the audience could love those songs… was largely due to the guitar playing skills of the person holding the microphone in front of the audience now, most of the audience thought.

“And I also have to say I’m sorry.

Today, I suddenly felt like playing an unscheduled cover song.

Since I got a new piece of equipment, I really wanted to use it in today’s performance, so I changed the setlist.

I practiced a bit, but it might be lacking, so I apologize in advance.”

It’s okay!

It’s okay!

Cheers like that followed.

Su-yeon loosened her hands a little and nodded at Hyun-ah.

With that signal, Hyun-ah’s Kurzweil keyboard began to be delicately touched.

Us and them

And after all we’re only ordinary men

Along with the dreamy sound, the guitar fills the space where the saxophone sound should have been.

The guitar tone with delay and panning, which was not there originally, made people’s senses strange.

The audience, who had been swaying to a pretty exciting song just a moment ago, now began to calm down little by little due to the strangely calming melody.

But that was also temporary.

The tone that Su-yeon changed by stepping on the pedal instantly revived the audience, who had fallen asleep as if they were drunk, and made them immerse themselves in the song.

Forward he cried

from the rear

And the front rank

died

Along with the drum fill-in, a magnificent sound is laid in the background.

A voice full of appeal fills the stage of a club with a capacity of slightly less than 200 people.

But it is temporary.

Before the audience could fully feel that sensation, the soaring sound disappeared, and only the dreamy piano remained.

Listen, son

said the man with the gun

There’s room for you

inside

And once more.

The audience felt as if they had been pulled out of the water and then put back in, fully accepting the restrained torrent of emotions.

Followed by narration and a guitar solo.

The sense of space created by using the Binson Echorec to the limit made the audience feel as if the inside of the club was as vast as space through the speakers.

Although there are countless people close to each other, it feels like they can’t be reached…

Thrown into the middle of space, vaguely wandering the galaxy while listening to a sound coming from somewhere.

“They’re so good?

And they’re high school students?”

While the audience was overwhelmed by the sound, one of the people lined up against the wall at the very back of the audience opened his mouth.

“Yeah.

I heard they started a band this year.”

“No way…

Really?”

A woman asked back as if it were absurd, and a man nodded silently.

“Can we beat them?

I’m not confident even in our current state.”

“Are you sure they’re participating?”

While the conversation was going back and forth…

A tall man who had not opened his mouth until now spoke.

“We can’t fall any further now.

Now, we really…”

We have to do something.

Those words lingered in the man’s mouth for a moment before falling.