Chainsaw Fest set to rip apart Club SHARP

It’s a busy weekend in a busy month for those in Korea’s overworked, underappreciated live music scene. But among all the shows happening this weekend, Chainsaw Fest at Club SHARP is worth taking a close look at.

The show features 10 punk, hardcore, metal and ska bands from Korea as well as Japan. Upstairs, SHARP Ink will be hosting a tattoo flash day and flea market.

Perhaps most notably, this show marks the return of Scumraid, a Korean crust punk band that used to be one of the tentpole bands of the local scene before its drummer moved away. Scumraid had its last show in Tokyo in 2019.

“We’ve never disbanded, so it’s not a reunion — it’s a forced break due to COVID-19,” drummer Lee Ju-young told The Korea Times.

She moved to Japan for work, but has also been active in the scene there. “It’s already been seven years since I started living in Japan. I think I’m more used to this place now,” she said.

Over there, she’s the lead vocalist and guitarist of garage punk band The Vertigos, and she also spent three years playing guitar for crust punk band Asocial Terror Fabrication (ATF). She hopes to bring The Vertigos to Korea in the near future, maybe sometime this year.

Before moving away to Japan, Lee built up quite a portfolio as a live music photographer, releasing thick photography tomes under the name “The More I See.” Fans of her work will be disheartened to learn she hasn’t kept up with photography while in Japan.

“In Japan, there’s a culture where I had to get approval before shooting a band, so I stopped taking pictures of the performance because I was lazy,” she explained.

For the past three years, she’s also been avoiding live music, due to concerns about her status in Japan as a Korean national. She was also unable to return to Korea during that time due to travel restrictions.

A previous Chainsaw Fest was booked last October with Scumraid on the bill, but it was canceled at the last minute due to the Itaewon crowd disaster the previous day.

This time though, Lee will be crossing the sea from Japan with Butcher ABC, a 1994-formed band that plays “Putrid Gory Grinding

Death Metal from Beyond.” Its label Obliteration Records will run a pop-up shop upstairs.

“To be honest, it’s been three years since I’ve been to a concert, and it’s a shame that we don’t perform together even though we’re in the same Tokyo, but it’s a band that I really like,” Lee said about Butcher ABC. “I don’t buy or wear merchandise unless it’s my favorite band, but I like Butcher ABC’s pin badge so much that I attached it to my favorite hat.”

The show feels like a bit of a revival for the local extreme music scene, and one band that should not be overlooked is Skasucks. Fronted by Club SHARP and SHARP Ink owner Ryu Jinsuk, the band has also been less active throughout the pandemic. This means they’re sure to have an explosive performance, especially while bouncing between other bands playing harder genres, like the straight-edge hardcore band FLUSH!! and the 1999-formed grindcore band Nahu.

The show starts at 5 p.m. and everyone is advised to show up early, or be surprised by how quickly 10 underground bands can whip through their sets. Entry costs 20,000 won, or 2,000 won per band.

Visit @themoreisee or @club— sharp on Instagram for more information.