DEAD BUTTONS 211218 (live)

Listen to the guitar work on the latest EP from Dead Buttons (on "Witch" in particular) before you declare you are not a fan of live Korean psychedelic garage rock. Then go back and listen to the whole album. This is a live recording that captures the band's energy without sacrificing the sound quality. In true psychedelic form, the band includes keys and lays down an extended song at the end of the album. Even the notoriously picky Mrs. Cracklins digs Dead Buttons and we have been playing a lot of this album during Happy Hour.


I dig Dead Buttons so much I asked them to lay down a song on Lunosphere X my comp of fresh heavy underground music. Check them out on there along with a lot of other great bands!


Korean garage rock is new to me so I asked the band if they would answer a few questions.

Dead Buttons (Photo: Javier Puelpan)

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Hello to DEAD BUTTONS and thank you for taking the time to answer some questions! Please tell us how did your band get started, and who is in the band?

Hi, nice to talk to you. I’m Jihyun, guitar and vocals of the band Dead Buttons. I formed Dead Buttons in 2012 and we became current form recently, four of us now.

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Who is who on the album cover? [photo at the top of this post] and what instruments do they play?

The guy in the front is MJ, our bassist and I’m right behind him (in green hair). Left, she’s Goyang, the keyboardist and the right is Yeonsik on drums.

Jihyun, guitar and vocals (Photo: Javier Puelpan)

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Both of your albums on Bandcamp are live recordings. How do you get the sound quality to be so good?

Thank you. The first live album was recorded at Club Sharp and the second one was at Seng Gi Studio which are our local. Both of them are recorded during our live and thankfully the house engineer sent me the tracks and they were so good that we decided to release them. 

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Do you have any plans for a studio album?

We’re working on two singles at the moment. After that we are going to start recording our new LP. 

MJ on bass (Photo: Javier Puelpan)

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Do you have any upcoming gigs or shows or festivals to play?

We’ll be playing at Peace Train Festival in June which takes place in DMZ. It must be mind blowing! And also there’s a meaningful charity show called ‘Punk Against Sexism’ in the same month.

Goyang on keyboard (Photo: Javier Puelpan)

FUZZY CRACKLINS: Tell us what the music scene is like in Seoul, and what are some of the other bands we should listen to.

The indie music scene in Seoul is not really huge but very intimate. There are so many good bands we’d recommend you to listen such as Billy Carter,  Slant, The Crawler, Jambinai and our favourite Hellivision and many more.

FUZZY CRACKLINS: When you pack for a long trip and you won't have Internet, what are the albums you put on your phone before you leave?

I would definitely put Black Sabbath ‘Paranoid’ and their self titled album on my iPhone. Oh and IDLES ‘Brutalism’, too. And here’s MJ’s list - Ravi shankar ‘The livingroom session’, Fuzz ‘Live in San Francisco’, The Roaring 420s ‘What is phych?’, Kikagaku Moyo ‘House in the tall grass’.

Yeonsik on drums (Photo: Javier Puelpan)