It’s my first weekend home alone in a year and with no elaborate plans I’m using all the free time to do some much needed catching up. I just went through a month’s worth of  K-pop entertainment blogs and the most surprising headlines I found was that about an idol pop punk band – turns out it is four 20-something guys in a band called Never Mind that debuted with digital single Shooting Star.

I can’t vouch for the lyrical contents, but I suppose they’ve done a decent enough job with the sound. They’re from a very small company though: Korean-Thai entertainment company ToEast Entertainment, that from what I can tell until until last week had only released compilation New Life In Seoul with songs from Pastel Music artists in Thailand last year. Leader G.one seems quite sympathetic, too. It will be very interesting to see how they fare. Will the “idol” label make any difference?

Another thing I found from skimming headlines is that Yoon Jong Shin is working with Two Months and has been since September. Shinchireem with that cozy sound was one of the collaborations I enjoyed the most last year, so this is making me very curious for the return of Two Months.

My email backlog also reaches back into 2012 and is what I should take care of next. Except all I want to do is tell everybody about the awesomeness of Sasquatch. I may actually have to write another album review.

But before then I should also write another post about Korean bands coming to SXSW. So many more Korean bands this year than any year before, and it seems that’s not just SXSW. Rumors have it a bunch of great live bands may be showing up in the UK for a few shows in a few months, and it looks like I’ll  be able to schedule a trip to Helsinki to see one of my own favorite bands end of May. Other things are in the works all over Europe, although little has been confirmed at this time. Details to come on the koreanindie news blog as soon as I have anything to share. Now: time to get to writing those other blog posts and emails.