When rock music and go-go dancing first appeared on Korean TV

For my latest Korea Times article, I drew on something I only briefly mentioned in my previous article on Larry Tressler’s time singing with the Devils in 1969 and 1970: his experience getting booked for, and performing on, the first episode of MBC’s youth-oriented music show ‘젊은 리듬’ (Young Rhythm, November 1969 – March 1970). With his memories and photos, as well as a few other photos published by 주간여성 (Weekly Woman) magazine, which the Korea Times / Hankook Ilbo have rights to, and a handful or two of articles about the show (and its competitor, TBC’s “1,2,3, Go”) in newspapers and magazines, I was able to tell the story of the first shows to bring a large number of bands that performed for the US Eighth Army Stage into Korean homes – at least until the authorities stepped in. 

Here's a shot of the 200th episode of TBC's Show Show Show being commemorated on the cover of the Weekly Joongang (the Joongang Ilbo was affiliated with TBC - and, of course, Samsung - at this time). Kim Sang-hee is in the blue dress, and next to her in the center is, I'm quite certain, Lee Mi-ja.

Larry Tressler provided me with these two shots of the Devils performing on MBC's 'Young Rhythm's first episode on November 21, 1969:

Also shared on his Devils Facebook Page is this photo, which shows Kim Sang-hee, the host, and the band performing on the second stage in the studio.

The February 25, 1970, Weekly Kyunghyang profiled "Young Rhythm" PD Lee Jae-hwi, MBC’s youngest producer.

The Maeil Gyeongje, February 25, 1970 article that castigated "Young Rhythm" and "1, 2, 3, Go" featured this photo of the teen group Top Steps performing on one of the shows. (They were reported in late 1969 to have a contract to perform in Las Vegas (the holy grail for Eighth Army Stage bands), but by June 1970 they were back performing in Seoul, so it's not clear what happened there. They would later, by 1972, be performing as the Seoul Family (no apparent relation to the 1980s group of the same name).

The only color photos I've seen of Top Steps were in the December 24,1969 issue of Weekly Woman:

The March 11, 1970 issue of Weekly Woman featured a shot of one of the programs (perhaps "1, 2, 3, Go" since the stage looks quite different than the "Young Rhythm" photos Larry Tressler took.

There aren't many photos in the media of these shows - in fact, only two - so it was lucky that Weekly Woman, which the Korea Times has rights to, published one of them, and of course, that Larry Tressler took and shared photos of the first episode of "Young Rhythm." 

I also made mention of the Seoul American High School go-go dance troupe The Rhythms, and I hope to publish something about them at some point, since I'm in contact with some of their members.