Lost In Tyme Blog

Shin Jung Hyun & the Donkeys - feat. Lee Jung Hwa (Korea 1969)

Donkeys Members are :
Bass: Lee Tae Hyun
Lead Guitar: Shin Jung-Hyun
Rhythm guitar: On Duk Gi
Keyboard: Kim Min Rang
drums: Kim Ho Sik
with female singer Lee Jung-Hwa

Great Korean psyche jam!
Korean guitar god and his band the Donkeys. Superb, little-known psychedelic music. Superb exploratory tracks packed with organ and fuzz.

This group leader is Shin Jung Hyun who was a Korean rock godfather!! He played guitar at American 8 army show for long time before he organized this group. And he was influenced by Psychedelic music of Jimi hendrix, Jim Morrison etc.

Here Shin Jung Hyun & Donkeys were backing band for a basically mainstream song

oriented release. Still, the psych elements are all there (electric guitars,

organ,..), especially in some tracks. The first chosen song ("Petal" possibly means "marijunana") has some orchestration arrangement too. Last 16 minute track is similar and is the complete B-side of the album. Of course here's more room for band improvisation. This means a melodic repetition (drum, electric guitar, bass, organ) with on top a really great electric guitar improvisation on the musical theme (with some wa-wa effects too) by Shin Jung Hyun, followed by a psych organ improvisation (somewhat Iron Butterfly like), a bass solo, and small piece of a rather simple (let's say a garage-like version) of a drum solo.