The booth at SCR Studio is a small glass room surrounded by cameras, with a green screen behind the DJ and a bar three metres away. Someone at the bar nods at a record. On a screen by the wall, the chat scrolls. That nod and that chat are the whole crowd, and some of the most important sets in Seoul are played to exactly that.
Seoul Community Radio, SCR to everyone who has been inside, is a live online station that has been broadcasting the city’s underground since 2016 from a bar in Itaewon (이태원). It’s the room where Seoul’s scene talks to itself, and a DJ who wants to be taken seriously here still needs a slot on it.
It Started With Home Mixes and a Pirate Radio Idea
SCR was cofounded by Richard Price, a Londoner who grew up on the capital’s pirate stations and moved to Seoul for a corporate job he didn’t love, together with a friend known as Lee and the DJ BOWLCUT. The idea took shape in early 2016. There was no studio, so the first shows were mixes recorded at home and posted online, with the founders coaxing DJs who had never spoken into a microphone to do a proper radio show.
Price has said the point from the start was to be the opposite of commercial radio: a platform for music people couldn’t hear anywhere else, even in clubs.
By the time it launched later in 2016 it had a live studio in Itaewon, streaming shows Monday to Friday. Early takeovers with London’s Radar Radio and Berlin Community Radio set the pattern that still defines it: import the best of what comes through Korea, and export the best of what’s home grown.
A Radio Station With a Bar Attached
Today SCR Studio is a hybrid space in Itaewon: a bar you can walk into, with the booth in its glass room, cameras and a green screen. The DJ plays to the handful of people at the bar and to whoever is watching the stream, which is the part first timers don’t expect. You’re in the audience and on camera at the same time. By its own count the station has hosted more than 600 domestic and visiting artists and runs around 200 residents with regular shows. It picked up a Mixcloud award for best radio station in Asia and the Middle East at the 2017 Online Radio Awards, and in 2025 it took a session slot at SXSW London. It went back in 2026 with a full night of Korean DJs at XOYO on 2 June, the station exporting the scene in person rather than over the stream.
Walking in feels like someone’s front room with better monitors: stickers, posters from old nights, mismatched furniture, screens showing the live feed. It’s unpretentious in a way Itaewon’s bigger rooms haven’t always managed, and it’s one of the few places in the district where nobody minds if you just sit and listen.
I’ve played the booth. It’s small, the glass is closer than it looks on the stream, and the green screen means the visuals people see at home aren’t the room you’re standing in. You play on the house CDJs and mixer with a microphone on an arm you’re expected to use, and the monitor level is set for the broadcast, not for you, so you learn to trust the meters. It changes how you play: fewer big moments, more selection, and you talk between records in a way a club never lets you.
The Closest Thing Seoul Has to an Apprenticeship
A residency at SCR is the nearest thing this city has to a weekly apprenticeship. Clubs give you a Friday once you’re already known. SCR gives you a recurring hour when you’re not, in front of a small live room and an international stream, and it makes you talk. Several of the names in our Korean DJs to know built their audience there before they had a club booking to speak of.
For touring DJs it works in reverse. A guest show on SCR is how a visiting artist tells Seoul they’ve arrived, and how a Seoul promoter checks whether the hype is real. That loop is a big part of how bookings happen here.
Mixmag Asia’s feature on university DJ clubs, the dongari (동아리), lists community radio alongside club residencies, private lessons, workshops and new face nights as the routes new DJs take into the Seoul scene.
It Keeps the Record When Clubs Close
SCR also documents. When Cakeshop brought its own curation to Itaewon, and when Soap lost its room and later came back, the SCR archive is where you can hear what the DJs were playing. Korean club history has a habit of vanishing when a lease ends. The station is one of the places it doesn’t. SCR knows this first hand: its original studio on Usadan-ro (우사단로) had to move in 2019 when the block was condemned. Its second home, Studio Two, opened in Itaewon in June 2020, closer to the club strip, with an outdoor terrace called the SCR Yard for workshops and events.
There’s a wider reason it matters. Robert Prey and Seonok Lee’s 2024 study in the International Journal of Communication argues that what they call platform closure arrived earlier and harder in Korea than in the West, pushing independent musicians off streaming services and onto social media, where they compete with content creators. SCR runs the other way. People listen to a whole hour of what someone chose to play.
SCR and MIXMIXTV Do Different Jobs
Seoul has two institutions doing neighbouring work, and they’re easy to confuse. MIXMIXTV, founded in 2014, is a video archive of one hour sets shot Boiler Room style, mostly in Seongsu (성수) these days, with festivals as its live arm. SCR is a live station with a bar, built on the pirate radio model, where the weekly show is the product.
SCR and MIXMIXTV, Side by Side
What each one is, and what it gives a DJ
SCR과 MIXMIXTV 비교
| Outlet | Since | What it is | What a DJ gets |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCR | 2016 | Live station with a bar, Itaewon | The reps: a weekly show |
| MIXMIXTV | 2014 | Video sets, mostly Seongsu, plus festivals | The tape: a filmed hour |
The ruleThe DJs who last in Seoul tend to have both.
One gives you the tape, the other gives you the reps. Dazed’s 2025 profile credits SCR with carrying K bass and Korean grime and garage MCs abroad, and with community projects such as the JIMJILBANGDAZE sauna raves and a beach festival in Yangyang (양양). The DJs who last in this city tend to have both.
How to Listen, and How to Visit
The live stream and the archive are at seoulcommunityradio.com and on YouTube. Curated playlists sit on Apple Music, and the schedule, events and the studio’s opening nights go up on Instagram.
If you’re visiting Seoul and want one evening that explains the underground faster than any club can, go on a broadcast night, take a stool at the bar and watch who walks in. For the wider map, start with going out in Seoul, district by district, and for the neighbourhood around the studio, read Itaewon after dark.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s Seoul Community Radio?
Seoul Community Radio, known as SCR, is a live online station that has broadcast the city’s underground music since 2016. It runs from SCR Studio in Itaewon (이태원), a bar you can walk into, with the broadcast booth in a small glass room surrounded by cameras. By its own count it has hosted more than 600 domestic and visiting artists and runs around 200 residents with regular shows.
Who founded Seoul Community Radio and how did it start?
SCR was cofounded in 2016 by Richard Price, a Londoner who grew up on the capital’s pirate stations, with a friend known as Lee and the DJ BOWLCUT. The idea took shape in early 2016. There was no studio at first, so the early shows were mixes recorded at home and posted online, and by its launch later that year the station had a live studio in Itaewon.
Can you visit the SCR studio in Itaewon?
Yes. SCR Studio is a bar you can walk into, and the DJ plays to the people at the bar as well as to the stream. It feels more like a front room with better monitors than a club, and nobody minds if you simply sit and listen. A broadcast night at the bar is one of the fastest ways for a visitor to understand the Seoul underground.
What’s the difference between SCR and MIXMIXTV?
SCR is a live station with a bar, built on the pirate radio model, and the weekly show is its product. MIXMIXTV, founded in 2014, is a video archive of one hour sets shot Boiler Room style, mostly in Seongsu (성수), with festivals as its live arm. One gives a DJ the tape and the other gives the reps. There’s more in this look at a decade of MIXMIXTV sessions.
Further Reading on The DJ Diaries
- How Pirate Radio Built UK Club Culture
- Itaewon After Dark: A History of Seoul’s Club District
- The Seoul Sound: What Makes Korean Club Music Distinct
- MIXMIXTV: A Decade of Seoul DJ Sessions
Sources
The Korea Times, on Seoul Community Radio, November 2020
The Korea Times, Seoul Community Radio celebrates two years on air, September 2018
OhmyNews, on SCR Studio in Itaewon (Korean)
OhmyNews, on the loss of Korean club history (Korean)
Catalog, interview with Seoul Community Radio
Asia Society Korea, Seoul Community Radio: shaping new genres and subcultures
Dazed, Enter the K bass: Seoul Community Radio and Korean club culture, 2025
Resident Advisor news, cited here on SCR’s early takeover shows
Newsis, on SCR, June 2025 (Korean)
Electronic Beats, online radio feature, 2017
Mixmag Asia, the Enter the K bass panel at SXSW London
Mixmag Asia, South Korea’s university DJ dongari, the hidden incubator of Seoul’s dance music scene
Mixmag Asia, a 360 look at Seoul Community Radio’s studios, June 2020
London Korean Links, Scream Records and Seoul Community Radio at SXSW London, April 2026
Korea Citation Index, research article on Itaewon
Written from Seoul, by someone who has been in the booth for more than twenty years. More on the site, or book a DJ.
Follow the rooms: SCR on Instagram · Cakeshop on Instagram · Soap on Instagram · MIXMIXTV on Instagram
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