Shotgun

The Matadors – Shotgun [sample]
from album “The Matadors”, 1968, Supraphon 0130493/1130493 (mono/stereo), Supraphon/Artia SUA13992/SUAST53992 (mono/stereo), reissued 1995 on CD Bonton 710244-2
produced by Jaromír Tůma


original LP sleeve, export reissue sleeve

Between 1966 and 1968 the Matadors belonged to the best beat groups in Czechoslovakia. At that time their enormous popularity might have been threatened only by the equally experienced “veterans” Olympic. (By comparing the former with the latter, think e.g. the never ending “Stones vs. Beatles” dispute…) So it was no coincidence that the Matadors were the second rock band after Olympic to have a full long player recorded and released by Supraphon in 1968. And it’s no coincidence either that their only album still belongs to the most sought-after items from former Czechoslovakia among vinyl collectors worldwide, being an undisputed classic of the so called freak-beat or psych-beat genre.

The band was mainly influenced by british R&B acts like Them, Pretty Things, Yardbirds, John Mayall’s Heartbreakers Bluesbreakers or even the Kinks and the Who. But like many other Czech groups around 1967 and 1968, also the Matadors couldn’t resist the infectious grooves from the omnipresent soul craze all over the world. Moreover since they were frequently playing abroad, particularly doing a Switzerland night club tour through the winter 1967/1968, where they were often asked to play popular dance tracks from the charts.

In this context it’s not surprising that the album song Shotgun nicely fits into this blog’s scope. Unlike Junior Walker’s proto-funk original however, the Matadors’ version speeds up the tempo quite a bit and adds a trace of a Hendrix-like rock feeling due to heavy use of wah-wah guitar; lead guitarist Radim Hladík (1946) was the Czechoslovak pioneer in using the wah-wah pedal to such an extent, that he supposedly even invented the now commonly used Czech word for that device: kvákadlo. And also lead singer Viktor Sodoma (1945) must have been in a good shape on this recording date. His English phrasing is precise and he doesn’t shout as “over-the-top” as on some other Matadors tracks.

The overall production quality of the whole album is rather bad though. The “old school” Supraphon recording engineers of the 1960s didn’t have a clue how to put this kind of music to tape, not to speak of the poor vinyl mastering. Especially Otto Bezloja’s (1945–2001) bass guitar and Tony Black’s (1946) drums suffer from the thin sound. And if there ever was Jan “Farmer” Obermeyer’s (1944) Matador organ on this very track, it’s nowhere to be heard now. (To illustrate these issues, one of the popular anecdotes is, that on an earlier recoding date an engineer supposedly thought that Hladík’s amplifier was broken after he switched on his overdrive pedal for the first time…)

The full Matadors story has been excellently documented in Aleš Opekar’s authorized biography book The Matadors – Beatová aristokracie z Prahy (Oftis 2007, ISBN 978-80-86845-91-3). While the book is written in Czech language only, it contains not only lots of photos and commonly understandable biographical data, but also a bonus CD with previously unreleased live recordings from 1966! (Hey, remember my interlude from last October…?) So if you are a serious collector of Czechoslovak oldies, this book belongs to your collection even if you don’t understand a word Czech. But as I’ve already noted last year, don’t expect any hi-fi quality – it is a historical document.

Speaking of the Matadors story: last year in June I’ve coincidentally discovered that the English Wikipedia already has an article about The Matadors. Originally it was so full of errors then that I’ve decided to clean it up as well as to add some less known facts about the band. At that time I’ve already read Aleš’s nearly completed manuscript, so my informations were first hand. Hence I won’t repeat what I’ve already put together in a more or less serious form elsewhere (although the Wikipedia article isn’t complete yet). But for regular readers of Funky Czech-In it will be of interest when I point out the connections between other Czech groups and artists previously posted here, like Flamengo, Vladimír Mišík or Komety.

The Matadors album has been reissued in 1995 on CD, which also contains all tracks but one released on seven inches and Supraphon samplers between 1966 and 1968. It’s out of print but it still pops up for sale here and there on the web. There’s also a Korean CD reissue available, but as I’ve been told by Jan Obermayer recently, it’s quite likely a bootleg, as are most of the other releases on various low budget samplers in the past 10–15 years all over the world. Still, some Matadors tracks appeared every now and then on some of the protagonists’ official Best Of compilations, like Sodoma’s or Mišík’s.

The export version of the vinyl LP was pressed by Supraphon/Artia way into the late 1970s, so it should be still around in quite sufficient quantity. In other words: don’t believe a record dealer who wants to sell you an overpriced Matadors copy in the black export sleeve, praising it as the “original pressing”. They are not! That applies also to the old Czech reissues in a half-generic Supraphon sleeve with overprinted text. The true rarity is solely the original Czech issue with the colored logotype – particularly the stereo edition – provided it’s in top condition. Because being likely a popular record to be played at way too many wild parties then, most are probably not in the best shape these days anymore. Anyway, don’t get fooled. ;)

There are chances that an official reissue of the complete Matadors recordings will be available within the next few years (to express it rather pessimistically) relatively soon. In any case you will find out about it here first. Simply stay tuned to the RSS feed.


Ex-Matadors Vladimír Mišík, Jan F. Obermayer and Radim Hladík with Lou Kash at the backstage of the Lucerna Music Bar, March 31, 2008, right after one of their annual reunion gigs. (photo: Aleš Opekar)

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Interlude: Jasná páka 2008

Jasná páka, later known as Hudba Praha, was not exactly a funk or soul group. In fact, not at all except for a few traces of reggae at times. But in the eighties they were one of my favorite Czech new wave groups nonetheless, thus I was actually quite pleased when I’ve heard they still occasionally perform these days. One of these occasions was the public vernissage of the exhibition Nová vlna se starým obsahem (“The New Wave with an old content”) which took place last Wednesday at the Popmuseum Prague. Coincidentally I just arrived in Prague the very same day, so I’ve only dropped my luggage at our flat and headed over to the Břevnov quarter to attend the gig (as well as to meet fellow researchers from Popmuseum, of course).

Pal vocuď hajzle (Fuck Off You Bugger) was one of their biggest (underground) hits from the early 1980s and likely one of the causes for their later ban. Michal Ambrož, the guy with the “blue” head and a Telecaster guitar, and the drummer David Koller are the original members. I’m not sure about the lead guitar player, I’ve forgot to ask about him. The original bass player Ivan Wünsch passed away in 1999 though. A special note deserves the special guest of the group, former member of the cult band Z kopce from Brno, Petr Váša. He’s the guy with the red T-shirt and long curly hair (no, it’s not a fancy wig…)

Click the image to play the movie:

Jasná páka live at the Popmuseum on March 26, 2008 (photo/movie © loukash.com)

Technical note: For the first time on Funky Czech-In I’m presenting video content here. No low-res YouTube “flish-flash” though, but more the real thing, albeit recorded only with my tiny photo camera. If you can’t see it, get the latest QuickTime.

Regarding the topic “Czech New Wave in the eighties” in general, you might also want to check out my Pražský výběr article from January 2008 for some more background info.

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Brom: If all deuces got married

Gustav Brom Orchestra – I kdyby se všichni čerti ženili [sample]
from a 7 inch, 1961, Supraphon 013421


an original Supraphon generic 7" sleeve, label

Of course, it’s been looong overdue to introduce you to bandleader Gustav Brom (1921–1995) and his orchestra, but I’ve been holding off of posting until my Brom record collection becomes a bit wider. Now that I have gathered nearly twenty Brom Orchestra albums from 1960 until 1982, lots of tracks on singles, EPs and compilations as well as numerous songs with Brom backing popular singers, there’s plenty of representative material to choose from. Because unlike most of my previous articles on Funky Czech-In, in this very case I’d like to proceed more chronologically and encyclopedically. My goal is to cover Brom’s most attractive period (according to the definition of this blog, that is) spanning from the mid 1960s until the early 1980s in several articles over this year.

Gustav Brom wasn’t very conservative when it came to musical genres and styles. Ever since he founded his own band in 1940 until his death in 1995, the repertoire spanned from big band swing, dixieland, bebop, third stream, latin jazz or exotica over easy listening pop, schlager and brass music to soul-jazz, jazz-rock, jazz funk, disco etc. Generally, on the plus side it means that the orchestra has been as versatile as it only could be. But in particular, for a nowadays record collector the drawback of this concept surely is, that not all of the Gustav Brom releases are worth grabbing, of course. I for one am not a particular lover of genres like brass music or dixieland, and the orchestra’s pure swing albums from the 1970s and later are not necessarily on my radar either.

In order to tune into the series, let’s begin with one of the scarce recordings where you can actually hear Mr. Brom singing personally. I kdyby se všichni čerti ženili (Even If All Deuces Got Married) is a lovely little novelty calypso composed by Saša Grossman with lyrics by Zdeněk Borovec. The Czech title as well as the lyrics is a word play with an old Czech expression which you can freely translate as “even if it would rain and storm like hell”. The musicians on this recordings probably were František Navrátil, Zdeněk Novák, Bronislav Horák, Josef Audes, Lubomír Řezanina, Jaromír Hnilička, Alfa Šmíd, Stanislav Veselý, Oldřich Blaha, Milan Řežábek and Václav Skála.

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My hobbyhorse

Pražský výběr – Můj koníček [sample]
from album “Pražský výběr” a.k.a. “Straka v hrsti”, 1988, Panton 810826-1311
recorded in 1982, produced by Josef Novotný


1988 issue LP sleeve (front/back)

I was thinking about a Czech song which has personally influenced me the most in the past. But already the criteria definition – what’s an influence – isn’t a clear task. As a child in the mid seventies I was a big fan of Banjo Band Ivana Mládka (Ivan Mládek’s Banjo Band) whose funny yet clever lyrics appealed both to my contemporaries as well as to the adults. Listening to Mládek’s pseudo-dixieland definitely inspired me to pick up a guitar – a banjo was too expensive – and to write my own songs when I was about twelve. Then as a teenager in the early eighties I’ve discovered the bluesy folk of Vladimír Mišík and Vlasta Třešňák. You know, technically I’m a horrible “singer”, thus their rather non-melodic vocal style fitted me quite well while I was trying hard to become one of their epigones, paraphrasing Třešňák’s songwriting and imitating Mišík’s singing. But the true revolution arrived in 1983 or 1984 during one of our visits in Prague when my half-brother’s uncle (himself an excellent blues guitarist) gave us a cassette copy of the hippest new wave band that ever appeared on Czech stages of the early 1980s: Pražský výběr.

Michael Kocáb (1954) founded Pražský výběr (The Prague Selection – a reference to a cheap Czech wine brand) in 1976 as an offshoot of his schoolmate Milan Svoboda’s Pražský big band (Prague Big Band). In the beginning they were just a young jazz rock combo of conservatory students who played instrumental and at times very complex tracks. I will cover that period in a future post later this year. While the group never officially disbanded at the end of the decade, eventually the jazz musicians around Kocáb went their own ways. Around 1980 he teamed up with ex-Bohemia guitarist Michal Pavlíček and drummer Jiří Hrubeš, who were already a steady duo on their own, be it as members of the explosive jazz rock combo Expanze (undocumented on records) or backing Jana Koubková under her Horký dech (Hot Breath) moniker. And the trio Kocáb/Pavlíček/Hrubeš already worked together when they recorded Petr Klapka’s second Mahagon album in 1979. Although Pavlíček intended to play new wave instead of the fading jazz rock, they decided to reuse the Pražský výběr trademark, likely because the group still officially existed for the bureaucratic communist authorities. At first they performed as a quintet with bass player Ondřej Soukup – who would soon switch to the more lucrative Karel Gott Orchestra – and with the formerly ubiquitous percussionist Jiří Tomek, acting here as a singer and dancer. In 1981 Tomek left as well; obviously he used to have quite an alcohol problem, as I have been told recently by a musician who used to play with him quite often in the seventies. Kocáb & co. then persuaded the bass player from the popular underground punk-jazz outfit Zikkurat to join them, Vilém Čok.

As Kocáb once put it: “It can be hard to play new wave when you actually know how to play.” But the blend of complex jazzy synthesizer lines with a straight 4/4 beat, repetitive bass riffs, a virtuosic guitar floating above it all, as well as highly ironical lyrics (written mostly by František Ringo Čech), that all created a unique and instantly recognizable sound never heard before, at least not in the Middle and Eastern Europe. Crossbreed the late Frank Zappa with Talking Heads and you might get something like Pražský výběr.

In 1982 Pražský výběr recorded their new wave album, some tracks also appeared in Juraj Herz’ avant-gardist movie Straka v hrsti (A Magpie In The Hand). But before the record was ready for a release in 1983, both the movie and the group were banned by the authorities and the musicians were prohibited from performing in the public for nearly two years. The album was withdrawn and destroyed before even reaching the shelves. However, it didn’t take very long and someone managed to smuggle a copy of the master tape out of the recording studio archives, giving a couple of cassette copies to friends who themselves made copies and gave them to their friends and so on, quickly making Pražský výběr the best known rock group in the country. In the meantime, being professional musicians, all members tried to make living by working on their former side projects or playing as backing musicians. Pavlíček, for example, after two years of depression he became very successful with his pop-jazz-rock-wave crossover project Stromboli. Hrubeš on the other hand couldn’t stand the pressure and eventually emigrated in 1985. But in the end the ban caused exactly the opposite effect than intended: along with a couple of other banned groups, Pražský výběr and its protagonists, although inactive from 1983 until 1985, they had more influence on rock and new wave fans and musicians than ever before. By 1985 the independent music scene in Czechoslovakia flourished and the authorities began to lose control over it. (Check out the underground movie Hudba 85 (Music 85) by Lexa Guha, Vladislav Burda and Petr Ryba, recently released on DVD for the first time!)

In 1986 the band was allowed to return on stage with a new drummer as Výběr. They recorded quite a solid self-titled rock album in 1987 and one year later also the original Straka v hrsti album finally found its way onto the vinyl grooves and to the audience. The times were “a-changing” and even the sleeve cartoon contained an unbelievably straight and sarcastic political joke. Výběr continued with a successful career for a couple of years to come and it still sort of exists to the present day, although both main actors obviously split up in a heavy wrangle recently.

Můj koníček (My Hobbyhorse), also known as Krysy (The Rats), was always my favorite track from Pražský výběr’s clandestine tape (and later from the album). Cool, funky and minimalist, with Pavlíček’s sparse guitar effects illustrating an apparent non-sense story of a guy whose hobby is to watch mice and rats snooping around his basement. Every single sound has its place. A song near perfection.

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Around 1986 – in times when Pražský výběr was still banned in Czechoslovakia – we used to play a cover version of this tune with our Swiss group Ugly Bluz. We tried another approach regarding the arrangement though, mapping the rhythm guitar to our three-piece horn section and giving the song more of a free-funk touch; at that time we were heavily inspired by groups like Defunkt, Slickaphonics, the early and still unknown Red Hot Chili Peppers or by James Blood Ulmer. This unreleased recording was made in summer 1987 by our friend Hannes Lange, shortly before our band broke up. (If you’re fluent in German language, perhaps you may want to check out the complete story of Ugly Bluz for more details.)

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Emporium of the world

Karel Černoch – Tržnice světa [sample]
from album “Letiště”, 1975, Panton 110506


original album sleeve (front/back, © Petr Sís)

Quite a lot of Czech musicians passed away this year. Among others: the drummers Jan Antonín Pacák (1941) and Anatolij Kohout (1946), the composer Karel Svoboda (1938) the bass player Pavel Pešta (1948) or one of the pioneers of Czech rock’n’roll, Petr Kaplan (1940). And yesterday the Czech pop music scene has lost one of its most competent vocalists: Karel Černoch (1943) who died of colon cancer.

Karel Černoch began singing in the 1960s with various rock’n’roll and beat groups in Prague. Among international collectors he will be likely best remembered for his 1967–1968 recordings with Juventus: Ona se brání, 18 minut, Procitnutí or Zrcadlo. However, after 1970s his music output became rather inconsistent, i.e. not bound to any particular genre. He was travelling between soul, cheesy bubble-gum pop or country&western music, the latter becoming his passion from the 1980s on.

Still, at least for some parts of his discography you can truly state that nomen est omen: “černoch” means in Czech literally “black man”. And indeed, he was likely one of the very few vocalists in the world who was able to cover Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On (with Czech lyrics known as Věc koupená) so close to the original and yet without giving up a single bit of his personal style, nearly as he would have written this masterpiece himself. Of course, I will introduce that track in a future Funky Czech-In article along with more details to Černoch’s biography in general and this album in particular. Personally I reckon Letiště (The Airport) among the best Czechoslovak pop albums of the 20th century – besides of being one of the most soulful anyway – including the superb cover design by film maker Petr Sís.

Tržnice světa (The Emporium Of The World) is one of my other favorites from Letiště, penned by Černoch with imaginative lyrics from his longtime co-writer and former producer Pavel Žák. What seamingly begins as a singer/songwriter ballad, after one minute the song turns into a funky bossa nova driven by lively drums with loads of latin percussions, jazzy Fender Rhodes harmonies and with a typical Černoch scat solo towards the end. And what makes the track quite unique even in international context are the traces of rapping all along; keep in mind that around 1975 rap and hip hop was still four years away! The backing group was once again the ubiquitous Dance/Jazz Orchestra Of Czechoslovak Radio (TOČR/JOČR), probably with Karel Růžička on keyboards, Petr Kořínek on bass and Josef Vejvoda on drums. It’s not unlikely that Černoch himself played the acoustic rhythm guitar.

P.S. As an irony of fate: although my wife and me are not into celebrating christmas at all, last Monday I thought anyway that we could listen to a couple of “beat carols” and so I spinned two or three 45s on the turntable, all recorded in the late 1960s by Karel Černoch…

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Working in the coal mine

Blue Swede – Working In The Coal Mine [sample]
from album “Hooked On A Feeling”, 1973, EMI ST-11286
produced by Bengt Palmers


original LP sleeve (front/back)

As you might have noticed, I have created a new label exclusively for this post, named Obscure Czech-In. That wasn’t without a reason because the other secondary label of this entry, Half Czech-In, is pure speculation on my part. To explain: I’ve found Hooked On A Feeling last year in a second hand record store (coincidentally it was in Prague, but that doesn’t matter here) and at first I thought, “well, yet another cheap one hit wonder from the seventies, nothing of interest for me.” On the second sight, however, there were three things that caught my attention: 1) the group had a “built-in” horn section (often a good sign), 2) they covered an Allen Toussaint song (they had taste!), and finally 3) the guy who’s credited to play clavinet and organ had a surprisingly Czechoslovak-sounding name – Ladislav Balaz [sic]. Well, to make a short story shorter, in the end I bought the record but except for a few tracks I was rather disappointed when I heard it at home. In the meantime I sold it again already.

Blue Swede were better known as Björn Skifs & Blåblus in their home country Sweden. Their international breakthrough came with a cover of B. J. Thomas’ hit Hooked On A Feeling, the title track of this album, which climbed up to no. 1 on the U.S. pop charts in 1974. The group’s style was kind of on the edge between early 70s pop and soulful brass-rock. At times they sounded almost like Chicago, for example, but still more on the pop side of things. The musicians who participated on this recording were, besides of Skifs, Jan Guldbäck (dr), Bo Liljedahl (b), Mikael Areklew (g), Tommy Berglund (tp), Hinke Ekestubbe (ts) and on keyboards the aforementioned Baláž (as the name should be spelled correctly in Czech or in Slovak).

Really, I surfed the word wild web for many long hours but I coudn’t find any other trace of a keyboarder named Ladislav Baláž except that he was playing on this particular record; I don’t think that he could be this guy, though. And interestingly enough, I can’t even hear much keyboards on this particular track either, unless it’s a clavinet and not a guitar in the centre of the stereo panorama when the verse is playing. Nevermind, whatever, Working In The Coal Mine is still my personal highlight of the album, despite the “Czech connection” perhaps being only a mirage. And besides of that, I’m definitely a fool for any Allen Toussaint song. Hence this is the first of only two opportunities known to me to post a Toussaint cover on this very blog in the first place…

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Sixteen tons

Karel Hála & TOČR - Vopravdu sám (Sixteen Tons) [sample]
from SP "Patří ti velikej dík", 1970, Supraphon 0430890
conducted by Josef Vobruba, produced by Zdeněk Borovec
Josef Laufer & the Bohuslav Myslík Orchestra - Šestnáct tun (Sixteen Tons) [sample]
from album "74", 1974, Panton 110431
conducted by Zdeněk Marat, produced by Vítek Haderka


original generic Karel Hála 7 inch sleeve, original Josef Laufer album sleeve

You write a blog entry and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt! But also another double feature for you folks under the Cover Czech-In label: here are sixteen tons of Mr. Swing alias Karel Hála as well as yet another heavy load, Mr. Controversial, known as Josef Laufer. Both gentlemen are bringing to you the same song with different Czech lyrics, Sixteen Tons. The original tune dates back to 1946 when it was written and recorded by American C&W singer/hitmaker Merle Travis as a fake coal miner worker song. The ultimate version, however, belongs to Tennessee Ernie Ford. His cool and swinging rendition hit the U.S. charts in 1955 and seemingly became the most successful single ever released. (Check out ernieford.com/SixteenTons.htm for the whole story.)

Karel Hála (1933, no relation with Kamil and Vlastimil Hála of the JOČR fame) with his dark voice is one of the true veterans of Czechoslovak popular music. After he finished the Prague Conservatory in 1954 he began to work as a choir singer, from the Army Opera choir to the Karel Vlach Orchestra. In 1957 he was discovered by Karel Krautgartner who hired him as a soloist for his short-lived jazz combo. Since the late 1950s Hála toured with various dance orchestras again, this time as a bass player and later as a lead singer. His career finally began to take off in 1965 with his engagement in the Apollo Theatre (the one in Prague, of course) alongside Karel Gott and other Czech pop stars. But despite several hit songs and praises from the critics he had to wait until 1973 to finally record his first solo album called simply Swing. One reason for that might have been his progressive "skinhead" haircut - which supposedly was almost considered an opposite extreme to the long-haired freaks from the sixties' beat scene. Another obstruction probably was his inconsistent repertoire: Hála had to sing a lot of Soviet "muzak" or schlagers, too, because singing too much jazz used to be considered too "imperialistic" by the responsible communist authorities. Nevertheless he recorded several good single sides for Supraphon in the sixties which are worth checking out, like Tak rychle jako čas, Růžová nálada or Budu hledat dál. Some are closer to jazz, others may even sound quite soulful.

Vopravdu sám (Definitely Alone) is sort of a hybrid of both genres, where a cool rhythm'n'blues double bass verse à la Fever alternates with a driving chorus accompanied by a powerful big band arrangement. However, except for the overall impression, not much has been left from the original Sixteen Tons tune, not even Jiří Štědroň's lyrics hint at the origin. Their message is pure blues though. And that's where Hála definitely feels at home. As such, this rendition might be one of the "blackest" versions ever recorded. The production doesn't even sound much like "1970", the TOČR/JOČR rhythm section still gives the song lots of the early 1960s feeling. The a-side of the single is an original blues/gospel ballad in 12/8, Patří ti velikej dík (A Big Thanks Belongs To You), with a wild Hammond organ and a strangely wicked rhythm guitar. Unfortunately, that otherwise interesting song flips to the cheese side of the universe as soon as a pathetically arranged choir drops in.

Hála has been still sporadically performing with various Czech big bands in the recent years. The original recording of Vopravdu sám is available on a "best of Karel Hála" CD compilation.

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Josef Laufer was born 1939 in France to a Czech doctor and a Spanish nurse. The family spent the war in England and in 1947 they moved to Czechoslovakia. Laufer's artistic path began as an actor during his military service and he finished the Theatre Academy in Prague in 1965. Being fluent in several languages, in the late 1960s he launched a promising international career as a pop singer when he toured and recorded in Western Europe and in the U.S. However, the Iron Curtain closed for him for some time after his brother emigrated in 1968.

Many of Laufer's tracks from the sixties are close to "cheasy" listening or schlager, but he's also featured on a couple of solid beat and R&B single sides with the Karel Duba combo. Then there's the Panton album V roce 1969 (In The Year 1969). Unlike most of his other vinyl output at that time, the said LP was recorded with his live backing band Their Majesties. In my opinion it belongs to the best Czech beat albums of the decade; that said, keep in mind that there weren't many Czechoslovak beat albums in the first place, thus take my statement with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, it's also worth checking out because of the beautiful sleeve, designed by Laufer's wife Irena Greifová. (A blog post about this record is available on a Dutch site where you can look at the cover artwork and listen to its best song. You may want to ignore the article as such though, because the writer doesn't seem to have much clue about the matter...)

Laufer belonged to the most popular Czech singers in the 1970s. But his star began to sink after 1976 when he recorded one of the most stupid pop songs in the history of man kind: Dopis Svobodné Evropě (A Letter to Radio Free Europe). It praises the Czech communist spy Cpt. Minařík who had been planning a terror attack on the Radio Free Europe building in Munich, West Germany. The lyrics are so full of communist propaganda and "anti-imperialistic" hatred that it makes you want to puke when you listen [external audio link] to it 30 years later. Today, out of context, one might want to believe that it was irony, but it wasn't. Sorry, Mr. Laufer, all credit lost...

But let's ignore it for now, because not all of Laufer's 1970s' records were all that bad, at least musically. Usually he was backed by a solid group which evolved from the original Their Majesties and eventually became known as Golem. Laufer's Spanish origin manifested in several latino influenced tunes for example, some of them sung in Spanish. After all, he used to perform in Cuba quite often at that time. And during the disco era he was the logical choice for a Czech rendition of Boney M's classic Daddy Cool alias Tak už jsem boty zul. In the 1990s Laufer launched a comeback as a singer and actor in various Czech musicals.

Besides of 16 tun (Sixteen Tons), the album '74 contains a bunch of other quite tasteful covers like Stephen Stills' Ecology Song (Rád vás tu mám), a driving Les Humphries medley or a medley of traditional Czech folk songs in a surprisingly juicy arrangement. Some of Laufer/Myslík's original compositions even come sort of funky. The orchestra line-up: Bohuslav Myslík (keys), ex-Atlantis Vladimír Grunt (dr), the last original Their Majesties member Ladislav Chvalkovský (b), Pavel Růžička (g) whom you already met as a half ORM, Jan Václavík (saxes), Radoslav Pobořil (tp), Jiří Doubrava (tb) and last but not least the background singers Vlasta Kahovcová, Jarmila Gerlová and Jana Löfflerová.

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He comes back

The Plastic People Of The Universe - Vrátí se [sample]
from album "Midnight Mouse (Půlnoční myš)", 1987, Freedonia 1436; also on CD "Půlnoční myš (PPU X.)", 2001, Globus Music 210219-2


original LP sleeve (front/back), front drawing by Karel Nepraš

After re-reading Milan Hlavsa's straight and honest autobiography (actually an interview by Jan Pelc) Bez ohňů je underground (Without Fire That's Underground, BFS 1992) I think it's time to introduce you to the funkier side of the Plastic People Of The Universe. It's not necessary to repeat the complete history of the group which has already been written elsewhere, and you will surely find even more if you use e.g. a well known search engine. Some background info is also available in my introduction to this blog. But for the lazy internet surfers here's a couple of basic data:

The Plastic People Of The Universe (PPU) were founded in 1968 by bass player Hlavsa (1951-2001) with his school friend, guitarist Jiří "Přemek" Števich. Their concept was a psychedelic band with mystical show elements, musically inspired by Velvet Underground, The Fugs or The Mothers Of Invention. They started to perform publicly in 1969. Their freaky show made such an impact on the music scene that they almost instantly received a professional license. Since the early 70s the core of the group consisted of Hlavsa, ex-Primitives Group Josef Janíček on keyboards and guitar, Jiří Kabeš on violin and guitar and the jazzman Vratislav Brabenec on reeds. When the communist authorities systematically began to destroy the active Czechoslovak rock scene, PPU initially even tried to pass the "requalification exams", obligatory for all musicians. Of course they failed due to their musically uncompromising attitude and from then on they were prohibited from playing in public all the way through until they officially disbanded in 1988. In 1976 Hlavsa with his band-mates, with their manager and "art director" Ivan Martin Jirous and with a couple of their friends were jailed solely for performing a private concert. That particular trial gave other Czech dissidents the impuls to form the Charta 77 organization, the first serious effort since 1968 to form an opposition against the communist regime. It needs to be stated, however, that according to Hlavsa, PPU were actually very apolitical; they simply only wanted to play their music. Some group members were forced to emigrate afterwards (e.g. Brabenec, Pavel Zajíček, but also Števich who already left PPU in the early 70s), others were systematically terrorized by the secret police over the years to come. Nevertheless, the group continued to work within their possibilities. They have managed to release a couple of albums on labels in Western Europe and in Canada, all of them clandestinely rehearsed and recorded in Czechoslovakia under conditions that certainly cannot be called ideal... (keep that in mind if you listen to any PPU recordings until 1988!)

Vrátí se (He Comes Back) comes from the PPU's last "illegal" album Midnight Mouse (Půlnoční myš), recorded in 1985 in Prague and released two years later by Freedonia Records (although in fact the true editor was Chris Cutler of the legendary Recommended Records). Hlavsa, PPU's exclusive composer and musical master mind, returned to writing short songs with much simpler structures than on earlier projects. The band also began to use more humorous lyrics, selected (but not written) by Václav Havel. There have used e.g. poems by German rhymer Christian Morgenstern (the title track) or, as in this song, absurd poems by Milan Nápravník: There he goes / He takes something from the corner / He puts it in a corner / He comes back / There he goes / He takes something from the corner... etc. And an interesting fact is that the first intention was to record an album with Marta Kubišová as PPU's lead singer; Kubišová herself was completely banned by the communist authorities since 1970 until 1989. Although they even started to rehearse together, later the idea was dropped for security reasons.

In the mid 1980s, when I was already living in Switzerland, I met some people from the PPU circuit, although none of them were from their then current line-up. For example in 1983 our family was in close contact with ex-guitarist Jiří Števich, with whom we visited a very funny meeting of Czech emigrants in Alsace, France. I was even performing there on a jam session that lasted the whole night until 7 a.m. - I was sixteen and it was, aside from playing street music, one of my first public appearances on stage. :)


jamming in the Alsace sun in 1983: Přemek Števich & myself

Another indirect personal connection to PPU, although coincidental, was the group's favorite pub in Prague: Klamovka (not the same venue as Klub Klamovka). In the 1970s I grew up in the surrounding quarter. Later, when I was visiting Prague in the 80s, I spent a lot of time (and beer) in that pub with my old school friends, often seeing the PPU members sitting at nearby tables. We never dared to contact them though. We knew that they were regularly observed by the secret police and we were scared that we might get into trouble or that the police wouldn't allow me to return to Switzerland anymore... (Don't even bother to visit the Klamovka pub today, by the way. The pub has been sold after the original owner retired and nowadays it's a boring and ugly family restaurant.)

Plastic People Of The Universe reunited in almost original line-up in 1997 for the 20th anniversary of Charta 77. Sadly, Milan Hlavsa passed away in 2001 due to cancer, aged mere 50. PPU with Brabenec, Janíček and Kabeš continue to play their music until present day, most recently they performed in Prague's National Theater (!) as a special feature in Tom Stoppard's play Rock'n'Roll.

Buy Plastic People CDs.

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In memoriam, twice more...

(Yet another almost off-topic post!)

Seriously, what's going on lately?!
Remember: in February, Sleepy Dan, one of my closest friends and a former bandmate passed away, aged 46. In March I've stated that everybody seems to be dying lately after a friend of our family has left us as well, aged 59. But then only one week later a young friend of my wife also died, suffering from a heart disease. She was mere 26. At that time I thought: "Three persons have gone now, actually that's been already enough people for this whole year." Obviously I was wrong.

Last week I've been informed that yet another two former members of the Ugly Blues Connection/Ugly Bluz, our band in the mid eighties, have passed away recently. Roman Gondolán was one of our regular drummers in 1984 and 1985. As a big fan of acts like Earth Wind & Fire or George Benson he loved to play light and funky disco grooves. Although that didn't really matched our style then - besides of playing blues rock we used to listen to more freaky stuff like Zappa, George Clinton, Slickaphonics or the very early and yet-to-become-famous Red Hot Chili Peppers - Roman was probably the funkiest drummer who joined our band in the eighties. Like me, Roman was a Czech emigrant in Switzerland. He became a close friend of my family and he even lived with us for more than a year. He originated from a famous Roma family of musicians: his father Antonín Gondolán (planned to be introduced here on Funky Czech-In very soon, by the way!) used to be a member of the Karel Gott Orchestra. After spending a couple of years in Germany, in the early 1990s Roman returned to the Czech Republic. As far as I know, he mostly gave up playing music actively. The last time we met, it was by coincidence in a street café in Prague about ten years ago. Roman died of cancer in November 2006, aged 42.

Johannes Lange, a.k.a. Hännu, was from Berne, Switzerland. He used to be my neighbor in the mid eighties, living in the same house where we lived with my mom, my brother and... with Roman. He was hanging around with our band and sometimes he acted as our road technician. With his 8-track mobile recording facility he was later the sound engineer of an Ugly Bluz session in 1987 which we originally planned to release as an LP; unfortunately that never happened, three songs from that session still appeared on local compilations though. Hännu also used to play bass guitar, around 1990 I joined his cover band named D.I.Y. as a drummer for a short time. (It needs to be said that I'm a horrible drummer though... :) In 1995 I've purchased his old analogue mobile recording equipment which I still have in my studio today - although I didn't use it much in the past years. The last time I've seen Hännu, it was six years ago when he rode 100 km with his bicycle from Berne to Basel to visit me and Sleepy Dan. And just two weeks ago I've sent him an invitation to the farewell party for Sleepy Dan (who died on February 21st) which will take place in May here in Basel. I was too late though. On the 6th of April, Hännu has obviously decided to put an end to his life. It was his 41st birthday.

Ugly Blues Connection (the "Dead Men" edition) - Crawling King Snake
live at Gurtenrockfescht Berne, Switzerland, on August 24th, 1985
2-track cassette recording from the mixing console
Sleepy Dan (1960-2007) - vocals, Roman Gondolán (1964-2006) - drums, Hännu Lange (1966-2007) - sound engineer. With Joel Kaiser on bass and myself on guitar. Either Sleepy Dan or our occasional special guest Boldi Debrunner was playing bluesharp on this track.


Hännu Lange at the Gurtenrockfescht on August 24th, 1985; photo © Lukas Machata


from an Ugly Blues Connection photo session on August 25th, 1985: Sleepy Dan, Roman Gondolán, myself, Joel Kaiser; (original photographer unknown)

Rest in peace, Roman.
Rest in peace, Hännu.

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In the green memory

Hammel, Varga & Hladík - V zelenej pamäti [sample]

from album "Na II. programe sna", 1977, Opus 91160493


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Despite its name, this blog is not only about Czech music. When I started with the writing last year I simply didn't find any elegant way to include the Slovaks directly into the title - although a blog called e.g. Funky Slow Vac would have surely promised some quite funny content... :) So I hope my Slovak readers or fans of Slovak music are not offended when I'm not bringing more of their favorite stuff. I began to dive more deeply into the matter only a few years ago and there has existed probably more Slovak funkiness than I'll ever know.

One of my favorite Slovak artists of the 1970s is Pavol Hammel (1948), also known as the leader of Prúdy (The Jets), whom he founded as early as in 1963. In the late 60s and early 70s they were one of the top beat groups and Hammel became one of the busiest songwriters in the country. In fact, he was probably the most important figure on the rock side of pop music in Slovakia of the 1970s when "rock" was considered an evil word. Hammel recorded a couple of well received albums. Among them were the hippiesque Prúdy debut Zvonky zvonte (Ring Bells Ring) which holds the unofficial title "Slovak Sgt. Pepper", the conceptual fairy-tale Šlehačková princezna (The Cream Princess), the successful pop album Hráč (The Player), or the more progressive Zelená pošta (The Green Mail) and Na II. programe sna (On The 2nd Channel Of A Dream).

The latter two LPs were recorded in collaboration with organist Marián Varga, yet another legend of Slovak rock, who used to be one of the early Prúdy members and who also played on their debut. In the seventies he gained international fame with his classical-rock combo Collegium Musicum. Another special guest was the Blue Effect leader Radim Hladík on guitar, thus both records were actually released as a Hammel/Varga/Hladík "supergroup". And while Zelená pošta from 1972 sounded more like a Varga concept album, Na II. programe sna consists of 13 short and compact songs in a more typical Hammel manner. Nonetheless, both records can be stylistically positioned somewhere between Gentle Giant, ELP and - of course - Collegium Musicum.

V zelenej pamäti (In The Green Memory) seems to be quite a unique track in Hammel's discography however - and for that matter also in Varga's or Hladík's one. I'm not aware of any other Hammel song with such strong latin rock influences. (And in fact, as far as I know, the only other Czechoslovak rock band who recorded a couple of latin rock songs in the 1970s were the František Ringo Čech Group featuring Jiří Schelinger with two pretty straight Santana cover versions. Soon to appear on Funky Czech-In, by the way!) So, this tune was cross-over world music before there even was world music: the East meets the West and the South; Slavic folk inspired melodies with a contemporary Chicano groove.

Besides of Hammel, Varga and Hladík, among the featured musicians on the record were the Collegium Musicum drummer Dušan Hájek, the Prúdy bassist Ivan Belák or guitarist Tomáš Rédey. The special guest on this track only was Fedor Letňan on the Fender Rhodes piano who's adding a lot to the song's overall latinesque touch. The album lyrics have been written exclusively by one of the most popular Slovak lyricists, Kamil Peteraj.

Like many other Hammel or Varga albums, Na II. programe sna remains quite popular until these days and therefore it's available on CD (a double CD with Zelená pošta). As for vinyl, you already know the usual sources...

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Chain of fools

Komety – Chain Of Fools [sample]
from 7 inch single, 1968, Supraphon 0430547; also on 7 inch EP Artia/Supraphon 133043


original SP (a-side/b-side in a generic Supraphon sleeve)

This one is a true gem and probably the first Czechoslovak recording that really deserves the adjective “funky”. Don Covay’s composition Chain Of Fools was a huge hit all over the world, especially the 1967 version by Aretha Franklin which will still shake up any dancefloor even these days. In the 1960s many people in Czechoslovakia were secretly listening to Radio Luxembourg, thus it didn’t take very long until these chains hooked all “fools” behind the Iron Curtain as well. The most popular Czech rendition was surely the one by Marie Rottrová & Flamingo from their 1970 debut album and its later English export version This Is Our Soul respectively. And suprisingly, Flamingo already had this song on an LP before: a live cut that appeared in 1969 on the 2nd Czechoslovak Beat Festival 1968 compilation. That version was sung by Rottrová’s predecessor though, the young Hana Zagorová, who was then desperately trying to find a trace of soul in her rather thin voice.

Komety (The Comets) were the first Czechs who recorded it, however, and they did best by far in my opinion, with a mean and lowdown beat and lots of dirty fuzz guitar. The group was one of the legends of early Czechoslovak rock’n’roll and beat music. Among the founding teenage members were the guitarists Jiří Kaleš and Jan Reiner as well as the future Matadors organist Jan Obermajer (later known as Jan Farmer Obermayer) who used to blow the clarinet and the saxophone. They played their first gig on a 1959 (!) New Year’s Eve party in a Prague restaurant for which they had kidnapped Obermajer’s parents’ tube radio receiver and used it as an amplifier to plug in their home made “electric” guitars. The first years they played a lot of pub dance parties in Prague, thus their repertoire consisted of rock’n’roll and R&B hits as well as many popular dixieland standards; they also used to have a bunch of horn players. The fluctuation of the group members was immense in the first half of the decade. Like most Czechoslovak young men, also Kaleš and Reiner were forced to make a two-years break when they got drafted. But Komety kept on playing and they seemed to act as a good school for quite a number of teenagers who were about to become respected Czech rock musicians in the future: Radim Hladík, Jiří Helekal, Miroslav Žižka, Vladimír Mišík or another future Matador, Otto Bezloja, who was obviously one of the first in the country to play strictly on an electric bass guitar instead of the commonly used double bass or cello.

Unfortunately, Chain Of Fools, falsely credited to A. Francklin [sic] on the label, was the only vinyl that the group recorded in the sixties. The exact recording date seems unclear. While one source believes it was in late 1967, another one lists June 1968; the latter seems less likely to me though. Nevertheless, both possible dates fit to the era when R&B and soul began to spread over the Czech music scene. Kaleš and Reiner found the perfect frontman for that new “craze” in the legendary ex-Hell’s Devils singer Miloš Vokurka alias Reddy Kirken (not to be confused with a similarly named Czech pop group of the 1990s). At the drums still sat Miroslav Žižka who would soon move on to Apollobeat. Depending on the recording date, the bass was played either by Ivan Pešl or by Pavel Pešta who came in the first half of 1968 when Komety traded their bass player with the psychedelic Primitives Group. As for the b-side of the single, The House That Jack Built is a nice Alan Price cover but compared to the Chain it’s nothing earth-shaking. (Coincidentally, Flamingo and Rottrová later also recorded a song with the same name, albeit the completely different and funkier one from Aretha Franklin’s repertoire.)


Komety, promotional photo 1968: Miroslav Žižka, Jiří Kaleš, Miloš “Reddy” Vokurka, Pavel Pešta, Jan Reiner

Komety de facto disbanded in the summer of 1968 when Reddy left to replace Viktor Sodoma as the Matadors’ lead singer. Matadors (without Hladík and Obermajer though) then left Prague for a lucrative job in Munich, West Germany, to perform and record a German version of the musical Hair. Kaleš and Reiner continued as the New Comets with Vladimír Mišík taking over the lead vocals, but the timing wasn’t all that great due to the invasion of the Warshaw Pact armies in August 1968. The New Comets quitted before they even appeared in the public. Kaleš with Reiner switched to the “safe side” and became members of František Ringo Čech’s Shut Up orchestra, one of the Semafor Theatre’s house bands. Reddy on the other hand remained in Germany with the rest of the new Matadors crew including Bezloja. Later they were the founding members of the legendary international brass-rock combo Emergency, whose first drummer was the talented young German jazz-rocker (and vastly untalented yet eventually later enormously successful solo singer) Udo Lindenberg.

Komety sort of reincarnated in 1973 when Kaleš, Reiner and Obermajer (who was then an ex-George & Beatovens) got together again. As far as I can vaguely remember from my childhood days, that edition inclined more to pop music. But who in fact didn’t in those days...? That period has been documented on four singles, one of them was a popular cover version of Les Humphries’ Mexico. Komety disbanded for good in 1977. Their last lead singer supposedly was a certain guy named Michal Prokop...

(Credit for parts of the biography and trivia goes to the extensive Czech online article at popmuseum.cz, which itself is a transcript from a Rock&Pop 8/1996 magazine article by Aleš Opekar. The photo, the hint about Emergency and a couple of other details courtesy of my friend, neighbor and former Matadors roadie Josef Voříšek.)

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Everybody

Olympic - Everybody [sample]
from album "Pták Rosomák", 1969, Supraphon 1130589 (stereo) or 0130589 (mono), Supraphon 100589-1311 (vinyl reissue 1990)
produced by Jaromír Tůma


original 1969 LP sleeve, 1990 reissue sleeve

Everybody seems to be dying lately... Last Sunday another friend and client of mine (actually he was more a friend of my mom) passed away after spending a couple of weeks in coma. Although he was of Slovak origin, he was a cook and not a musician - and therefore he's not the actual subject of this post. Nevertheless: Rest in peace, Karol!

Also last week, on Friday, an important personality from the Czechoslovak rock history passed away, too: Jan Antonín Pacák (1941-2007), also known as Jeňýk or Sorry, who was from 1965 until 1971 the drummer of the legendary beat group Olympic. He suffered from leukemia.

The story of Olympic is long so I'll tell it some other time. In short, they were likely the most important Czech group of the 1960s. Initially they played rock'n'roll and they worked as a backing combo for various pop singers. Two years later, in 1965 they were possibly the first rock band that began to compose, play and record exclusively their own material sung in Czech language instead of the ubiquitous English covers. And of course they were also the first rock group to have a full blown long play album, the legendary Želva (The Tortoise), released by Supraphon in 1968. Well, Želva was okay, but their second album from 1969 was even better: Pták Rosomák (The Wolverine Bird). Fuzz guitars, psychedelic soundscapes, sitars, freakbeats and a couple of timeless songs - an album that still sounds fresh 38 years later. The classic line-up consisted of Pacák on drums, the lyricist Pavel Chrastina on bass, Miroslav Berka on keyboards, the rhythm guitarist Ladislav Klein as well as the band leader, composer and lead singer Petr Janda.

Jan A. Pacák was not only the band's drummer during their best years, he was also the "comedian" of the group as well as their graphic designer. And being a graphic designer myself, I have to state that he was an excellent one! The first three LP covers were his work, including the great 1971 album Jedeme jedeme (We're Driving We're Driving). After leaving Olympic he concentrated on art painting, graphic design and book illustrations, for which he won numerous prizes. He returned to playing music only sporadically with several dixieland combos or in the 1990s for occasional Olympic revivals.

Despite its English title, the song Everybody is sung in Czech. Chrastina's lyrics tell a funny story of a guy who runs around and shouts "everybody" (hence the title). Not only does the track begin with Pacák's funky drum break, he's also the lead singer on it and he shows off some of his "expressive" scatting towards the end. This is definitely one of my favorite Olympic tunes.

Being one of the main Czech rock classics, the Pták Rosomák album is available on CD, of course. The original vinyl is a sought-after collectors item, however. It shows up on eBay regularly, but don't expect to get it cheap if it's in excellent condition. Auctions going beyond $50 are becoming the rule nowadays, even for the less attractive mono edition. But don't despair, I've got the original stereo issue for sale! And it's not even nearly that expensive. Of course, there's a caveat: the record is not in a great shape; obviously it must have been played a zillion times in those 36 years before it got into my greeeedy hands (I'll rather keep the 1990 reissue which I bought mint 17 years ago, as I'm not a fanatic collector of original pressings). In my WebShop I've got also a couple of original Olympic 45s from the 1960s for sale, just search there for "olympic". There's e.g. the seven-inch-only Strejček Jonatán, yet another tune sung by Pacák. And there's the ÜBER-rare original pressing of the Želva single, which is a slightly different version than any other subsequent release of the song. (The background story according to the official Olympic web site is actually quite funny: Towards the end of Želva when the group starts to sing the ad lib vocals, someone shouts "oh no". That version has been initially released on this very seven inch. But shortly thereafter, when the group was compiling their already recorded material for the debut LP, some Supraphon apparatchiks thought that the guys must have been singing the word "hovno" - which means "shit" in Czech. So they forced them to overdub the vocal track with a choir to make the alleged "bad word" disappear - which is what they did. That new version has then appeared on any release ever since while the very original master seems to be lost.)

P.S. I never met Jeňýk Pacák personally but he was a close friend of another friend of mine and my neighbor here in Switzerland, Pepík Voříšek. In the sixties Pepík used to be a roadie for another famous Czech rockers, the Matadors, and he used to hang around with all the guys from the Prague beat scene back then. He knows a lot of insider stories from those days, so his name might pop up on Funky Czech-In every now and then. I couldn't ask him to help me with this post though, because right now he's in Prague to partake on Pacák's funeral which took place yesterday.

Rest in peace, Jeňýk.

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What's preventing me...

Bohemia - Co mi brání [sample]
from 7 inch SP "Co mi brání", 1977, Panton 440625 (Disco Serie); also on the compilation album "Gong 4", 1977, Panton 110701
produced by Vladimír Mertlík


original SP sleeve & the compilation LP sleeve

After the "off-topic" entry from last week let's continue with the regular schedule. You see, usually I write my articles a couple of weeks in advance. That comes in handy at the moment because as you can easily guess from the last post, I definitely wasn't in the mood for any new funky czech-ins yet...

So... two weeks ago I have mentioned Bohemia as one of the Flamengo follow-up groups. Bohemia was founded in 1975 by saxophonist Jan Kubík and bass player Vladimír Kulhánek, along with the singer and keyboarder Lešek Semelka who came from Radim Hladík's Blue Effect (a.k.a. Modrý Efekt). These "old cats" were later joined by the jazz-rock youngsters Michal Pavlíček on guitar, Pavel Trnavský on drums as well as the omnipresent conga master Jiří Tomek as a special guest. In 1977 Semelka has been replaced by Jan Hála though. The group sound oscillated somewhere between highbrow jazz-rock and art-rock pathos with slight traces of disco and slavic folk. Most of the material was penned by Kubík, the lyrics on the vocal tracks usually came from Pavel Vrba.

The single Co mi brání (What's Preventing Me) appeared in the Disco Serie of the Panton label. That was a logical choice as it's probably the Bohemia track with the highest "statistical danceability" (as Frank Zappa would have said). Both sides were composed by Semelka who, unlike Kubík, tended more towards pop music. The b-side contains nothing worth mentioning on this blog though. Interestingly, at that time the whole group was also involved in the Svoboda brothers' studio project Discobolos, who already had a cameo appearance on Funky Czech-In as the backing band for a Jiří Schelinger song; Discobolos used to be gettin' down pretty funky and I'll bring them back very soon.

The inclusion of Co mi brání on the Panton Gong 4 compilation probably shouldn't be judged as a high honor for Bohemia, however. On the album there's another slightly danceable track by fellow jazz-rockers Abraxas, a nice folk-rock song by Hana & Petr Ulrych, a neat drum break in a silly bubble-gum tune from ex-Flamingo co-singer Petr Němec, as well as a full-blown Czech version of Boney M's Daddy Cool sung by Josef Laufer. But the rest of the LP will be highly irrelevant to you if you share my musical taste, and some songs are even so stupid that it's almost offending. I wonder if another 1977 Bohemia 7 inch, Pavlíček's King Gong from the Panton Mini Jazz Klub series, sort of reflected or even parodied this rather unpleasant fact. Unfortunately I don't own it so I can't tell you, thus it's just a guess from the track name... (Just for the record, the Panton Gong series ran from the mid 70s until the late 80s. Like most Czechoslovak pop compilations from that era, they are not really worth getting unless you're a real hardcore collector or if you are looking for one of the very few rock or disco tracks on it. I can only "recommend" Gong 2, 3, 4 and 6, but mostly only for the Czech versions of a couple of 1970s international disco hits which might be hard to find elsewhere. I might post some of them in the future.)

Bohemia released their debut art-jazz-rock album Zrnko písku (Grain Of Sand) in 1978 and disbanded shortly thereafter. Semelka successfully re-joined Blue Effect (then known as M Efekt) and became a pop singer. The rest of the group continued to work as session musicians. The latest record with Kubík's participation that I own is the ex-C&K Vocal singer Luboš Pospíšil's debut solo album from 1982; Kubík eventually emigrated and I couldn't find out yet what he's been doing ever since. Trnavský played with Jazz Q as well as with Jana Kratochvílová before both emigrated to the UK. Pavlíček worked with Kratochvílová, too, also with Mahagon, Jan Spálený, Eva Olmerová or Jana Koubková. In 1980 he (and initially also Tomek) joined the new wave edition of Michael Kocáb's legendary Pražský Výběr with whom he "co-wrote" the Czechoslovak popular music history and became one of the most original and influential Czech rock guitarists until these days. (I mean, in the mid 80s he surely influenced me a lot!)

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In memoriam dear friend

(This is an off-topic post.)

Dänu Boemle, alias Sleepy Dan, alias Øml, a very close friend of mine, peacefully passed away yesterday afternoon after being seriously ill for many long years. He was 46 years old.


Dänu in his kitchen on November 18th, 2006

We were friends since 1984 when we began to play street music in Berne, Switzerland. I was a greenhorn teenager, he was a cheeky twen and we both loved the blues. Later on we used to be getting down a bit more funky but by the end of the decade each of us went his own path for a while. We got together again in the mid 90s, this time behind turntables, playing fine jazz and funk records in several Swiss music clubs. Dänu also helped out on our Plookers CD project in 1997 where he can be heard talking on the first and on the final track, as well as playing trombone on a still unreleased song. In the past years we continued to co-operate on various projects: music, his radio play, his web site, his books, his artwork, my wedding... But our friendship wasn't only about music, art or work: at any given time he was like an older brother to me.

Well, to make this entry slightly less off-topic, I'll try to turn it into a kind of Half Czech-In - or I should rather say Self Czech-In. Listen to the Ugly Blues Connection transferred from the copy of a "sub-master" cassette tape as captured in a small 8-track studio on February 16th 1985: Looking For Somebody, a Fleetwood Mac cover originally written by Peter Green. Christian Wolfarth played drums, Joel Kaiser was on bass, myself on guitar (you guessed it, I was the Czech of the group...) and Sleepy Dan was of course singing and playing bluesharp.

My old friend, I will miss you!

UPDATE:
More info about Dänu Boemle is now available on my site: machata.ch/boemle. And our friend Marc Krebs has written an obituary in Basler Zeitung from 27 February 2007 (in German).

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On and on (The chicken, part 2)

Flamengo - Stále dál [sample]
from album "Kuře v hodinkách", 1972, Supraphon 0131287 (mono) or 1131287 (stereo) and 101287-1311 (reissue 1990); also on CD "Kuře v hodinkách", 1972/1998, Bonton 4910532; SP "Kuře v hodinkách", 1972, Supraphon 0431453; CD compilation "Paní v černém (singly 1967-1972)", 2003, Supraphon SU5496-2311
produced by Hynek Žalčík


original 1972 LP sleeve & 1990 LP/CD reissue sleeve

"... stále dál, stále dál, stále dál. Slepeckou holí mám spočítaný jak dlouhý je mý bytí, který je mi jednou daný."

"... on and on, on and on, on and on. With a blindman's white stick I've added up how long will my being last that I've been given."

Every time I hear this chorus I shiver all over. Ever since I've heard the song for the first time some seventeen years ago. So I was quite surprised to read that even the old sound engineer who originally recorded it also feels the same way after 35 years. Anyway, here we go with the part 2 of the Flamengo story:

The basic idea behind the album Kuře v hodinkách (The Chicken In The Wrist-Watch) was to bring progressive contemporary Czech rock music to the public. While it may sound as a simple matter of fact to you today, it wasn't an easy task in communist Czechoslovakia of the early 1970s; read my introduction for more background. The young Supraphon producer Hynek Žalčík (1949-2005) came with the nearly "subversive" idea to ask the poet Josef Kainar (1917-1971) to write the lyrics for the album. The "Kainar plan" was based on Kainar's communist party membership, although he was definitely not very popular anymore by his conservative and "normalized" party comrades. But at that time he also was the chairman of the Czechoslovak Writers Association and a widely respected writer who also used to write blues songs. Besides of that, one year earlier they have already successfully collaborated on the Michal Prokop & Framus Five jazz-rock suite Město Er. So that trick helped Žalčík once again to convince the responsible Supraphon bureaucrats to release a rock album played by a bunch of untamed long-haired freaks who would have been de facto and de jure (i.e. according to communist jurisdiction) considered potential enemies of the state. The compromise was that the record was originally sold solely to the members of the "Czechoslovak Hi-Fi Club" in a total edition of only a few thousand copies. A political decision of course: Flamengo would have sold easily tens if not even hundreds of thousands copies over the years to all the other rock-hungry long-haired freaks out there. But any attempts for an official re-edition have been rejected by the authorities until 1989. Only two tracks (Já a dým, Kuře v hodinkách) re-appeared on the scarce Josef Kainar tribute compilation Obelisk in the late seventies; again thanks to Žalčík's tireless effort.

Stále dál (On And On) is the only track from Kuře v hodinkách that isn't sung by Vladimír Mišík. Instead, it's the voice of organist Ivan Khunt and it's the last of only three Flamengo songs they ever recorded with him as the lead singer. Besides of the short instrumental intro track it's also the album's only song without Kainar's lyrics since Kainar passed away in November 1971. The words then came from producer and occasional lyricist Žalčík, the composition was the work of the "triple K" Khunt, Kubík and Kulhánek. Yet this song is a bomb and then some.

Due to the increasing communist oppression on rock groups in general, Flamengo eventually disbanded before the album has been finally released in 1973. The nucleus of the group along with Žalčík helped to record Dežo Ursiny's debut album Provisorium and they established the first issue of Energit (see this post). Khunt and Šedivý exiled soon thereafter which made any reissue of Kuře v hodinkách or any other record with their participation practically impossible. Guitarist Fořt started to work with the group of former jazz musicians Strýci (a.k.a. Šest strýců) for Helena Vondráčková, joined the Karel Gott orchestra and led his own session studio band Labyrint. It was also Labyrint with Kubík's and Kulhánek's participation who re-recorded Rám příštích obrazů and Doky vlaky hlad a boty for the C&K Vocal fantastic debut album Generace (Generation). Kubík and Kulhánek worked as session musicians here or there, in the mid seventies they co-founded the jazz-rock supergroup Bohemia. Kubík escaped to the West in the 80s, while Kulhánek eventually joined Mišík's Etc group. Mišík courageously kept on keeping on, on and on.

Nowadays there's a restaurant in Prague named after the album "Kuře v hodinkách". On their nicely designed web site there's a photo gallery with lots of pictures from Czech rock history. Czech it out.

Vinyl should be available on eBay or on Gemm (some sellers still confuse Flamengo with Flamingo though). Some of the records are incredibely rare so don't get shocked by the prices. But even the "über-rare" single Každou chvíli happens to be seen every now and then (although usually it's definitely way over my budget). Fortunately, the songs I've presented are available not only on the remastered edition of Kuře v hodinkách, but also on the ultimate Flamengo "singlology" Paní v černém (The Lady In Black - Singles 1967-1972). If you dig prog-rock, get the former. If it's fuzz guitars that makes your underpants wet, get the latter. If you just love music and you'd like show some respect for the involved musicians and producers and their exceptional work, get 'em all. On and on.

P.S. Kuře v hodinkách is one of the three albums that I would take with me on a desert island. Just for the record, the other two are Frank Zappa's Over-Nite Sensation as well as Mothership Connection by Parliament. On those three records every single note makes me feel good. (Oh, and if I had any chance to take a fourth one with me, it would be SAHB Stories by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band... :)

P.P.S. Tell me about your three desert island albums in the comments -->

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Every while (The chicken, part 1)

Flamengo - Každou chvíli [sample]
from CD compilation "Paní v černém (singly 1967-1972)", 2003, Supraphon SU5496-2311; originally from SP "Každou chvíli", 1971, Supraphon 0431214; also a bonus track on CD "Kuře v hodinkách", 1972/1998, Bonton 4910532
produced by Hynek Žalčík


CD compilation booklet

Vladimír Mišík, one of my most favorite singers, has already got an entry on Funky Czech-In where I have promised to bring him back with a Flamengo post. Well, this band is just too important for the Czech music history in order to squeeze its story into a short single weblog post, so here's part one. Oh, and keep in mind: Flamengo is NOT Flamingo!

Flamengo's biggest problem probably was the frequent exchange of their lead singers. Not that any of them guys were not good enough. Actually the opposite is true, each one was a personality on his or her own. It just didn't really help to build up the group's profile over the years. Thus, among the group members since 1966 were Viktor Sodoma (who left for the Matadors in 1967), Karel Kahovec (originally a Matador himself), Petr Novák (earlier and then again later with George & Beatovens), the former early sixties teenage idol Pavel Sedláček, the English lady Joan Duggan (who later joined Jazz Q along with the original Flamengo guitarist František Francl), the organist Ivan Khunt, for a very short time and unfortunately undocumented on records even the ex-Framus Five Michal Prokop and finally since 1971 Mišík, who himself already passed through the Matadors, George & Beatovens (as their lead guitarist for a couple of months!) and who had just been fired from Matadors' follow-up Blue Effect.

Similarly complicated would be the attempt to describe Flamengo's musical range. The early beat songs by Petr Novák already sound much like Petr Novák on his later G&B records. Kahovec on the other hand had his unique voice and song-writing style, too. But by 1968 the Czech scene became "infected" with R&B and soul and Flamengo again returned to playing a lot of cover versions, now even real funk by James Brown (coming soon on this channel, stay tuned). Then with the arrival of Khunt and Duggan in 1969 they focused on dark blues-rock. And the final phase nicely fits into the progressive rock drawer. So there you have the dilemma: one name, five different bands...

Supraphon released as much as 16 Flamengo songs on 7" sides; some songs appeared on SPs with another artist on the flip side - a usual praxis in the sixties. It was however the final line-up that was going to make history when they recorded their only full album in 1971-1972, the masterpiece Kuře v hodinkách (The Chicken In The Wrist-Watch), the undisputed monument of Czechoslovak popular music. Flamengo's legendary last edition consisted of Mišík, Ivan Khunt (1947-2002), the composer and arranger Jan Kubík on saxes and flutes, the virtuoso bass player Vladimír Kulhánek, one of the best Czech rock drummers of his generation, the ex-Primitives Group Jaroslav Erno Šedivý as well as the last remaining original member, Pavel Fořt, who switched from bass back to lead guitar in 1970.

Každou chvíli (Every While) as well as the similarly sounding b-side Týden v elektrickém městě (A Week In The Electric City) both predate the album sessions by only a few months. You can already clearly identify the "trademarked" super-compact and funky sound that determines the later LP. Mišík's singing has also grown up since his departure from Blue Effect (as captured on the psychedelic album Meditace). This is already the voice that was going to have a huge impact on a whole new generation of young rock music fans as well as future musicians, myself included.

And then there's the drums. One of the sound engineers in the Supraphon studio Dejvice was Petr Kocfelda. He has been recently asked in an interview (in Czech, part 1, part 2) how they actually managed to achieve such a steady drum sound and what compressor or limiter effects were they using then. "None," he replied. The drummer Erno Šedivý obviously used to hit the skins so hard that they only had to adjust the mic inputs to the peak level which then remained pretty constant throughout the sessions. As a matter of fact, at that time the recording studio in Prague-Dejvice was still using a relatively old 4-track Studer machine along with a custom built tube mixing console which made the producers, engineers and especially the service technicians as much a part of the creative process as the musicians themselves. (Er, can the GarageBand generation still follow me what I'm talking about...? ;)

To be continued...

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A day in the life

Peter Lipa & the Blues Five - A Day In The Life [sample]
from compilation "Beatová horúčka 1965-70", 1989, Opus 90132113


original 1989 compilation LP sleeve

Last November I've promised you another track from the Slovak compilation Beatová horúčka 1965-70 (Beat Fever) and here it is. A well known Beatles song that originally closes their Sgt. Pepper album; yes, the one with the never ending final chord.

Now, on to the Blues Five version from 1969. It seems that obviously everyone else who has ever covered this song - including such experienced funksters like War, Brian Auger or Peter Herbolzheimer - didn't dare to go too far beyond the original psychedelic arrangement, let alone the given chord progressions. On the other hand, Peter Lipa and his gang turned the song upside down and all around, digging so much funk out of the Blackburn, Lancashire potholes that you could not only fill the Royal Albert Hall with it, but the Gherkin as well. From the first crispy snare hit on, the song keeps on rolling, the Hammond keeps on boiling and Lipa is singing his ass off. Interestingly, according to an online interview with Lipa (in Polish!) they were actually reworking a Wes Montgomery version, while another source (a Slovak article by Fedor Frešo about Marián Varga) points out that it was only a "rip-off" of Brian Auger's live arrangement he played on his Slovakia gig in 1968... Whose nose, as my wife would say.

Whatever it was, I won't go much into further trivia. You can learn a lot about Lipa directly from the English section of his official web site. Just a few interesting highlights: Lipa's long discography includes many Bratislava Jazz Days live compilations, he is also one of the festival initiators. In the 1980s he worked intensively with ex-Energit and ex-Framus Five guitarist Luboš Andršt whom we already met on this blog. And in 2002 Lipa recorded a nice blues-jazz album full of Beatles songs, albeit without A Day In The Life.

The Beatová horúčka compilation occasionally pops up on eBay and it's still available overthere. CDs by Peter Lipa are available online and on eBay, too. A Day In The Life also appeared on the out-of-print Bonton CD compilation Bigbít 1968-1969, however that was most likely the live version from the 2nd Czechoslovak Beat Festival in December 1968 in Prague which was originally released on a Panton EP. On cojeco.cz you can listen to a short snippet of it. Last but not least, I have the rare double LP compilation Bratislava Jazz Days 1981 for sale, with Lipa singing the Ray Charles standard Tell All The World About You.

Rosemary

Hana & Petr Ulrychovi - Rozmarýn [sample]

from album "13 HP", 1971, Supraphon 1130888
produced by Michael Prostějovský, arranged by Ota Petřina, conducted by Josef Vobruba


original LP sleeve

Sixties stuff seems to be quite popular among you, dear readers, so here's another one. Sure, I know that this album has been released in 1971. But it was recorded one year earlier which still puts it mathematically into the 1960s, doesn't it. (You do know that, don't you? Or were you one of those fools who were celebrating the 3rd millennium one year too early...?!) And even then, due to technical and political circumstances we used to be behind a few years anyway, so don't be too picky about the exact recording dates here...

Petr Ulrych (1944) from Brno and his five years younger sister Hana were already experienced performers when the debut album 13 HP finally came out. With their group Atlantis (not to be confused with the mid 70s German soul-rock group of the same name) they have recorded a couple of successful single sides in the late 60s. Petr's songs were at the top of the unofficial Czech radio charts. Unfortunately, the planned very first long player, the ambitious folk-jazz-rock opera Odyssea from 1969 (recorded only a few months later than the world's first "official" rock opera, Tommy by The Who!) didn't pass the 1970 communist censorship anymore and it has never been released until 1990!

13 HP is mainly a folk-rock album with influences from soul and Moravian ethnic folk. It has been produced in collaboration with the ex-Golden Kids guitarist, arranger and songwriter Ota Petřina and the Dance/Jazz Orchestra of the Czechoslovak Radio (TOČR/JOČR). Only four out of ten songs were written by Ulrych, the producers probably wanted to be on the safe side regarding their previous experience with the raging censors. But that certainly doesn't make it a bad LP at all.

Rozmarýn (Rosemary - the herb) is one of the original Ulrych tracks, a driving rock song with loud drums, swirling Hammond organ and Petřina's screaming lead guitar, peppered with a precise horn section and dramatic strings. The lyrics talk about the upcoming spring time that might heal open wounds from the past, but the mood remains melancholic, not to say highly pessimistic. After all, the Prague Spring was over and everybody knew it. I really wonder how Ulrych's lyrics managed to pass the censorship this time.

As a matter of fact, Hana Ulrychová doesn't seem to be featured on this song at all. But don't despair, dear fan of singin'n'swingin' sixties girls. Her time on Funky Czech-In is going to come too, perhaps with my other favorite tune from the album, the up-tempo soul song A co má bejt (So What). In other words: the Ulrych/Atlantis legend is going to be continued.

Rozmarýn has been included on the Ulrychs' recent best-of-compilation, but be aware that the double CD logically focuses on their later Moravian world music works; so perhaps you might want to check out a few samples first. Some vinyl is usually available on eBay, but if you'd like to own this particular album you'd better google and buy from Czech sellers. You can also buy two nice 45s from my own online record store, just search there for "ulrych" (items no. 1219 and 1232).

The letter in a bottle

Barnodaj (a.k.a. Progres 2) - Dopis v láhvi [sample]
from album "Mauglí", 1978, Supraphon 1131919
arranged by Pavel Váně & Zdeněk Kluka, produced by Hynek Žalčík, Jan Spálený & Květoslav Rohleder


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Somehow it took those guys from Brno about ten years until they finally determined a band name. They started in 1968 as the Progress Organization which was certainly meant with a portion of irony, aiming at the communist "newspeak". In the dark times of 1971, when everything English was being banned by the authorities, they changed the name to Barnodaj, a fictional pseudo-slavic word. Their legendary first album from the same year still carried the original name though. The next six years they spent as Skupina Jana Sochora (Jan Sochor Group), backing pop artists like Martha & Tena Elefteriadu or Bob Frídl. In 1977 they started to work with lyricist Petr Kopta and producer Hynek Žalčík on a "composed rock programme" based on the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. But even before the resulting album Mauglí (Mowgli) - credited to "Barnodaj" again - was released in 1978, the group reincarnated once more, this time as Progres 2...

Mauglí is a prog-rock album which at some places sounds like it would have been recorded during the late sixties psychedelia. Unlike its predecessor or the subsequent sci-fi rock opera Dialog s vesmírem (Dialog With The Universe), it's not a masterpiece though, and even if you dig prog-rock I don't think it will really blow you out of your funky socks. But I'd still point out both sitar tracks: the instrumental lead-in Džungle (The Jungle) with lots of tom-tom breaks and the dramatic final song Osud (Destiny).

In the middle of it all there's Dopis v láhvi (A Letter In A Bottle), a wicked rock song with that certain touch of funk, written and sung by Pavel Váně. It starts with Pavel Pelc's touch-wah bass, in comes Váně's dirty guitar and Jan Sochor's abstract organ and Moog lines, all held together by Zdeněk Kluka's lively drums. As special guests on this song we also hear an uncredited jazzy horn section as well as ex-Flamengo Jan Kubík with his strong-as-usual tenor sax solo. Yep, that's what the Funky Czech-In is all about: discover the funk even in places where you wouldn't expect it.

Progres 2 recorded a couple of boring albums in the eighties and faded away. Only Kluka kept the trademark alive, sort of: at the end of the 80s he re-appeared with a couple of young musicians as Progres-Pokrok ("pokrok" actually means "progress" in Czech) with the sarcastic show Otrava krve (Blood Poisoning), releasing an excellent and almost "punky" album in 1990. Nowadays the nucleus of the original group (Kluka/Váně/Pelc) still occasionally performs as Progres 2 or Progress Organization, besides of working on their own projects.

You might find Mauglí on vinyl either on eBay or maybe elsewhere if you google for "barnodaj". A CD reissue has just been released in November 2006, so get it while you can. The first album should be also available on CD with a couple of rare bonus tracks. And if you're a "hardcore" collector and you'd like to own the original ultra-mega-rare very first Progress Organization EP from 1970, released on the short-lived Discant label, I know a guy who will sell it to you for as low as € 100.00 (I had to pass this one although I certainly liked it...)

Meditation about passion

Meditating Four - Meditácia nad vášňou [sample]
from compilation "Beatová horúčka 1965-70", 1989, Opus 90132113


original 1989 compilation LP sleeve

Let's have a look at one of the more obscure tracks from this already quite obscure music blog. The Meditating Four was a legendary Slovak beat and blues combo around 1967 and 1968. The group's master mind was the singer and guitarist Jozef "Barry" Barina. Earlier he also used to play with another Slovak beat legend, the surf-influenced Players.

Meditácia nad vášňou (Meditation About Passion) is not really a spectacular song. It's just another variation on the classic twelve bar blues, albeit with a little "twist". Still, Barina who was then only twenty years old plays some fine guitar licks and the drummer hits it hard and quite funky, making the song sound more like early progressive rock. That puts it relatively ahead of its time, at least in local dimensions. The song has been originally released on a Supraphon seven inch in 1969, the group's only record. But already in late 1968 they have actually disappeared from the scene. Barina revived the band for another tour in 1971 before he started to work in some Slovak studio orchestras. In the early 1980s he returned to playing the blues with B-Profil. He still ocassionally performs in Bratislava with various blues bands.

The vinyl compilation Beatová horúčka 1965-70 (Beat Fever) has been available on eBay recently. In the 1990s it has been reissued on CD too, but obviously it's already out of print. There are fourteen rare tracks from Slovak beat groups like the Players, Beatmen, Soulmen, Blues Five, Prúdy or Modus, among others. I will present the "killer" track from that album on Funky Czech-In in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned...

The blue song

Petr Spálený & Apollobeat - Modrá píseň (Finále) [sample]
from album "Zvon šílencův", 1971, Supraphon 0130918
produced by Jan Spálený


original LP sleeve (front/back)

Zvon šílencův (Madman's Bell), what an album title considering the maddening political events in Czechoslovakia almost three years earlier. I don't know what impact this record originally had but it was quite obviously meant as a statement. And despite the fact that the LP has been released in Supraphon's "Gramofonový klub" edition and therefore initially available to subscribers only, it has reached a gold status in Czechoslovakia.

The group started in 1965 as The Hippopotamuses a.k.a. The Hipp's [sic], merging beat, easy listening and soul. Some of them were Prague Conservatory students, led by the young composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist Jan Spálený (1942). His younger brother Petr (1944), formerly a drummer with various local rock'n'roll groups, became the lead singer. In 1967 they were hired by Jiří Štaidl as the second house band of the famous Apollo theatre (the one in Prague, of course) while Štaidl's own orchestra was playing Las Vegas with superstar Karel Gott. The Hipp's then changed their name to Apollobeat. Petr - with his sexy barytone voice à la Lee Hazlewood - soon became a pop star on his own, releasing one hit after another. Besides of several popular cover versions like To vadí (Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da), most of the song material was written either by Jan Spálený or by the other multi-instrumentalist Pavel Krejča. Other long-time players were Vladimír Bár on organ, Eduard Parma jr. on bass, Miroslav Žižka on drums and Josef Švehla on trumpet. Krejča was on mellophone and electric mandolin and Jan Spálený played barytone sax, trombone, tuba or piano. That's right folks, no guitar, at least not between 1967 and 1973. That has certainly helped to create the group's individual sound just as much as Petr's voice and Jan's unique songwriting did.

Modrá píseň (Finále) (The Blue Song Finale) is the closing track from the album, a frantic soul-beat tune in the spirit of late sixties Italian movie soundtracks. Petr Fleischer's lyrics are quite obviously inspired by the blues, it's all about letting go and saying good bye. And the madman? The conceptual Zvon šílencův (Madman's Bell) suite - recorded in summer 1969 with the Václav Zahradník orchestra - fills up the whole side one. Progressive beat-jazz with rich orchestration. Side two from 1970 is dedicated to pet animals, including the jazzy and almost zappaesque instrumental Malá suita pro domácí zvířátka (A Small Suite For Little Domestic Animals). Jan Spálený wrote all the music. In the end, the album message is not as "heavy" as the title might imply. Actually the lyrics are more funny or good-hearted rather than political. That was most likely the intention however, otherwise there wouldn't have been any chance to bring the record to the public.

Petr Spálený's other vinyl long-players from the early years were two compilations of his hit singles, an English sung export compilation with the US spaceship Apollo on its cover (I mean, a US spaceship?! In the middle of the Cold War?!) and Czechoslovakia's first live pop album Petr v Lucerně (Petr In The Lucerna Hall), both from 1971. During the 1970s Petr Spálený with Krejča were inclined more and more toward country music which is already notacible on the 1975 concept double album Podoby (Resemblances). Jan Spálený left the group and worked behind the scenes as arranger and composer, besides of his busy day job as producer (or in the socialistic newspeak: "musical director") in the Supraphon recording studio Dejvice since 1970. And while Petr kept on fading into deep C&W obscurity (from our funky point of view, that is; his C&W albums are still very popular), Jan returned as a respected solo artist in the late seventies with two conceptual jazzrock-vs.-poetry albums, two excellent blues-rock-wave albums in the eighties and as the leader of the ASPM folk-blues collective.

Although there are plenty of Apollobeat/Spálený vinyls and CDs available, Zvon šílencův is without doubt the best album for you and me and therefore becoming quite rare. Even the 1996 CD reissue might be out of print. Some of their old single sides may be cheesier than others but that depends on your musical taste. Check out the official discography and a "singlography". Those 45s were mostly released with a Petr-Spálený-sleeve, however some were also labelled as "Apollobeat" but in fact there isn't any difference: the Supraphon label often made a big mess with SP sleeves (another bad example was the Golden Kids/Kubišová/Vondráčková/Neckář tohuwabohu). The responsible bureaucrats simply didn't care because they knew that people would buy them anyway, not judging a record by its cover... Oh yes, and don't forget to check out my web shop, I've got an LP and some 45s for sale: items no. 475, 837, 1072, 1262 (the b-side comes from Zvon šílencův!), 1263 (the first album) and 1268, as well as no. 839 and 840 from Jan S.

The racer

Jiří Schelinger & Discobolos - Závodník [sample]
from 7 inch SP "Což takhle dát si špenát", 1977, Supraphon 1432082
conducted by Jiří Svoboda


original SP sleeve (front/back)

Jiří Schelinger (1951-1981), the first true Czechoslovak rock star, is my Mr. Rock, as I've said before. He played guitar and sang with various amateur beat and blues bands since the late sixties. In 1973 he had his first smash hit with the group Faraon: Holubí dům (The Pigeon House), one of the most popular Czech pop songs ever. Later that year he switched over to František "Ringo" Čech's group, formerly also known as the Shut Up Orchestra. Čech was just getting rid of his previous lead singer, the fading children idol Viktor Sodoma (ex-Matadors). At that time Čech was the undisputed king of Czech bubblegum music, but he was looking for an adequate voice for his upcoming hard rock project and Schelinger seemed to be the right guy. Nevertheless, they continued to record pop and schlager songs in order to "stay alive". After all it was the 1970s and rock music was obviously the enemy of the communist state number one. That transition period has been captured on Čech's debut album Báječní muži (Wonderful Men) in 1974. Čech was not only a humorous lyricist but also a clever and subversive manager: in order to smuggle at least some of his hard rock songs onto records he wrote lyrics which the censors almost must have let pass through. The most prominent example was Metro dobrý den (Hello Subway), a 1974 cover version of Black Sabbath's classic A National Acrobat. To fully understand the gag, be assured that only by admiring Black Sabbath you would have been certainly considered as much decadent (and anticommunist) as you could have possibly been then. But then the smart writer of the liner notes on Schelinger's "solo" album Nemám hlas jako zvon (I Don't Have A Voice Like A Bell) states: "Hello Subway is a celebration of a modern transport vehicle, a celebration of human labor and progress." Yeah. Now eat that, you communist bastards! (Prague's first subway line has been opened in 1974.) So in fact, around 1975 Schelinger & Čech were the only Czechoslovak hard rock group releasing at least some records, but they had to fight really hard for that privilege.

Schelinger was open-minded to other genres and worked occasionally with various studio orchestras. Those songs even appeared on television shows and in movie pictures. One example is the 1977 "soundtrack" single Což takhle dát si špenát (What Would You Say To Some Spinach) which was the theme song from a very popular sci-fi comedy movie of the same name. On the other hand, its clavinet laden funky flip side Závodník (The Racer), a story of a road-hog character, comes from a TV movie Přikázaný směr jízdy (Compulsory Direction). I could find any info on that one; it might have been a TV play or even a documentary, no one on the web seems to know nowadays. The songs were written by Karel Svoboda (yes, that one again) with Čech's lyrics. The backing group on both tracks was Discobolos (misspelled "Diskobolos" on the label), a studio project of the Svoboda brothers. As the band name indicates, it was an attempt to jump on the disco bandwagon and they definitely weren't doing all that bad. They also released two albums in 1978 and 1979, albeit without Schelinger's participation. I will feature them on Funky Czech-in soon. Among the Discobolos members were once more the Flamengo veterans Jan Kubík on sax and Vladimír Kulhánek on bass as well as Michal Pavlíček on guitar, Pavel Trnavský on drums, the exceptional singer Jana Kratochvílová and (of course) Jiří Tomek on congas.

Also in 1977, a miracle happened and Schelinger & Čech were finally allowed to release the first true Czechoslovak hard rock album, the highly sarcastic and partly even slightly funky Hrrr na ně (Harum-Scarum At Them). The semi-unplugged and more serious masterpiece Nám se líbí... (We Do Like...) was released in 1979 and by yet another miracle it has been even reissued in 1985, despite the presence of Oskar Petr who actually emigrated in 1979. Other original killer rock hits like Jahody mražený (Frozen Strawberries) or for Czech conditions the almost unbelievably heavy Lupič Willy (Willy The Burglar) appeared on singles and have been first reissued more than ten years later on the excellent 1990 LP/CD compilation Holubí dům (The Pigeon House).

In April 1981, while working on his planned album Zemětřesení (Earthquake), Schelinger was invited to a playback session in the Slovak TV studio in Bratislava. Later that night, under unclear circumstances he jumped from the Old Bridge into the Danube river. One month later his body was supposedly found about 20 km down the river, however it has never been officially identified by any member of the Schelinger family. His death still remains quite a mystery.

Being already a cult figure while alive, after his death the Schelinger cult grew even more. The positive effect is not only that all official recordings are well documented on CDs, but now there are even rarities compilations available. Here's the complete discography. And a fan page has a couple of low-fi live recordings available for download. For CDs check out cdmusic.cz. Some vinyl is of course available on Gemm and eBay, too. Last but not least I have a couple of 7" for sale, e.g. items no. 355 and 841 (and I'll add some more to my list soon).

P.S. I'm leaving Prague today with a lot of records in my suitcase. In fact, I might need a second suitcase... Anyway, I'll surely share some of them with you, so stay tuned!

The best woman of our days

Vladimír Mišík & Etc... - Nejlepší ženská našich dnů [sample]
from album "Etc... 2", 1980, Supraphon 11132558
produced by Hynek Žalčík & Jan Spálený


original LP sleeve

If anybody deserves the title Living Legend of Czech Rock, Vladimír Mišík has to be the one, which is an undisputed fact, I guess. He's been right there out in front from the very beginning: Matadors, George & Beatovens, Blue Effect and of course Flamengo. Flamengo disbanded shortly after their epochal album Kuře v hodinkách (The Chicken In The Wrist-Watch) has been recorded in 1972; this period will be covered in a future Funky Czech-In post. While many of his former fellow rockers either emigrated to the West or decided to splash about in shallow socialistic pop muzak in order to make some living, Mišík stayed true to his passion all the way through, even in times when "rock" certainly was a bad word in the land behind Brezhnev's Iron Curtain. After a short intermezzo with Luboš Andršt's Energit, around 1975 he formed a rock group with the symptomatic name Etc. Although the line-up changed accordingly often, the group sound remained surprisingly compact as Mišík's first solo album from 1976 proves. That was not only due to his characteristic singing in a bluesy manner, but also thanks to his long-time band mate, the virtuoso violinist, composer and arranger Jan Hrubý. Other musicians involved over the years are the who-is-who in Czech rock anyway: Pavel Fořt, Vladimír Padrůněk, Anatoli Kohout, Jiří Jelínek, František Francl, later also Petr Skoumal, Stanislav Kubeš or the ex-Flamengo bassist Vladimír Kulhánek. The album Etc...2 has been recorded in 1979 with Petr Pokorný on guitar, Jiří Veselý on bass, the drummer Jiří Šustera and Jan Kolář on keyboards and oboe, besides of the aforementioned Hrubý.

Nejlepší ženská našich dnů (The Best Woman Of Our Days) opens the album with a simple and bright slavic folk rock theme. (This is not unusual for Mišík at all; in times when the communist authorities used to push hard on the group, cancelling their regular gigs, Mišík & co. often performed "unplugged" in small clubs with a mixture of blues and folk songs.) But after this short intro Mišík introduces us to the "best woman of our days". And obviously, that lady wants to party! Well, it's 1979 and the Etc... crew delivers her the latest get-down soundtrack, laying down about two minutes of a tight funk rock groove that might please even a hard core P-Funk aficionado. In the second part of the song each musician presents his individual skills to the lady in a breathtaking series of short mini-solos - and I do mean solos - before all guys join forces again for the final section, taking the tune back where it originally started. Not surprisingly, the song was co-written by the virtuoso bass player Veselý. The ironical lyrics came from writer and translator Michal Staša.

The other eight songs of the album oscillate between the typical Mišík singer/songwriter folk like his biggest hit Variace na renesanční téma (A Variation On A Renaissance Theme), the sarcastic cajun blues Sladké je žít (It's Sweet To Be Alive) and the dismal high-speed jazzrock Na okraji (On The Edge) which was written by their former guitarist Jiří Jelínek, also a member of the legendary Mahagon who died tragically in 1977, aged mere 23.

Okay, I may be surely biased because I'm listening to this album since the early eighties, but Etc...2 doesn't have a single weak point. I admit though that it may help if you understand the Czech language to fully appreciate it. But even then, this record is so full of high class musicianship that it can be compared to the mighty Kuře v hodinkách, which again is actually a Mišík album, too... So, when I initially said "Living Legend", I surely mean it, and not just because nowadays Vladimír Mišík knows only one opponent that can sometimes keep him from entering a stage and singing his ass off: his long-standing asthma. Obviously his illness has been quite bad recently, so unfortunatelly Mišík had to cancel most of his summer gigs this year.

The rest of the Mišík story will be told another time while I'll introduce you to Flamengo. In the meantime, "turn up the lights, the best woman of our days comes inside, the day turns into night, the night turns into day, should I trust my eyes or my dreams?" And now, buy it already (try eBay or Gemm for vinyl), will ya?! This record is timeless.

Blues in soul

The Framus Five - Hold On I'm Comin' [sample]
from album "Blues In Soul", 1971, Supraphon 1130578
produced by Michael Prostějovský & Jaromír Tůma


1971 export reissue LP sleeve, on the left: Michal Prokop

Of the troika of my favorite Czech male rock singers, Michal Prokop is certainly my Mr. Soul (while the other two, Mr. Rock Jiří Schelinger and Mr. Blues Vladimír Mišík, will be featured on this blog very soon). Prokop, born 1946, co-founded the Framus Five in the early sixties. Initially they were devoted to the Mersey sound like the majority of other Czech beat groups but soon they added a horn section and switched to Memphis-oriented rhythm'n'blues. They performed at the famous 1st Czechoslovak Beat Festival 1967 in Prague where Prokop was (rightfully) declared the best singer of the event. They spent the following two years with successful touring all over the country and through Poland.

Hold On I'm Comin', a Hayes/Porter composition originally recorded by Sam & Dave for Stax, is the closing song from Framus Five's first album "Blues In Soul", recorded in the fall of 1968. Although you can hear applause at the beginning and at the end, this is only a pseudo-live "audience" which has been overdubbed to "glue" the album tracks together. Oh well, that gimmick used to be fashionable all around the world at that time. Nevertheless, the song steams like a locomotive engine on the loose, and, even in direct comparison to the certainly soulful S&D original, it is right about to explode. Hold on, baby, Michal Prokop sho 'nuff IS comin'!

Blues In Soul delivers exactly what its title promises. Originally released in 1969 as Framus Five + Michal Prokop, it contains ten R&B and soul covers like Got My Mojo Working, I Believe To My Soul, What'd I Say or Chuck Berry's funked up Around And Around - as well as Prokop's instrumental title track. This is your ultimate Czech R&B long play album because it is in fact, besides Flamingo's first LP (a.k.a. This Is Our Soul), the only one. Unfortunately, in 1971 when this stereo export reissue was finally released, the Framus Five were already history. Besides Prokop who also used to play the lead guitar, the original members were Ivan Trnka on keyboards, Ladislav Eliáš on bass, Petr Klárfeld on drums, Ivan Umáčený on trumpet and saxophonist Jiří Burda who also wrote the arrangements.

Later known as Michal Prokop & Framus 5, the group gave up the horn section and - most likely involuntarily - the English lyrics and for most parts also the "pure" soul. After recording another single as a quartet, in 1970 they were joined by the blues guitarist Luboš Andršt. Soon they began to work with the young producer Hynek Žalčík and poet Josef Kainar on their next album Město Er (A Town Called R). However, the band already broke up in the middle of the production, mostly due to elementary problems like "how do I manage to feed my family while being a musician"; remember, the "normalization" of the real-socialistic society has just begun and rock music was among the first sectors to be "normalized". But despite a few "fillers" on the b-side, Město Er, released in late 1971, remains one of the undisputed masterpieces in Czechoslovak rock history, thanks to the monumental 19 minutes title track where a prog-rock group meets blues poetry and a jazz big band.

Prokop spent most of the 1970s as a background singer with various Czech mainstream pop artists and in the ensemble of the renown Semafor theatre. At least, his superfunky Czech version of Edwin Starr's War (Nač nám je válka) was captured in 1975 on an obscure "socialistic" anti-war compilation Slunci vstříc (Facing The Sun), making it probably the only Norman Whitfield song that has ever been recorded by a Czech artist. (Hm, I guess that's definitely worth a separate Funky Czech-In post...) In 1978 he revived the Framus 5 trademark and recorded a rather puzzling disco-rock-soul LP Holubí dante (Pigeon's Dante) in 1980. But his best work was yet to come: the "free trilogy" albums Kolej Yesterday (College Yesterday, 1984), Nic ve zlým nic v dobrým (Nothing For Bad Nothing For Good, 1987) and Snad nám naše děti prominou (Perhaps Our Children Will Forgive Us, 1989) all belong to the best Czech rock records of the decade. (You can trust me because generally I consider myself an "eighties hater".)

In the 1990s Prokop has been performing only sporadically. He actively helped to build up the new democracy and worked a couple of years as a parliamentarian and even became a deputy minister of culture. Later he has been given the opportunity to host talk shows on Czech TV. The one named Krásný ztráty (Beautiful Losses) after a song from his 1984 album Kolej Yesterday - where Prokop intelligently interviews personalities from culture, sports and politics - is still up and running; even my 82 years old grandmother is quite a fan. (Coincidentally, one of the guests in the last friday issue is our "guest" from the previous Funky Czech-In post: ex-Marsyas singer Oskar Petr!) Prokop also released a new studio record earlier this year, his first after 17 years.

Blues In Soul and Město Er have been reissued on CDs including all 7-inch-only bonus tracks, so buy them, there's lots of music for a few bucks. The 1980s albums reissues should be available as well. You can also check out the vinyl on gemm.com or eBay: unlike Město Er (which I have finally found in Prague on vinyl only one year ago), Blues In Soul is not as rare as one might think.

In the Heat Bay

Marsyas - Záliv Žár [sample]
from 7 inch SP, 1979, Panton 81430006
arranged by Michael Kocáb


original SP sleeve (front/back, l. to r.: Petr, Michnová, Kalandra)

Marsyas started in the early 1970s as a folk duo of singer Zuzana Michnová with Petr Kalandra on guitar, harp and vocals. Soon they teamed up with the talented singer/songwriter, guitarist, photographer and painter Oskar Petr. After recording a "conservative" folk single and touring with Jazz Q and Pražský výběr, by 1977 they were ready for their debut long player. For the self-titled album they decided to present their folk repertoire in adequate new clothes, so the producer Hynek Žalčík brought them Pavel Fořt's studio group Labyrint. The line-up reads like a who-is-who in Czech jazz and rock music: besides guitar player Fořt (Karel Gott orchestra, ex-Flamengo) there was the original Pražský výběr rhythm section Kocáb/Soukup/Malina, another ex-Flamengo Jan Kubík on sax and flute, jazz keyboarder Emil Viklický and the ubiquitous percussionist Jiří Tomek, among others. The result was a timeless blend of folk rock with progressive and funky jazz rock. In the late 1970s the Marsyas members also appeared on other jazz and rock records as guests musicians, e.g. with Pražský výběr (album Žízeň/Thirst), Jiří Schelinger, Vladimír Mišík, Helena Vondráčková or Jazz Q.

Oskar Petr's Záliv Žár (Heat Bay) has been released in 1979 as a 7" single after he had already left Marsyas. With its rich string orchestration arranged by classically educated Michael Kocáb the song sounds quite depressing, sort of reflecting the unpleasant era of an escapist society in the midst of the normalization. The main theme is carried by Kocáb's funky clavinet vamp, augmented by sleazy synthesizers while Oskar sings about birds of passage flying over deserts and oases. Only occasionally the dark mood is broken by a short optimistic but wordless bridge with Zuzana's angel-like voice. The dramatical section in the middle of the song isn't much fun either: "In the Heat Bay the sun is merging with the water, I'm scared that it will fall over, almost as it would be drinking for the very last time" - followed by Kalandra's bluesy harp solo.
The exact line-up of the backing group is unknown to me, but according to Oskar Petr (as he recently replied to my question on his web site), the group and orchestra were overdubbed to the vocal/guitar basic tracks. Quite impressive. Thus most likely we're hearing Pražský výběr in its pre-new-wave line-up with Ondřej Soukup on bass and either Ladislav Malina or Vratislav Placheta on drums. 

After a short period of performing as the Jazz Q's lead singer, in 1979 Oskar Petr exiled to the USA. As it was a common rule in such a case then, most records mentioning him as a performer or songwriter disappeared from the store shelves and from radio airplay. Zuzana Michnová kept Marsyas alive for almost another decade as a groovy folk rock combo, in some songs partly anticipating Galliano's or Urban Species' acid-jazz/folk-rock fusion by more than ten years. Kalandra left the group in 1984 and passed away in 1995, after being seriously ill for a couple of years. Meanwhile, another edition of Marsyas came to life in 2004-2005, albeit without Petr.

So, here you have one of my most favorite Czech songs of all times. It took me about 20 years to locate a dusty copy of this particular vinyl single which I only used to know from a tape I once got from my uncle. While in the meantime all 1990s CD reissues have been deleted from the catalogues again, this masterpiece is still available on a recent best-of-CD Marsyas 1978-2004. A second reissue of the debut album - with Záliv Žár as one of the bonus tracks - is also planned and the CD is available for pre-order. So go and get it now! You can listen to audio samples of all Marsyas songs on their web site. Vinyl is available on gemm.com, musicstack.com or occasionally on eBay. Besides of that, I also have two Marsyas vinyl records for sale (items no. 20 and 23 in my list) from the late 1980s. But well, that's already that typical 80s drum machine pop rock...