Plastic People of the Universe

obal ,knizka a deska jako nove
pravdepodobne nepouzite

Y’know, for years I always thought the “Velvet Revolution” was when Lou Reed wrote “Sister Ray.” Turns out there was a little more to it than that (though that was pretty damn revolutionary). See, in former Communist Czechoslovakia, ya needed a “license to rock,” if ya weren’t playing “State-Approved” swill that’d embarrass Dean Martin. Needless to say, Prague’s Plastic People of the Universe didn’t play that shit, had their R&R privileges revoked, and were thrown in jail. The band themselves wanted nothing more than to be famous for playing the music that they loved; they had no desire to be revolutionaries. However, after their arrests, an entire community of dissidents sprung up around the band, many of whom– like future Czech President Vaclav Havel– would be instrumental in the overthrow of communist rule.

Formed in 1968 as a Fugs/Velvets cover band by bassist Milan Hlavsa, they were approached by art historian and cultural critic Ivan Jirous, who convinced them to concentrate on writing original material– he also became their manager (he had Warholian aspirations), hiring Paul Wilson, a Canuck teacher stationed in Prague, to translate their lyrics into English. Wilson, who became their vocalist from 1970-72, encouraged them to revert to their native tongue before his departure. Taking his advice to heart, they began working on a series of songs based around the words of Egon Bondy, a Czech poet/philosopher whose work had recently been banned by the government. Thus, Hlavsa, with bandmates Vratislav Brabenec (sax), Josef Janíček (guitars/keys), Jiří Kabeš (violin/viola) and Jan Brabec (drums) entered the studio in 1974 to record this LP, their first “proper” release.

More than two decades has not diminished the Freak Appeal of “Banned”– as steeped in Eastern European Classical composers as it in the Mothers/Fugs/VU triumvirate . This is doom-laden music infused with black humor and impeccable musicianship. Opener “20″ with its Van Vliet-like meter sets the tone:

Today when one is twenty
He would vomit with repulsion

But those of forty even more
Would puke in sheer revulsion

Only those of sixty have it easier
They sleep in peace with their amnesia

“Toxica” has a spider-running-across-the-fretboard guitar solo that dukes it out with some wigged-out theremin abuse– two-tone squalls of sound battling for skronk supremacy. “Okolo Okna,” features a sinister bass line augmented by some positively creepy violin-sawing that resembles Jean-Luc Ponty– if he’d ever been taught the art of restraint. Brabenec’s demented, Peter Brötzmann-esque saxophone excursions will liquefy your gray matter immediately– not only is his work on par with any “free” player you care to name, his hellacious honking is soaked in reverb, giving it a detached, otherworldly quality not captured before or since.

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I remember the first time I tried to listen to this album, I was a little disappointed in the opener, "Dvacet;" though it introduces the group's appealing instrumentation (including saxophone, violin, some weird keyboards and delay-treated vocals), the melodic pattern is simple and repetitive, and though I'm aware the Czech poetry (written by Egon Bondy) that makes up the lyrics is probably pretty charged, I can't understand Czech and don't have a source for translation.  I must have stopped listening and switched to something else before the one-minute mark, when the free jazz-informed sax solo starts with a scream from one of the vocalists, and the group's primal groove kicks in.  When I finally gave the album a second chance, I remember kicking myself for not listening just a bit further.  Though it's just a couple minutes long, "Dvacet" is a good example of the group's compositional style, which relies on repetitive grooves and sing-song melodies as a backdrop for some pretty wild soloing.

It becomes pretty apparent how Frank Zappa-influenced these guys are (they even took their name from a Mothers of Invention song) after just a few minutes, but I like how they take the irreverent mood and tense harmonic structure of Zappa and Henry Cow and apply it to a much more primitive structure of simplistic but often brutal riffing.  "Toxica" spaces out a minor theme with effective theatricality before riff-izing it for a great fuzz guitar solo, while "Magicke Noci" starts with some delirious synthesizer before launching into one of the album's most punishingly foreboding riffs, somehow conjured just from bass, rhodes and drums.  "Podivuhodny mandarin" is probably the best fusion of lyrical rhythm and hypnotic riffing on the album--make sure to check out the video of a 2009 performance; these guys are still rocking this material even though they're old and grizzled!

Though a few of the quieter tracks (like "Okolo Okna") might not be as immediate or arresting, the group always manages to set up a unique atmosphere and accomplish some spacey soloing.  I also really like their deeper ventures into satirical territory on the short spoof "MGM" (wherein the group imitates MGM's opening lion roar with their own voices) and the theatrical closer "Jo - to se ti to spi," where the vocalizing is almost Robert Wyatt-like.  Keep in mind that this is an underground recording (the sound quality is pretty low), but the group's untamed irreverent spirit and counter-cultural defiance always manage to show through--you can easily tell that they're not only risking their political freedom to make this music, they're also having a great time doing it!
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