Uprostred

Uprostred

 Plastic People, Pulnoc, Other Middle and East European Rock

by Don Allred
February 24 - March 2, 1999 Issue 08, 1999

As Czech novelist-musician Josef (The Bass Saxophone) Skvorecky recounts it in Hipness At Noon, Prague's Plastic People of the Universe were seized on by the post-Soviet invasion government- sanctioned Musicians Union's leadership to discredit its uppity Jazz Section. In court, the PPU were subsequently ruled out of the order of all things---not, disappointingly, for the hairy shapeliness of their freedom-lovin' sound, but for singing the word "shit" (in answer to, "What do you resemble in your greatness?").

They wouldn't back down from unasked-for political martyrdom,  and thus inspired the movement that somehow peacefully took over their government. 

They also smuggled out Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, which made the most of being generated deep in a castle after midnight, and then there were stall-stomping Leading Horses, and Passion Play, among others.

When the all-clear was finally sounded, the Plastics, whose name was meant to signify adaptability, broke up. (Maybe---gratuitously projecting here, but still, as happens more often than mentioned---it was like spouses and others who separate only after a long family crisis is passed.)

In any case, three members stepped out to form

Pulnoc. Who evidently came to rock away the barnacles of history,
but initially tended toward endless guitarrr.
By the time they were  Live In New York (1989, released on CD in
1996), however, with NYC stringtwisters E. Sharp and (Beefheart vet) G. Lucas also aboard, guitar was Pulnoc's sweet mighty trained engine, no longer trying to eat
the whole vehicle.

 In "Vidiny," on Fiction's self-titled 1996 album, Plastic/Pulnoc person Milian Hlavsa just
keeps slo-o-w-ly raising the noize level around a sleepless chantoozie— the sound
doesn't change til it does, and the moon hits all eyes like a flipper. 1997's Black Point

import The Black Sampler offers illegible titles, P/P vet Joseph Janicek's
Echt!, and a co-op including Plastics Brabenec, Brabec, and Karafiat. Echt!
motorvate a rusty sled to run over wolves from presumptuous Russian fairy tales (also featuring a tenderly growled dream sequence or two). Brabenec's crew
float through nightmares and nightcaps like Reed and Cale revisiting an unplugged and
un-Nico'd "It Was a Pleasure Then," trapped on a raft in sweet air. 

But now everybody's back on Plastic People's atombrain express, stoked by another punk-progressively stylized,  ravenously droning, blast furnace bellyful of  Velvet U. lessons before dying  x Beefhearty sax: a  roller coaster subway groove, raking coals, knocking pipes into the generously rationed breath of glory, judging by their reunion disc, 1997.

 If that's too classical, become very aware of Uz Jsme Doma, currently
HQ'd in Brooklyn. Live, or via the 1998-recorded live disc now added to their
early-'90s Uprostred Slov, they may just prog/ska/punk-ly march your
preconceptions right up the wall to spazzercise the ceiling away. 

("Uprostred slov" means "In the middle of words, there's a trap.")

Down the same vein, Kniha Psana Chaosem finds DG 307, named for a psychiatric ticket out of military draft, and co-founded by Plastics'/Pulnoc's/Fiction's Milan Hlavsa, luring a nitrate-based image of an electric violin through nocturnal river plains, tracing how speech can help tune melody and vice versa. 

Further south still, we find Chor Vzskych
Muzikantov. This Choir of Important Musicians are said to be the Slovakian political
equivalent to Plastic People.
Wonder why: it's just a barnful o' beatniks beerfueling farm implements to
play orkystrations of stick-figure jazz-ska. These seeming slackers parody/see & raise the
parody commandos of UJD (yet: more seeming, more dreaming, while they

 keep such natty nutty neighbors awake). 

In comely contrast, Ali Ibn Rachid's vocalist Lubo

 instantly engages, with a truly smoov line backed by tiny raging guitar and
clockwork drums. I think that these denote tiny raging hormones, and that this
 is a booty call.

Later, by campfire, we may well sense the presence of Jablkon 's Baba Aga, in which
adroit "gypsy" guitar (and our taste for the exotic) is often jostled by flying
lipservice and spoons. They kill with a microscopically titled hookup between
the likes of Nilsson's "Coconut" and Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime." Put de
sproing in de skiffle and call me right now! I'd swear they also hootenanny
Mountain's "Mississippi Queen" riff under a swooning strip of Cream's "A-h-h,
feel free . . . ," right thru a ricochet wisp of "Golden Years." This song is
distressingly short, but it would have to be. Jablkon also may have taken tips
from Harpo's harp and Chico's "cardsharp piano." Recommended to soundtrackers
of movies and magic acts (on and off stage).

Back home, uprostred once more, I put on Liz, by Czech American group
Skulpey. They blow up my impacted rage, shame, and frustration— jagged chunks, right
as rain. They're my iron for the day. Other Amerikanskis have been to the
well: Jennifer DeFelice moves basslines, and the odd but incisive English lyric,
thru the everyday secrets of Slede. Zive Slede's Milacek Vytari Krajinu. And
there are cross-cultural bands I haven't heard yet, like Deep Sweden, and
Sabot, whose '99 tour begins in the Czech Republic and continues thru China. 

Czech-etc. rock CD-ordering information can be obtained via www.tamizdat.org.
Plastic People of the Universe play the Knitting Factory February 27 and 28.

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