Avant garde Czechoslovakian rock music during the communist era might not be everyone’s cup of tea. However, here’s a Czechoslovakian band called the Plastic People of the Universe (known as PPU), who were formed in what was then communist eastern Europe, and who became a catalyst for the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in 1989.
It all began in 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and brutally put an end to the ‘Prague Spring’. A bass player called Milan Hlavsa formed the Plastic People of the Universe shortly after the Soviet invasion. The other band members were guitarist Josef Janíček and viola player Jiří Kabeš (there’s been many changes to the line-up since then). The band were heavily influenced by the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa (their name comes from a Zappa song). It was a bitch being a rock band in communist eastern Europe, particularly an avant garde rock band, and in 1970 the Czech government banned the Plastic People of the Universe. This gained the band a greater following. As the 70s progressed the Czech poet Jiří Kolář began to write lyrics for the Plastic People of the Universe, as did the philosopher and poet Egon Bondy (Bondy’s work had also been banned by the Czech government). In 1974 the Plastic People of the Universe put together their first album. It was called Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned (a play on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album). The album was later smuggled out of Czechoslovakia and was released in France in 1978. This track from Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned is called ‘Toxica’…
Due to the fact that the Plastic People of the Universe were banned, a large underground cultural movement formed around them. Their music was spread surreptitiously. Gigs were held in secret. A not so secret gig in 1976 resulted in the band members being sent to prison for 8 months, along with a lot of other people who were in the underground music scene. It was the arrest and imprisonment of the Plastic People of the Universe & co that motivated Václav Havel and others to write Charter 77 in 1977, which indicted the Czechoslovakian government of human rights abuses. This next track is called Kolejnice Duní and was made at about the time of Charter 77…
(I can’t now find an online track of ‘Kolejnice Duní’)
Despite doing prison time, and with constant harassment from the police (which included beatings), the Plastic People of the Universe continued to perform and put out albums (one of the few places they could perform was at Vaclav Havel’s country house, where Havel was under house arrest). The intimidation from the authorities continued and in 1988 the founding member, Milan Hlavsa, in return for being able to perform legally again, left the Plastic People of the Universe and the band split-up. The following year the Czechoslovakian communist government was swept from power by the Velvet Revolution. The playwright and dissident Vaclav Havel then of course became the President of Czechoslovakia (you’d have a hard job making any of this up). At President Havel’s suggestion the Plastic People of the Universe reunited in 1997 in honour of the 20th anniversary of Charter 77. With various changes in the line-up, the band have been going strong ever since (sadly, Hlavsa, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer in 2001; which is what killed Havel). This next track is called Podivuhodný mandarin, originally on the Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned album and performed in 2007…
Vaclav Havel (1936-2011) RIP
truth and love will prevail over lies and hatred
)