ACH TO STÁTU HANOBENÍ

‘Ach to státu Hanobení’ (Oh, Dishonor to the State) is a collection of live recordings of the band from the 1976-1977 period where they were pretty fractured most of the time thanks to being arrested for disturbance of the peace by the Communist government and serving out various prison terms. The band’s concerts were nearly all clandestine, performed at secret ‘festivals’ out of town, or under the pretext of a wedding or family celebration. I would imagine the crowds were mostly small.

Canadian Paul Wilson, who had been a member of the band in earlier days and had married a Czech national, was deported during this period and returned to Canada where he arranged to have some of the band’s material released.

The music here is mostly primitive, as was a lot of the Plastic’s material until their later years. I don’t know what most of the lyrics are about, but given the album’s title and some track names like “Phallus Impudicus” and “Apokalyptickej Ptak” I can pretty much guess as to some of the themes.

A couple of the band’s more well-known songs appear here in early form, most notably the power chord-laden “Prší, prší” and the (not surprisingly) bluesy “Spofa Blues”. Elsewhere the cacophonic “Eliasuv ohen” and dirge-like “Nebo jití jest Hospodinovo” show the band’s range and sense of humor at the same time.

The showcase song on the album is the twenty minute long “100 bodù”, a rambling and completely improvisational jam with rambling half-sung, half-spoken vocals that I believe have something to do with the 1974 police raid of a Plastics concert at the town of Budejovice, although I can’t be sure.

This is one of the marginal Plastics albums that I know was released more for its historical interest than for its musical value; but even in that context its an important album for fans. The early versions of “Prší, prší” and “Spofa Blues” are worth hearing, and the more edgy tracks show a side of the band that wasn’t exposed all that often on their other recordings. This is better than a collector’s piece but probably not essential, so three stars it is but a big red raspberry in tribute of the dishonor to a state that deserved every bit of that.

peace