Everything about The Plastic People Of The Universe totally explained
For the Frank Zappa and the Mothers song, see Absolutely Free
The Plastic People of the Universe (
PPU) is a rock band from
Prague,
Czech Republic. It was the foremost representative of
Prague's underground culture (1968-1989). This avant-garde group went against the grain of the Communist regime and due to its non-conformism often suffered serious problems such as arrests.
History
From January into August 1968, under the rule of
Communist Party leader
Alexander Dubček, Czechoslovakians experienced the
Prague Spring. In August,
Soviet and other
Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to the repulsion of the American-initiated effort to disorder and finally overthrow the socialistic state. This led to the overthrow of Dubček and to, in what came to be known as the
normalization process. Less than a month after the invasion, Plastic People of the Universe was formed.
Bassist
Milan Hlavsa formed the band which was heavily influenced by
Frank Zappa (
Plastic People being a song by Zappa and
the Mothers of Invention) and the
Velvet Underground in 1968. Czech art historian and cultural critic
Ivan Jirous became their manager/artistic director in the following year,
Because Ivan Jirous believed that
English was the
lingua franca of rock music, he employed
Paul Wilson, a
Canadian who had been teaching in Prague, to teach the band the lyrics of the American songs they covered and to translate their original Czech lyrics into English. Wilson served as lead singer for the Plastics from 1970 to 1972, and during this time, the band's repertoire drew heavily on songs by the Velvet Underground and the
Fugs. The only two songs sung in Czech in this period were "Na sosnové větvi" and "Růže a mrtví", lyrics of both being written by Czech poet Jiří Kolář. Wilson encouraged them to sing in Czech. After he left saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec joined the band and they began to draw upon
Egon Bondy whose work had been banned by the government. In the following 3 years Bondy's lyrics nearly completely dominated the PPU music. In December 1974 the band recorded their first "studio" album, Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned (the title being a play on The Beatles'
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), which was released in France in 1978.
In 1974, thousands of students traveled from Prague to the town of
Ceske Budejovice to visit "the Plastics" performance. Stopped by police, they were sent back to Prague, and several students were arrested.
The band was forced underground until the
Velvet Revolution in 1989. Unable to perform openly, an entire underground cultural movement formed around the band during the 1970s.
In 1976 "the Plastics" and other people from underground were arrested and put on trial (after performing at the Third festival of the second culture) by the Communist government to make an example. They were convicted of "organized disturbance of the peace" and sentenced to terms in prison ranging from 8 to 18 months.
Paul Wilson was deported
even though he'd left the band in 1972. It was in protest of these arrests and prosecution that led playwright
Václav Havel and others to write the
Charter 77.
In 1978 the PPU recorded Pašijové hry velikonoční (released in Canada as "The Passion Play" at Paul Wilson's company Boží mlýn). The lyrics were written earlier by Vratislav Brabenec. In 1979 followed Jak bude po smrti, being influenced by a Czech writer from the first half of the 20th century,
Ladislav Klíma. In 1980 they rehearsed and performed a new record, recorded one year later, Co znamená vésti koně (released in Canada as "Leading Horses"). In 1982 Vratislav Brabenec was forced by the police to leave and emigrate to Austria. After he left, the band recorded it's next record Hovězí porážka (1983) and Půlnoční myš (1986, Midnight Mouse).
Despite their clashes with the government, the musicians never considered themselves activists and always claimed that they wanted only to play their music. The band broke up in 1988, with some members forming the group
Půlnoc (meaning "midnight" in Czech)
. At President Havel's suggestion, they reunited in 1997 in honor of the 20th anniversary of Charter 77
, and have performed regularly since then.
Milan Hlavsa died in 2001.
Paul Wilson later went on to become one of the major translators into English of Václav Havel's work. Currently he's working on a new translation of
The Memorandum
for the Havel Festival, which also features two other of his translations.
Interest in the band was rekindled in 2006 thanks to a new play,
Rock 'n' Roll by
Tom Stoppard, in which two of their recordings are featured. The play's characters also discuss at length the music of the Plastics and its effects on Czech society. The Plastics performed in London for the first time in January 2007 with new member Eva Turnová on bass.
Personnel
Discography
Muž bez uší (live recordings 1969-72)
Vožralej jak slíva (live recordings 1973-75)
Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned (1974)
Ach to státu hanobení (live recordings 1976-77)
Pašijové hry velikonoční (1978)
Jak bude po smrti (1979)
Co znamená vésti koně (1981)
Kolejnice duní (1977-82)
Hovězí porážka (1983-84)
Půlnoční myš (1985-86)
Bez ohňů je underground (1992-93)
The Plastic People of the Universe (1997)
For Kosovo (1997)
10 let Globusu aneb underground v kostce (2000)
Milan Hlavsa - Než je dnes člověku 50 - poslední dekáda (2001)
Líně s tebou spím - Lazy Love/ In Memoriam Mejla Hlavsa (2001)
Pašijové hry/ Passion Play (with Agon Orchestra) (2004)
Do lesíčka na čekanou (2007)Further Information
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