Archive article – Big-Brain Polish Band Goes Spontaneous

Originally published by the now-defunct WiK English Edition, part of Poland’s reputed Wprost publishing house, in April 2007

Lao Che -Big-Brain Polish Band Goes Spontaneous

Lao Che, the band that brought rock and roll to the library with its first two albums, has lightened up. With Gusła (‘Witchcraft’) in 2002, and Powstanie Warszawskie (‘Warsaw Uprising’) in 2005 the group broke the mould with their painstaking research into crucial periods of Polish history. With the debut record a study of life in medieval times and the second a raucous tribute to the young fighters who lost their lives battling against the Nazis on Warsaw’s streets during the Second World War, Lao Che proved that the cerebral and visceral could be entwined in a powerful, ground-breaking manner in the studio.

But now, after the huge success of the second album – hailed by many critics as a seminal work in Polish music history – the band have decided to re-invent themselves. The dusty tomes have been cast aside and instead they have reached immediately for their instruments to see what comes out. When they play at Warsaw’s Proxima club on April 15th, they will be showcasing around four new songs, each of which will represent a significant departure from the old Lao Che sound, which while fascinating, was at times held down by the weight of its own intellect.

“We feel that to produce a third album based on historical events would be boring and a bit of a cliché,” said Mariusz Denst, the group’s drummer. “This time no topic was figured out before we created the music. We have done things completely at ease, by just sitting around and discussing our ideas and choosing the ones we feel are the most appealing.”

The only catch could be that this next record is so radically distinct from the previous two that some fans might struggle to recognize who is playing the songs. With Gusła, the tone was one that evoked images of agrarian filth, violence and the bleakest debauchery. With Powstanie Warszawskie, we received a right old earful of the rage that the Varsovian insurgents unleashed against their Nazi oppressors. Neither album contained much that erred on the brighter side of life and, in truth, they were better for it. But now, it seems, Lao Che have gone all chirpy on us.

“Probably it will be quite difficult for people to realize that it is Lao Che who are playing when they first hear the songs,” said Denst. “The first two albums were quite mood-oriented and a bit somber. So we have turned everything upside down and done something very happy and full of positive feelings. There is a lot of humour in the songs. The melodies and arrangements sound like something from the circus and there are also a number of jazz influences.”

How comfortably these new tracks will play alongside the older songs will be intriguing to find out and the only way to so will be to catch the band live, as none of the songs will be downloadable any day soon.

But whatever they sound like, to depart from the successful and extremely daring recipe of the ‘Powstanie Warszawskie’ album just goes to show what a brave group Lao Che are. In the eight years they have been together they have only released two records, such is the rigour they have applied to reading up on their subject matter. It is difficult to imagine a band in the West having any such nerve, and just as mind-boggling that a record company has been prepared to take them on.

So that we don’t grow complacent, however, the group say that the abundant cheer on the next album should not be misread as a sign of intention over the longer-term.

“This third album has been dictated by the reception of the Warsaw Uprising album. However, this does not mean we will be sticking to the same course from here on in,” said Denst.

Archive Article – Irvine Welsh on Dorota Maslowska

Originally published by the now-defunct New Warsaw Express on May 12^th 2006

Sounding Off in Translation

Polish literature was turned on its head in 2002 when 20-year-old Dorota Maslowska published her novel ‘White and Red’, (or ‘Wojna Polsko Ruska Pod Flaga Bialo- Czerwona, as it was then known) to universal acclaim.

Translated into English only last year, the book brings us into the unhinged world of the Gdansk-based wanderer Andrzej ‘Nails’ Robakowski who, constantly high on amphetamines, lurches through incidents with a series of other characters in a fit of misanthropic despair.

What gripped Polish readers when they picked up ‘White and Red’ was that it was the first novel in the language to employ the street vernacular of the post-communist period. Gone were the long strokes of literary introspection beloved by classic writers such as Witold Gombrowicz. 

Here was something raw and immediate, analogous to the bewildering pace of change in the real world of 21^st Century Poland.

“I think it has been worth living 40 years to finally read something so interesting,” wrote critic Marcin Swietlicki, after reading the book when it first came out.

The English version - translated ably enough by Benjamin Paloff – captures much of the frantic impatience of the original but one constantly feels a nagging sense of distance from the essence of the book.  One oft-quoted parallel for Maslowska’s work has been the impact of Irvine Welsh’s ‘Trainspotting’, written in the harsh working-class vernacular of his native Edinburgh.

In Warsaw in March, Welsh summed up some of his reservations about ‘White and Red’.

“I have a problem when I read any European novel translated into English,” he told NWE. “They either sound as if the characters come from some small American town or somewhere in inner London. Translation often has the impact of taking something that you can tell is fairly specific – and has its own vitality and culture – and homogenising it. I think that translators could sometimes be much more creative.”

Yet he said he appreciated ‘White and Red’ despite all that.

“I enjoyed the book but kind of felt I was missing out by not reading it in Polish. I could feel there was much more to it than I was getting,’ he went on. “It was like seeing the top of an iceberg.”

Since ‘White and Red’ was published in English, reviewers have been queuing up to compare Maslowska to Welsh. Even with the limitations inherent in the translated version, readers are still treated to much the same urgency and high-octane bile in ‘White and Red’ as they experienced in ‘Trainspotting’. It is in that feature of the novel that lies both its strength and weakness.

Nails’ rant begins after being ditched by his girlfriend Magda. The tirade continues as he careers around town, slipping the odd nugget of texture – that the city is up in arms against the ‘Russkies’ – the traders from Russia who are supposedly violating Polish soil -  and that Nails has himself had it with Poland’s brand new model of capitalism.

His response is to get off his head on speed and try it on with various women, at turns a goth, who pukes up stones into his bath, a psychotic amphetamine freak who tears around his flat looking for a fix and a truly scary arch-Catholic, who lectures him on the evils of tobacco and alcohol. Nail’s angst intensifies when he fails to have sex with any of them and as a reader you experience it as if he is shouting in your ear.

Welsh’s prose is often the same. The characters reel off a litany of tales and complaints without taking a breath. In neither Maslowska nor Welsh does there seem time to take a pause for thought. This is because of their preoccupation with how a novel ‘sounds’, as Welsh himself said.

But we do not read with our ears. Sometimes we need to switch off from the din and feel prose seep into our minds without any noise, taking us from the daily grind and leading to the gradual throb of enlightenment. Maslowska and Welsh, products of our high-volume times, could do with turning it down just a touch.

Fashion, Music and Theatre Fused - Crossing Boundaries – Battling Mediocrity

Taken by Darron Palmer

Crossing Boundaries – Battling Mediocrity

Let’s be in no doubt about it, we live in philistine times. With the television show Britain’s Got Talent - already a shrine to mediocrity - awarding its first prize to a dog we can safely say that the UK has got issues with intellect and aesthetic taste.

Yet glimmers of inspiration do appear every now and then, even on this often silly, sceptred isle.

On May 13^th at the Adrian Boult Hall in the Birmingham Conservatoire, an attempt was made to wake Britain up to its real talent, with not a canine in sight.

A play, concert and fashion show, all-in-one, with the proceeds going to charity, the ambition of the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ show attracted skepticism, particularly from the local media whose support was notable for its absence. You wonder what they were thinking when you take a look at their often unreadable pages and unwatchable local TV programmes. Dross is their watchword, the lowest common denominator their apparent guiding principle, which is probably why they failed to turn up at the conservatoire on Sunday.

The brainchild of local fashion designer, musician and composer, Jojo Remeny, the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ extravaganza began with a play addressing the prejudices of the 1960s, taking as its cue the experiences of George Saunders, an immigrant and master tailor from St. Kitts who struggled to find work in his trade because of the colour of his skin. He ended up a factory worker when he should have been measuring up the rich and famous. Consummately acted and brimming with humour, the play – written by Stephen Moran – made an acerbic dig at the dying conservatism of the decade that wrought so much change. 

The concert began after a ten-minute break and made one’s heart soar like a hawk. Fusing Indian music, classical and jazz music, Jojo Remeny’s exquisite symphony took you on a journey through the continents and the emotions too. Tabla, violin, guitar and horns conjoined here and there in subdued harmony, rising temper and threatening crescendo, without the latter yet coming to pass.

I had my doubts about fashion and serious music being intertwined, if I am being honest. Clothing, however sophisticated, bespeaks brand names and the high street; orchestras an escape from all that. Others had reservations while watching the show, with some saying the models should have made their presence felt earlier. I, for one, thought their entrance perfectly timed.

The dancers in their monochrome skirts and dresses entered the scene and glided down the stairway at a moment when the audience was entranced by the music. At just the right time, that is. Their femininity with its swaying hips and limbs flowed in tandem with the soft notes of the musicians until the moment came to up the ante. Strictly choreographed, the dancers/models responded in kind.

The show started with a play and ended with pure epic theatre, proving that individual talent can meld brilliantly in abundant directions.

Eclecticism is commonly frowned upon in our culture, thinking it “too clever by half”. The ambition displayed by the ‘Crossing Boundaries’ show won’t work, the cynics insist. There seem to be plenty of those taking up office space at Birmingham’s media outlets right now.

Despite its apparent multi-culturalism, the UK has developed an attitude of late that you have to be one thing or another when it comes to artistic expression. Pigeon-holing is a national pastime and it is unremittingly dull. Look out of the window, walk the streets. There is a world of variety out there. Embrace it, and more importantly, get it into your skull.

Guesting on Paul D. Brazill's Blogspot

http://pdbrazill.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/true-brit-grit-guest-blog-teenage-kicks.html

Guest Blogger - Paul D. Brazill - Charlie Higson - The Godfather of Brit Grit?

Charlie Higson - The Godfather of Brit Grit? by Paul D. Brazill

At some point in the ‘90s, I was on the guest list for a press screening of Robert Benton’s crime drama, Twilight. The screening was in Mr Young’s Preview Theatre in the heart of London’s Soho.

It was a dangerous thing to invite me to; there was free food and drink. But there you go! 

Various press types were there, including an American with a grating voice and the great Kim Newman - who was being as witty and funny and clever as you’d want.

Just before the film was due to start, a figure in a shabby raincoat and carrying a rattling, clinking plastic bag turned up.

It was Charlie Higson, who at the time was film critic for Red Magazine. Higson sat behind me during the film and, it seemed to my booze sensitive ears, worked his way through a fair number of the bottles of beer that were in the carrier bag.

Higson, at that time, was best known as one of the stars and writers of The Fast Show – a brilliantly funny and bitter-sweet comedy sketch show that has been much imitated and never bettered. Now, he is probably best known as the author of the hugely successful Young James Bond YA books.

But he is also the writer of a bunch of dark and funny urban crime/ horror novels that led him to be described as “The missing link between Dick Emery and Bret Easton Ellis”.

 

King Of The Ants, his 1992 début novel, is the story of Sean, a pretty useless builder’s labourer, who covets the rich peoples’ homes that he works on and is offered a dodgy surveillance job which then turns into a contract kill. And worse.

King Of the Ants was praised by the great Patricia Highsmith, no less, and the praise is deserved. It is a classic piece of Brit Grit noir, full of bitterness, resentment and underachievement. And humour.

This was followed by more cracking books, including The Full Whack, the cruel and hilarious story of a former football hooligan who is trying to sort his life out when he encounters a couple of blasts from the past that are positively seismic.

Charlie Higson will probably be up for an OBE or something soon but don’t worry ‘bout the rocks that he’s got - Charlie Higson has TRUE BRIT GRIT.

Paul D. Brazill was born in England and now lives in Poland. He left school at sixteen, played bass guitar in a couple of early '80s post-punk bands and once saw Bert Kwouk very, very drunk. 

He started writing flash fiction & short stories at the end of 2008 and has had them published in various magazines and anthologies, including The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime 8. 

He has since had two collections published -13 Shots Of Noir (Untreed Reads) & Snapshots (Pulp Metal Fiction). Pulp Press will be publishing his novella Guns Of Brixton soon and he has put together two anthologies, True Brit Grit, published by Guilty Conscience, and Drunk On The Moon, published by Dark Valentine Press. His blog is You Would Say That Wouldn’t You?