I'm a big fan of this band, I'm not the band itself.I learned to know about the band during my travels through the Czech and Slovak Republics. Some people on the road told me about this great band and after a while i had the great oppotunity to be at a small "underground" festival in the south of CZ, near Dacice (BIGBEAT ve Vydri, 1996). There, bands played like Vaclav Koubek, DG 307 and Psi Vojad. It was a very nice surrounding, at the farm of Ivan Martin Jirous (Magor). I was there with a friend of Magor and we were early at the place, so we could help some with the preparations for the festivals and in the evenings we went to the local pubs. The atmosphre at the festival was so special, i will never forget.
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.
Bass player Milan Hlavsa formed the band in 1968, which was heavily influenced by Frank Zappa (Plastic People is a song by Zappa and the Mothers) and the Velvet Underground.
Czech art historian and cultural critic Ivan Jirous (aka Magor, which means: loony or blockhead) became their manager/artistic director in the following year, fulfilling a similar role the one Andy Warhol had with the The Velvet Underground.
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.
In 1974, thousands of students traveled from Prague to the town of Ceske Budejovice to visit the PPU performance. Stopped by police, they were sent back to Prague in cattle cars, 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 PPU were arrested and put on trial 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.
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 Pulnoc (midnight in Czech). At President Havel's suggestion, they reunited in 1997 in honor of the 20th aniversary of Charter 77, and have performed regularly since then.Milan Hlavsa died in 2001
Concert at Spalova Galerie, August 31 1969
ppu Concert at Havlickuv Brod, December 12-1969
Concert at Club Na Zavadilce, May 31 1972
Cutting Room, NYC 11/11/2006
