Line-up of club Stromoradie at Pohoda on the Ground on Friday, 9 July
Stromoradie will bring to the Pohoda on the Ground festival the bands Mňága a Žďorp, Bez ladu a skladu, Chiki liki tu-a, Chór vážskych muzikantov, Edo Klena & Klenoty, and Hungarian legend Korai Öröm will show up with their psychedelic-trance project Korai Trancemission. Martin Višňovský, the head of Stromoradie and the singer of Chiki liki tu-a, said about their selection: “When Michal approached me with this year’s idea for Pohoda, I was excited and immediately began to think about the bands that most belong to the festival and our club. It was then when I remembered the poster of the "Halušky s Pepsi colou" festival, which took place in Prague at the end of the 1980s and where new interesting bands from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic were introduced at the time. So I offered them a chance to repeat this success also this year under the working title of our stage ‘geriatrics on tour’.”
14. May 2021
MŇÁGA A ŽĎORP
Mňága a Žďorp is a legendary and still extremely productive Czech alternative rock band from Valašské Meziříčí. The band formed already in the first half of the 80s and became more widely known with their hit “Hodinový hotel”, which is the first song on their debut album Made in Valmez (1991). Their last, already the 14th album, was released in October 2019 and is called Trecie plochy. musicserver said it is a “celebratory ode to the classic Mňága” and iReport.cz commented that the band “do on the new album what they want and they do it well”. The band’s frontman Petr Fiala cooperated with Michal Kaščák and Marcel Nevín in the show Ladí neladí. There also is a mystifying film about the band, Mňága—Happy End. Recently, their fans have been enjoying live-streaming concerts from the rooftops, and we are glad that the Stromoradie club invited them back to the ground among the visitors of the Pohoda on the Ground festival. The club’s line-up manager said about them: “To me, they are an example of hard word. What the guys are able to play, prepare, release, combine, etc. after all these years is, a great inspiration for me. Currently the best band from the brothers from Moravia.”
BEZ LADU A SKLADU
Last autumn, Bez ladu a skladu planned to celebrate the 35 years on the scene in towns and cities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Their big tour in small clubs was postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic, but they do have one definite date in their calendar—on Friday, 9th July, they are booked for the Stromoradie club from Prešov to perform on its stage as part of the Pohoda on the Ground festival. Bez ladu a skladu formed in 1985. Only a year later, they played a concert at Prague’s Rockfest 86; following that, they mainly appeared at Czech alternative clubs and festivals. Among the memorable concerts before 1989 was, for example, the one at the festival in Lipnice 88 after Václav Havel's speech and those at Slovak festivals Čertovo kolo 87 and 88 (which turned to be a kind of an early sign of multimedia festivals that would begin to emerge in the 1990s). Before 1989, the band had a number of problems with the official regime; after the Velvet Revolution, they started to release CDs and play in Czechoslovakia as well as in Western Europe. In 2009, the New York Times included them among the “bands that poked at the Iron Curtain”. “That was the first name that came to my mind when Michal approached me about stage booking. We have enjoyed ourselves a lot over the years and it is definitely going to be a wonderful experience to have them on our stage at the festival,” Martin wrote about the band.
CHIKI LIKI TU-A
“Unbeatably the best and most frequently playing band in the Stromoradie club. So far, they have always sold out with us. Michal suspects that even after 26 years of playing, we wanted to be the youngest performer of our day at Pohoda,” says Martin Višňovský about his own band. The band are known for their witty lyrics, great atmosphere of their performances and the varied mixing of genres. They debuted with album Nezatváraj Milan dvere in 1998. In 2000, they released Budeš musel vlasy na blond prefarbil with hits such as “Kristína” and “Kuca paca”. The following re-edition of the previous two albums including bonuses, called Kysak, was released by the Pohoda agency. Probably the most successful was the album Choďte sa hrať pred vlastný vchod with hits like “Láska moja de si”, “Monte Carlo” and “Ďakujem”. According to fans, album Slzy tvý mámy, Šedivý a spol was the best at the Radio_Head Awards 2015. The band—aka founders of acrobatic rock´n´roll and the Festival of bad music, holders of Zlatý gunár award, as well as the Slovak band most frequently playing abroad, celebrated their twenty years together with a great concert at Pohoda 2015. In October 2016, they released album 3x4=13, which contains their well-known songs adapted for a large wind section, cover versions, and live recordings. Similar to Bez ladu a skladu, they too planned to celebrate the founding of the band last autumn on a tour called Dvadsaťpäť roky. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, this didn’t work out. But both bands will make up for it at Pohoda on the Ground.
CHVM
Chór vážskych muzikantov (CHVM) celebrated forty years on stage last year, and this year their member Ľuboš Dzúrik (whom metal fans and people involved in punk music, electronic music scene and the underground music call “daddy”) received the Award for Contribution to Music. Thanks to the band, Trenčín became the centre of Slovakian alternative scene. They have helped many bands, including Bez ladu a skladu. Their first official concert took place at the first year of the Gympelrock festival in Trenčín. The positive response from the visitors of the concert was not shared by communist officials: they turned off the electricity during the bandʼs concert, and the band was ʻenjoyed similar pleasuresʼ up until 1989. The first years after the collapse of communism, paradoxically, brought about a decline in the bandʼs activity. CHVMʼs second peak years were 2005—2010, when they recorded three albums in a short sequence. They celebrated their 30 years on scene with a joint concert with The Stranglers at Pohoda 2010. The band, which influenced the alternative scene in Slovakia in an extraordinary way, will perform on the stage of the Stromoradie club. The head of the club wrote about this booking: “We love them very much. I still remember the very first meeting at Pohoda 98, where we changed each other’s recordings and listened to them on the way home. Slovak bands must never be missing.”
EDO KLENA & KLENOTY
Folk/rock band Edo Klena & Klenoty plays songs by songwriter Edo Klena. They have released albums Republika Šariš (finals of RHA of Rádio FM 2013 nominations in the world/folk category), Láska a Lov€, Škaredý deň v Chujave (2016, finals of RHA of Rádio FM 2016 nominations in the world/folk category), double album Klena & Klenoty (2006-2011), and Vata (2019). Miro Čvela wrote about the latest recording for Denník N: “The album is an author's statement about fluffy light material—in music, in society, in our own heads. It is about the lack of care for our better future. That is why you will find also other political references on the album, like in songs Posledný nech zhasne and Von zo systému.” Apart from Edo Klena, the band consists of Jozef Marcin (bass guitar and vocals), Adam Kaščák (drums), and Lukáš Valkučák (electric guitar) (guest Jaroslav Janek: trumpets/vocals, Ján Višňovský: saxophone). Edo Klena is a songwriter from Prešov, who has been performing at many events throughout Czechoslovakia since 1986. He has worked on television recitals or participated in Slovak folkore show, Folkfórum. He also performed with the bands Núdzový východ, Východ CD, and Klenoty. “Undoubtedly the best songwriter from Slovakia and at the same time from Prešov, in my opinion. He belongs on our stage, I have known his work since I was a child and I am looking forward to his premiere at Pohoda,” added Martin.
KORAI TRANCEMISSION
Korai Trancemission is a psychedelic tribal ethno-trance project by members of the legendary Hungarian worldmusic band, Korai Öröm. In 2015 they performed on the main stage of the Ozora festival and in 2017, they released an eponymous album. The special ethno sounds of fuyar, Jewish harp and throat singing, together with the distinctive tribal percussion rhythms, make the band an extraordinary representative in the field of the psychedelic-trance scene. The music is spiced with retro, acid-keys, dynamically-monotonous and minimalist bass lines. Guitars mix influences of ethno, ambient, and psychedelic rock rhythms. Martin Višňovský says about the band: “They are friends from Budapest; we have played dozens of club concerts together. This is an excellent new tribal ethno-trance project by Korai Öröm members. They are clearly among the top bands in Europe in this genre.”