“Don’t forget to drop by our table at the back of the room where we’ve got Squall CDs, Squall t-shirts, Squall coffee mugs, Squall douche bags and lots of other stuff, all for sale...”

Tyson Cosby, Squall’s front man, mumbles into the microphone as the last echoes of an overdriven E string fade into the corners of the Futurum music club in Anděl. It’s the same jaded spiel you’ve heard at the end of every performance by every independent band you’ve ever seen. That table in the back, affectionately dubbed the “merch table,” is where the word is spread. That’s where local legends build followings and, sometimes, turn into national acts – one CD, one t-shirt, one douche bag at a time.

The merch tables in the Czech Republic look the same as they do everywhere else, only here they’re more important.

The recording industry really is a lot like Rob Reiner depicted it in his classic movie This is Spinal Tap. There are plotting, greedy managers. There are promoters who care about nothing but profit. There are vapid, no-talent artists more concerned with their hair than their performances. And everywhere, the mind-bending idiocy of spending millions of dollars to convince the public to buy an album or concert ticket, regardless of quality.

The idea of freeing music from this machinery is noble, and it works. Bands can market and sell themselves effectively and profitably, assuming that their music stands on its own two feet. Most Czech bands have little choice. Promising young Czech musicians, for the most part, are not courted by the “music industry” because there’s very little “music industry” to speak of. The indie path is the only one open for those who want their music to be heard.

In 1994, a band named Sunshine hit the Czech music scene running. For eight years, the foursome from Tábor in South Bohemia has pounded through hundreds of delirious shows and released four albums, mostly recently Necromance on the local Day After Records label. They have been compared to bands like At the Drive In and Murder City Devils, and their energy has built an enormous following. Sunshine has been one of the main catalysts in helping push other post-’89 Czech acts down the indie path.

The indie music world loves a band that works hard, and Sunshine’s efforts earned them a November 2nd date at the College Music Journal (CMJ) festival in New York City, a schmoozefest invite-only gig that can break an indie act with a single performance. But while the tiny Day After Records band will be showcased in one of the world’s brightest indie music spotlights, it’s not the only Czech label worthy of attention.

Back in the Czech Republic, far from nicotine-stained contract wrangling in the shadows of CBGBs, the clubs are anything but silent. In Prague alone, the number of “alternative” live music venues continues to grow. Clubs like the venerable Strahov 007, Futurum and Akropolis are backed up by newcomers Guru, Modrá Vopice and Belzepub, all looking for and booking new local talent. That talent, as Sunshine proved, doesn’t depend on the tourist-heavy capital for its inspiration and livelihood.

In the little city of Tábor, Free Dimension Records offers up four bands and seven releases that show there’s more to the local underground than just dusty catacombs beneath the main square. Free Dimension was started six years ago as a techno crew comprised of DJs and technicians, some of whom played “guitar music” as well. Slowly, Free Dim Squad formed as a separate but related entity that now supports some 20 different acts from around the country. Squad also organizes an annual music festival in Tábor, centered around the Orion club.

Free Dimension is one of perhaps 12 such organizations – including Day After Records and Silver Rocket Records, which released Squall’s latest CD – that work closely with each other to produce and promote music. For Patrik Kučera, who runs Free Dimension, the indie phenomenon is naturally suited to the Czech environment.

“There were only two record labels under communism, which didn’t do much to promote creative expressions in music,” he explains.

Thanks to a national legacy of Do-It-Yourself production and promotion and the dedication of day jobbers who love music, the Czech indie scene in 2002 is strong and refreshingly diverse. The music ranges from the Slavic blues of Psí Vojáci to the post-industrial math rock of Deverova Chyba. Kučera believes that they are parts of a larger whole that offers something for everyone to love.

“The Czech indie scene can’t be ‘globalized,’” he says. “It’s big enough and diverse enough to stand on its own without making attempts to ‘cross over’ or worrying about the Western market too much.”

The culture of today’s indie scene is partly an outgrowth of the burza – communist-era black-market record bazaars where fans would clandestinely meet to buy and trade contraband tapes and records. These were the original merch tables. Without a doubt, says Kučera, strong Czech national traditions have played a role in the development of the scene, which should not be viewed as just an offshoot of Western fashions.

The same goes for the music.

“For sure there are plenty of bands here influenced by the West,” Kučera says, “but there are an equal number, if not more, who are influenced by the Czech musical past.”

Kučera measures the success of his bands against classic DIY standards, the same ones used from San Francisco to Seville.

“There are lots of bands who organize their own records, tours and events. They put money and time into it, and the next morning they still have to wake up and go to their day jobs. There is not much for us to measure our success with, other than the pride we take in having done it.”

Mila Paty is a familiar sight to anyone who frequents live shows in Prague. The lanky 30-something founder of Day After Records can usually be found shuffling around behind vast boxes of albums, CDs and zines wherever there’s an interested audience. Paty travels nonstop with a large portion of his catalog in tow, bringing music to the masses. The Czech indie-rock Johnny Appleseed just launched an online shop, which he hopes will boost his modest but brisk mail-order service.

He has reason to be optimistic. Around the world, independent music publishing has built an impressive online presence. Forums like Insound (www.insound.com) help showcase and centralize the work of indie bands, often centered around a community of enthusiastic and knowledgeable reviewers. Founded as an e-zine in 1998, Insound has grown to support more than 150,000 indie label record sales a year. Czech labels and bands are finding that cyberspace can be more welcoming than the local garden pub.

Czechcore (www.czechcore.cz) is a website maintained by dedicated indie metal and hardcore heads, and maintains excellent links to nearly every label in the country, most of which offer online catalogs and MP3 samples.

More mainstream are the Czech-based i90 Music (www.i90.com) and Kosmas (www.kosmas.cz) sites, which offer huge online catalogs, much of which is also available through a network of small shops around the country. i90 claims to sell more albums per year than the Bonton Megastore in Prague, due in part to a busy second-hand trade similar in format to the online auction house eBay.

As convenient and comprehensive as the online record shop may seem, the best place to discover young Czech musicians is still at the back of the club, where the chattering crowds gather around the merch table. And if it feels for a brief moment that you’re in Manchester, D.C. or New York City, just dig through Paty’s battered boxes of albums. Instead of an old pressing of Sinatra’s Greatest Hits, you just might find a 7-inch from the Czech Republic’s favorite son, Karel Gott, its hissing, crackling vinyl just waiting for someone to take it home and love it.

The Museum of Czech PopThe history of underground Czech pop, from its roots in the 1930s tramping movement to the psychedelia of the late ’60s and ’70s, has been painstakingly catalogued by the Museum of Czech Pop, which until the August flood occupied the basement of Besedni 3 in Malá Strana. The exhibits included the homemade mixing boards used by The Plastic People of the Universe, assorted contraband, hand-pressed vinyl and beautiful posters from long-forgotten acts like The Primitives. The collection was a testament to the DIY spirit taken up by generations of Czech musicians, but was severely damaged in the floods and there are no plans to reopen in the foreseeable future.

To offer help to the Museum of Czech Pop, contact popmuseum@volny.cz.

Some Czech Headliners and their Indie Labels

Sunshine
Day After Records
www.dayafter.cz


Deverova chyba
Free Dimension
www.freedimension.cz


Waawe
Minority Records
www.minorityrecords.com

Social Insecurity
Insane Society Records
www.insanesociety.net

Squall
Silver Rocket Records
www.noise.cz/srr

Certuf Punk
Strilek Records
www.strilek.net

Psí vojáci
Black Point Music
www.blackpointmusic.cz