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Hanspaulka’s HomegrownEnjoying poise and noise from the Tata Bojs.
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Tata Bojs November 14th Sky Club Brumlovka Vyskočilova 2, P4 T Turn your back to the new KFC on Vítězné náměstí one evening and look up to the hills where the sun is trying to hide. If you look carefully you can pick out the scattering of old villas and swaying fir trees that make up the Hanspalka neighborhood. Take a walk up the hill, past the hideous technical university and the Hotel Praha where film stars try to outdo each other’s room service tabs. Pass Václav Fischer’s towering villa and get a glimpse of the landscaped, gentrified glory that crow-ned First Republic Czecho-slo-vakia. Like most of the city’s fashionable neighborhoods, it’s fairly difficult to distinguish today’s Hans-paulka from its lower-class barnacles. To its residents, the difference is as plain as day – as plain as the difference be-tween Texas and Ver-mont, for example. Czechs’ pride in their neighbor-hoods is rivaled only by their pride in what they modestly like to refer to as their “little” nation. Milan Cais is proud to be a Hanspaulka resident. He grew up there, he went to schools there, met many of his friends there and started his band there. In 1983, he and Mardo Poised at what may well be the peak of their careers, few things are as important to them as where they come from, a fact they remember each time they squeeze into the 12-square-meter practice space they’ve shared for the past 15 years. The Czech Republic’s favorite rock band is, in its good-natured consciousness of its limitations, a perfect mirror of the country. “Mardo Other classic punk influences are evident in their early recordings, especially Iggy Pop, The Police and David Bowie, but the political aspect disappeared before they seriously tuned a string. Mardo “We decided to make it ‘tata,’ a nonsense rythmic word instead, because we didn’t want to frighten people,” Cais grins. The Czech phonetic spelling of “boys” followed in somewhat logical fashion. The name speaks volumes of the early style of the band, which Cais lovingly calls “infantile.” This style was more than musical; it was a playful image born from integrating theme concerts, fierce energy and an irresistible stage presence. At a Delta show three years ago, the band dumped a mountain of sand in the middle of the theater and topped it with an inflatable swimming pool. By the end of the show the audience and musicians – drummer and sampler excluded – were enjoying a bizarre, and potentially electrifying, pool party. When they were 13, Cais and Mardo “We even got two other bands to join us because they saw the posters,” Cais remembers. They opened the show by introducing themselves as being from Hanspaulka, a tradition that continues to the present day. The band lost Mareček, the original guitarist, but gained a second in Marek, whose experience and contacts helped the group break out into bigger venues like Delta. Wary of adding another person to the mix but intent on expanding the sound, they added a sampler a few years back. Biorytmy, their seventh full-length release, saw that electronic sound mature and helped the band graduate to the top of the Czech pops, outsold only by the universally appealing Karel Gott and marketing fluke Kabát. “We aren’t sure what we can give our audience that we haven’t given them already,” Cais muses, without a hint of immodesty. In this country of 10 million, the market for their music may have effectively hit the saturation point – find a Czech between the ages of 15 and 30 who hasn’t heard of the Tata Bojs and you’re probably speaking with either a shut-in or a prisoner. Throwing in the towel and coasting on their success is not part of the plan. “We don’t want people to be bored at the Brumlovka show, so we’ve got lots of information for them,” he says. Part of this “information” includes an installation by Cais entitled Night Watch-man, a pair of projected eyeballs that disturbed people from the top of the Goethe Institute building earlier this year. This projection and two videos recently finished by the band will grace the stage at Sky Club. Based on reaction to these new videos, a Polish tour might be planned next year, but Warner, the group’s label, isn’t making any promises. Cais seems interested, but not overly concerned about the uncertain path in front of the band. He’s occupied his time lately with planning the Sky Club show and the release of Biorytmy, which includes a number of remixes and several of the group’s older songs revisited. The new CD will hit shops this week. “I suppose I could spend more time on learning English,” he says, “that would give us access to the world audience.” But then someone would have to explain to the rest of the world where Hanspaulka is, and why the band doesn’t just say they’re from Prague. |
Article added on Sat 9th Nov, 2002 [last updated Thu 6th Oct, 2005]Share this page 
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