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The Plastic People of the Universe

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

The Plastic People of the Universe is a Czech rock band from Prague, regarded as the most important representative of the Prague underground culture between 1968 and 1989. In August 1968 the Prague Spring was ended by the invasion of the Warsaw Pact. Less than a month later the seventeen-year-old bassist Milan Hlavsa founded the band. It was strongly influenced by Frank Zappa and The Velvet Underground. The name comes from the song Plastic People on Absolutely Free by Zappa's Mothers of Invention. The art historian Ivan Jirous became manager and artistic director, in a role similar to that of Andy Warhol with the Velvet Underground.

Music and breakthrough

In 1970 the communist regime withdrew the group's performing licence. Recording was not permitted, so fans circulated bootleg recordings of concerts. After the Canadian singer Paul Wilson left in 1972, the banned poet Egon Bondy wrote many of the lyrics. In 1974 they recorded their first studio album, Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned, a nod to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper, which was released in France in 1978. In 1976 band members and others from the underground were arrested and tried, and received prison sentences of eight to eighteen months. The trial became a turning point in the resistance to the regime and was one of the prompts for Václav Havel and others to write Charter 77.

Influence

After the Velvet Revolution in 1989 the group could play freely again. In 1997, at the suggestion of President Havel, it reunited for the twentieth anniversary of Charter 77, and in 1999 it performed at the White House with Lou Reed. In 2003 the Supreme Court overturned the verdicts of 1976. Hlavsa died in 2001.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a recording of Egon Bondy's Happy Hearts Club Banned by The Plastic People of the Universe. Notice the raw, experimental atmosphere and the lyrics sung or spoken in Czech, and remember that a record like this was a risk at the time.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists