Rock and Pop
There was a time when Poland was the Liverpool of Europe, producing a stream of guitar-wielding mop-tops and warbling starlets whose music was then exported all over the Soviet bloc. It started in the early Sixties, when a whole raft of groups emerged to cover the skiffle, rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues hits that had entered the country via the long-wave radio transmissions of Radio Luxembourg. Aided by the emergence of a nightclub scene in Gdansk and Sopot, and the inauguration of the Festival of Polish Song in Opole, Poland developed a home-grown version of western pop which went under the name of Bigbeat - with groups like Czerwone Gitary and Skaldowie providing the local answer to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. However the biggest name to emerge from the sixties was Czeslaw Niemen , a national institution who is still regularly voted the best Polish singer-songwriter of all time. Moving from saccharine pop to earthy rhythm-and-blues, psychedelia, then prog-rock, Niemen introduced a new breadth of vision to Polish pop, although his voice - a cross between Otis Redding and a castrated wildebeest - is very much an acquired taste. In the 1970s intellectual art-rock held sway ( Marek Grechuta and his group Anawa are the names to look out for if you're shopping for CDs), while in the 1980s punk and reggae came to the fore, the popularity of both due in part to their latent espousal of political protest - anything gobbing at authority or chanting down Babylon went down particularly well in post-martial-law Poland. Nowadays the Polish pop scene resembles that of any other European country, with hardcore, rap, reggae and death-metal subcultures coexisting with a mainstream diet of techno - the Polish version of which, leavened with a few folksy influences, rejoices in the name of Disco-Polo . In a music industry that's so vibrant and varied it's difficult to pick out acts for specific attention, although Kazik Staszewski (a veteran of punk group Kult, his latest project has been to cover the songs of Kurt Weil) is probably the one big-selling album artist who gets bags of respect from the critics. The most striking development in recent years has been the eagerness to mix traditional folk music with pop and rock styles, with albums by crossover specialists Brathanki and Golec uOrkestra selling by the bucketload. Another peculiarly Polish phenomenon is the emergence of a new brand of church-sanctioned pop: you'll find Arka Noego , a massively successful group of children singing Catholic nursery rhymes, hard to avoid. There's a regular gig circuit in the major cities, and an underground scene in most places with a large student population. Clubs that host regular live music are listed in the relevant sections of the guide. Fly posters, or the Friday edition of Gazeta Wyborcza , are the best sources of information about up-and-coming events. In summer, open-air concerts (often featuring Western acts) take place in parks or sports grounds - again, posters advertising these events are plastered up just about everywhere. These summer stadium gigs are beginning to eclipse the importance of the annual festival in Jarocin, 75km southeast of Poznan (late July or early Aug) which, despite being the main annual showcase for Polish rock bands since the mid-1980s, has been cancelled at least once in recent years due to poor ticket sales.
Outdooring activities and otherBritt W says "Never give up. Keep your nevers of skill to your head. Be force. Stay safe and have fun. or email me at kwlmusic@aim.com ! Thanx!
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