b> Passport begged, visa cleared, and Polish Artistic Agency (Pagart) stamped consent. We pack the instruments, the team and a good attitude to the vehicle and to the road. Just to cross the border. Then only ... trade, smuggling, drunkenness and scandals. And only music somehow last place
It all depends on which way we are going. Either to the fraternal nations of the East, or to the West, steeped in rotten capitalism. Let's assume that this time a merry bus is chasing the Oder.
Speaking of the bus, it is an unlimited space for transporting essential goods! Almost all trips started in the parking lot of the Teatr Wielki. Usually, at the last minute, you had to collect some documents or permits from the nearby Pagart, or "insignificant trinkets" such as a passport or visa. As Marek Karewicz and Marcin Jacobson, authors of the book "Big-beat" write, there was probably an underlying motive behind it.
Junkyard wipers
Each time an employee of the agency appeared with a request that he could not bear the refusal: Mr. Marek, bring me a Volkswagen wiper, a lamp for an Opel or a carburetor for a Taunus . The order was not always followed by a foreign currency bankroll for its purchase. Both the musicians and the agency staff understood perfectly well that this kind of favors is an investment for the future.
After all, it was the owners of these Opel or Volkswagen cars who decided to be foreign or not to be their future. It turned out that next to the big and smaller stages, an iron (literally) point on the map of Polish musicians' concert tours were ... scrap yards.
The "iron" point of every trip of Polish artists to the West - a junkyard, commonly known as a scrap yard. (photo by haak78, license CCA 3.0).
Anyway, the musicians also brought Western "treasures" for themselves. An example may be the most famous Polish singer of those times - Czesław Niemen. He was a repatriate from beyond the Bug and from his family home he got a respect for money that he did not give up even when he became a big star.
Rod Stewart will wait, tire promotion no! Niemen preferred promotion.
Good tires more important than good contacts
This sometimes led to absurd situations. For example, when Niemen went to London, where he was recording his first "Western" album, the representative of the label who was in charge of him tried to bring him into the company of the local artistic cream. He even managed to get an invitation to a banquet with Rod Stewart himself with great effort. Such a chance! And Czesław Niemen did not show up.
It turned out that at the same time the artist embarked on a small quest for the "good of the west". Niemen found somewhere in the newspaper information about some great promotion for… car tires. The offer was allegedly so tempting that he would rush to buy them in the breathtaking suburbs of London.
He bought the tires, he did not manage to attend a very important banquet and he did not see anything wrong with that.
For fame, rubles and gold!
And how was it on the eastern voyages? Polish bands leaving for the USSR played long concert tours there. And, what can I say, they made a lot of money on it. As the authors of the book "Big-beat" write:
In this enormous market, you played routes for months and made money in transfer rubles, which is a convertible currency .
An additional bonus was the fact that the Vistula treasury did not sharpen its teeth on foreign fees, free from Polish taxation. And if that wasn't enough, there was always some extra money left.
The article is based on the book "Big-beat" by Marek Karewicz and Marcin Jacobson (SQN Publishing House 2014).
Who among the musicians had a flair for business, after the concert in Moscow and after taking a photo on the Red Square, went to buy goods for trade.
He brought gold, diamonds and icons from his Russian travels and resold in Poland with a significant profit. It was absolutely illegal, of course. When on the border an enterprising artist encountered a thorough customs officer who dug up his treasures and wanted to punish him for smuggling, at best he would be out of circulation for several months.
Smugglers and customs officers
In the passport of such a delinquent there was an annotation about his career of an "international smuggler" and he was able to say goodbye to overseas performances, which was a complication for the band and a real financial tragedy for him.
The groups more experienced in traveling abroad found a way - they took one extra “musician” on the expeditions. As the authors of the book "Big-beat" write, this substitute person was to take all the contraband on himself in case of a slip-up and serve his sentence for an appropriate fee from the others.
In-depth border control could end badly for many a star. It was enough for the customs officer to be thorough…
You could make quite a fortune on these trips (as for the conditions of the Polish People's Republic). The assets were collected by Tadeusz Nalepa and Mira Kubasińska, musicians from the Breakout band, privately by a couple. With the money they earned, they bought a real estate for themselves, which, considering the conditions at the time, was a bit stingy.
This article has more than one page. Please select another one below to continue reading.Attention! You are not on the first page of the article. If you want to read from the beginning click here.
In Józefów, they owned a large house, a large piece of land, a forest, and they raised horses. They invited friends to their residence and organized open-air parties. High life lasted until the breakout star faded out and the marriage of Mira and Tadeusz broke up.
The article is based on the book "Big-beat" by Marek Karewicz and Marcin Jacobson (SQN Publishing House 2014).
With Elvis and Jesus in the madhouse
At some point, one of the biggest stars of the Polish scene almost stopped playing on the Vistula River. The Scheldt, because we are talking about them, it was more profitable to tour across the eastern border, where their star was shining brightly. The great journeys were not only successful for all members of the team. Their livers in particular suffered.
Quoting the authors of the book "Big-beat" again, during many months of tours in the USSR, the only thing you can do after work is to drink vodka. And one of the Skalds was so remembered about his free time that he fell asleep on a park bench and, in addition, lost his wig, which was covered with the embarrassing problem of baldness on a daily basis.
When he was picked up by brave law enforcement officers under the sign of the red star, he tried to explain that he was a foreigner, a musician, well! - a star from the band Skaldowie, extremely popular in the USSR. It didn't help.
The policemen knew the Skalds very well from the photos and knew that there was no bald man among them, and the delinquent had a definite shortage of hair.
Young and beautiful. I wonder which of them had an episode in the Soviet "psyche" in his career?
Drunk, unrecognizable without his missing wig and papers - that alone seemed suspicious. When he was still stubbornly claiming to be one of the Skalds, they drove him to the madhouse. There he sat quietly with Napoleon, Jesus and his colleague Elvis, or rather the sick who thought they were.
When the other team members realized they were missing a colleague, it got nasty. The manager of the Skalds, Ryszard Kozicz, moved heaven and earth to find doom.
He searched emergency stations, police stations, checked arrests, hospitals and nothing. He even went to the morgue a few times to make sure that the nameless body was not a case of his missing protégé.
All to no avail. Finally, probably out of powerlessness, someone made an offer to search the psychiatric facilities. Luckily for the team and for the missing one, the first attempt was successful. Skald found himself, but new obstacles arose in front of the group.
Estate, horses, waffles, high life. This is what Breakout did on foreign trips…
The authorities of the insane asylum did not want to release the inmate on the basis of his ID card, because he had this unfortunate wig in the photo in the document. The hearts of doctors could not be softened by asking, or by threat or by bribe. The manager had to fly from the provinces to Moscow and pull the appropriate strings from there. The Scheldt managed to successfully get out of the hospital, but after this scandal, the band suspended its activities for a while. It is hardly surprising for them!
The article is based on the book "Big-beat" by Marek Karewicz and Marcin Jacobson (SQN Publishing House 2014).
Source:
The article is based on the book by Marek Karewicz and Marcin Jacobson entitled "Big-beat" (SQN Publishing House, Krakow 2014). You can buy it at the LaBotiga bookstore for PLN 50.90.
See also
- Rock'n'roll in the People's Republic of Poland. Music of white Negroes fighting capitalism!
- Champions of the People's Republic of Poland. How were outstanding athletes brought up during the communes?
- What was it like to live under communism? A tour of a 1960s apartment
- Working in a closed newspaper? Absurdity straight from the People's Republic of Poland
- Censorship, security and nicknames. Independently journalism in the People's Republic of Poland