One of the children of Czerwone Gitary was called "Trzy Korony"; they were founded by the guitarist, K. Klenczon and recorded a fine eponymous album in 1971, in a psychedelic pop vein, also with lots of fuzz. And there were bands like Niebiesko-Czarni, Czerwono-Czarni, Polanie (whose eponymous Animals-influenced album is still very much worth listen-ing to if you're into heavy beat) and Trubadurzy who played straight Merseyside beat music during the first part of the second half of the sixties.

One of the great turning points was the 1968 festival of avant-garde beat that was organised in Kalisz (a town of about 80,000 inhabitants situated in the triangle Poznan - Wroclaw - Lodz, on the river Prosna; it's one of the oldest towns in Poland, having been granted town priviliges as early as 1282; oh boy, it's great to be educational as well as entertaining, L.); people were coming there from all over the country, listening to the beat music which at that time was starting to transform into something more ambitious, something totally new for an audience that was bored with the rather vacuous, easy-going pop music that was around. Incidentally, there were no drugs available at that time, but a certain kind of washing powder (my mother tells me it was called "Tri") was good enough to get stoned! (talk about cleaning up their act, L.). Most of the groups play-ing the festival were too strange and different to even harbour dreams of ever signing a record contract. There are some "cult" names from the period that survive (Zen, Vox Gentis, Apokalipsa ...) but that's about it. There is a sampler of another festival held in 1968 in Opole (lying somewhere between Wroclaw and Czestochowa) that features some of the top artists from the period and that should give you some insight into what was happening then, although this was a typical pop festival and had nothing to do with the Kalisz ones.

One of the few psychedelic sixties groups that can be found on vinyl nowadays is Romuald & Roman. Interestingly they managed to record enough material to fill an entire album but they never got on the good side of the record company bosses, so all we're left with is a very interest- ing single with two fantastic, guitar-dominated psychedelic tracks full of fuzz and wah-wah passages (a bit like early Grateful Dead but much better!). There are rumours that the album (recorded in the late sixties) will be released on CD soon, but I'll have to see it happen before I believe it. One of their earlier songs is included on the compilation "Przeboje Non Stop" ("Non Stop Hits") from 1969; titled "Bobas ("Babe") it's a great example of mixing acid rock with teenage beat; also worth mentioning is the compilation CD released recently, containing "Bobas" and one track from the single.

The late sixties saw the emergence of rather a lot of groups having their roots in the beat movement that were evolving into something new: Czerwono-Czarni recorded their "17 Milionow" album in the late sixties (rumoured to sound a bit like The Electric Prunes) there was Dzamble with "Wolanie O Slonce", and Truba-durzy cut a rather adventurous thing called "Krajobrazy". Then there's The Red Black's "Pan Przyjacielem Moim" ("The Lord Is My Friend"): recorded in 1969, it was a kind of concept album along the lines of The Electric Prunes' (again L.) "Mass In F Minor" but not as heavy, with some typical psychedelic pop songs and some very avant-garde instrumentals like the ten-minute "Credo" on side A.

But apparently the first genuinely psychedelic album to surface in Poland was made by a band called Breakout in '69: "Na Drugim Brzegu Teczy" ("On The Other Side Of The Rainbow"). Breakout evolved from yet another beat group, known as Blackout; the band had come together in 1965, with talent-ed guitarist Tadeusz Nalepa being the focal point. After recording 9 singles and a quite interesting (and rare) lp in 1967, containing some nice proto-psychedelic pop, the line-up of Stanislaw Guzek (vocals), Krysztof Dlutowski (organ), Robert Swierszcz (bass), Mira Kubasinska (vocals), Tadeusz Nalepa (guitar, vocals) and Jozef Hajdasz (drums) split up, the latter three teaming up with bass player Michal Muzolf and saxophonist Wlodzimierz Nahor-ny to form Breakout.

Before releasing the first lp they spent some time gigging in Holland where they managed to buy professional equipment and to see Led Zeppelin performing live (who were to be a very important musical influence in their future career). Upon their return to Poland they went into a studio and released their first album in March 1969. It was housed in a very nice psychedelic sleeve and became a very rare, sought-after item almost overnight. The music was a brilliant mixture of heavy beat, psyche-delic, progressive and jazz influences with plenty of fuzz, male/female vocals, Zeppelinesque (although rather cardboard-sounding on the record, L.) drums and some wild sax interventions.

They recorded two more albums with essentially the same line-up: "70A" and "Mira" (being in fact a solo album of Breakout's vocalist). By 1971 Tadeusz Nalepa met guitar player Darius Kozakiewicz; Breakout were on the lookout for a new bass player by then and one of Nalepa's friends had advised him to draft in Kozakiewicz for that vacant position. When the band heard him perform on guitar, how-ever, they decided to keep looking for a bass player and have two guitarists in the band (Nalepa himself was, and still is, a great guitar player). After finally de- ciding to hire Jerzy Goleniew-ski on bass they went into the studio once more (having also added harmonica player Tadeusz Trzcinski) and recorded one of the best Polish rock albums to date: simply called "Blues" it was heavily influenced by the sounds of the early Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown, Free and the bluesy side of Led Zeppelin (there's even some Black Sabbath in it as well). This album also became very rare almost from the day of its release in early 1971. It still sounds very fresh today, with its great heavy riffs, bluesy rhythm section and masses of solos (not forget-ting to mention some rather inspired harmonica) although it's nearly impossible to find one in mint condition. Luckily there has been a CD reissue containing not only "Blues" but also its follow-up, the 1972-recorded "Karate".

Darius Kozakiewicz is not on that one any more: he'd left previously, to found his own band. It consisted of singer Wojciech Gassowski, Ta-deusz Kloczewiak on bass and drummer Henryk Tomala, and was called Test. In 1974 this line-up released what must have been Poland's first genuine hard rock record. Housed in a rather nice-looking single sleeve it is a great 40 minutes- worth of intensive riffing in the Black Sabbath/Deep Purple vein, with some lazy ballads inbetween (composed especially for the band's vocalist). There's a CD reissue of it containing some extra tracks, including covers of "Smoke on the Water" and "Living in Sin".

Breakout meanwhile had teamed up with Mira Kubasinska again for the "Karate" album, and recorded their next venture into the studio as Breakout + Mira Kubasinska (or vice versa) in 1973; the title was "Ogien" (meaning "Fire") and it contained a mindblowing 15 minute title track with massed fuzz, wah-wah and dual guitar solos. After their 1974 release "Kamienie" ("Stones") there were some more albums throughout the mid-seventies, with their 1979 effort "Zagiel Siemi" closing the row. Almost all their lps have been re-issued on CD by Digiton.

When the first Breakout record came out, in early 1969, there was a band being formed in Warsaw called Klan; their leader was the talented guitarist and vocalist Marek Allaszewski, with Maciej Gluszkiewicz on keyboards, Roman Pawelski on guitar and bass and drummer Andrzej Poniatowski. After recording a very good e.p. with 4 psyche-delic tracks in the vein of Vanilla Fudge or early Pink Floyd (the combination boggles the mind, doesn't it, L.) they teamed up with lyricist Marian Skolarski to compose the music for a ballet called "Mrowisko" ("The Hive"). Shortly after the first performance of the ballet the record came out, with a beautiful gatefold sleeve. It was recorded in March 1970 and the original issue is probably the rarest lp record in Poland; a CD reissue containing the four songs from the e.p. as bonus tracks is available, however. The music on "Mrowisko" is also in the Vanilla Fudge vein, although not quite so heavy; it's more melodic and progressive, with jazz in-fluences and great organ and fuzz guitar solos, well con-structed songs and instrument-als. In short a genuine Polish monster! Marek Allaszewski reformed Klan recently and they even recorded an album in 1992, but musically speaking they're a long step away from their debut.

Another of the early bands was Skaldowie (The Skalds), having released not only their eponymous debut album, but two further efforts (to wit "Wazystkim Zakochanym" and "Cala Jestes W Skowzonkach") in the late sixties. Jerzy Tarsinski (guitar), Konrad Ratynski (bass, vocals), Jan Budziaszek (drums), Jacek Zielinski (violin, trumpet, percussion, lead vocals), Andrzej Zielinski (organ, piano, vocals) and Jozef Gawrych (congas) recorded their finest moments on May 22nd and 23rd, 1972 from 6 P.M. to 2 A.M. (no, I wasn't there) in the National Phil-harmonic Hall in Warsaw; the resulting album "Krywan Kry-wan" (named after one of the most beautiful mountains in the Slowakian Tatra massif) was a great progressive rock lp, with some Nice influences in evidence. Especially the 20 minute long title track is a stunning mixture of a High-lander folk song ("Krywaniu, Krywaniu") with slices of the work of some great classical composers (Bach, Borodin, Mussorgski, ...). They made several other albums, but I think I may safely say that this was their finest. Their 1970 album called "Od Wschodu Do Zachodu Slonca" is similar to "Krywan Krywan" but has shorter tracks, in the organ-driven prog style, and is nowhere near as stunning.

Formed around Romuald and Roman members in March, 1971, Wroclaw-based Nurt (Roman Runowicz (guitar and vocals), Ryszard Sroka (drums), Aleksander Mrozek (guitar and vocals) and Kaziemierz Cwynar (bass and vocals)) lived in the same musical street as Klan but opted for a more heavy sound, leaning rather more towards, let's say, Mountain than Vanilla Fudge. In January 1972, the group achieved their first success, winning the first prize at the Festival of Contemporary Youth Music in Kalisz. In September of the same year the Nurt went for a tour in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik where they won great audience and critical acclaim; they also played sessions for the Polish Radio. Some of their tracks are firmly based in the rhythm'n'blues tradition, presented in a heavy rock style, but their 1973 debut album also features some progressive moves, with sitar sounds and flutes weaving themselves through the music; they collaborated with the Polish Jazz Society as well, and on their eponymous first album the boys in the band were supported by the well-known Wroclaw jazz musicians Julian Kurzawa and Wlodzimierz Plaskota. With its fantastic Fender guitar duels, fuzz-bass, crashing drums and mindblowers like "Sea of Fire" or "Son of Fear" the "Nurt" album is yet another example of Polish musicians creating a very interesting brand of progressive heavy rock. As is so often the case, the price it fetches nowadays is rather steep, as there hasn't been a reissue of it so far; for interested parties, let it be noted that there is a CD compilation with 5 Nurt tracks that were recorded during their Polish Radio One sessions in 1972, the music of which is by no means inferior to that found on the album.

Financially speaking, however, the lp was a failure and Nurt split not too long after its release (the same thing happened to Klan in the early seventies). Aleksander Mrozek went on to play with various other bands; his finest moment after Nurt's demise was with Recidive Blues Band with whom he recorded a heavy electric blues live album that was released around 1986. A real killer.

Another great band worth mentioning is Budka Suflera, a long runnig group that has been around since 1973. Although most of their recent albums (recorded in the eight-ies) are very commercial and pop-sounding, their beginnings are fascinating: formed around May 1973 they at once became a cult band for Polish hippies, played on most local festivals and had their own devoted audience. They were lucky as well, in that they managed to get into a studio as early as 1974, where they recorded their first lp called "Cien Wielkiej Gory" ("The Shadow Of The Big Mountain"). It's now heralded (along with Break-out's "Blues" and Klan's "Mrowisko") as one of the classic Polish progressive albums; the record is all the more worthy of attention because it features one of the most famous Polish musicians on Moog synthesizer. His name is Czeslaw Niemen, but more about him in a minute.

Budka Suflera's debut has been re-released on CD recently, with some of the best songs of the follow-up (it was called "Przechodniem Bylem") as bonus tracks. Even when listened to today the music still sounds very fresh, mixing various styles, from hard rock to dreamy psyche-delic; singer K. Cugowski sounds particularly great, his vocal chords calling up memories of Family's Roger Chapman (he was to issue a solo album in the late seventies, called "Wokol Cisza Trwa"). Later on (in 1983) Cugowski formed a new band, called Cross. They recorded one album, titled "Podwojna Twarz" ("Double Face") and drawing heavily upon the seventies tradition of killer, guitar-based hard rock; at times they sound like Black Sabbath with Roger Chap-man singing! (this is what they call a daunting prospect, L.)

Marek Grechuta could be described as the Polish Nick Drake, having recorded at least ten albums of which the first four are by far the better. They all contain very moody melancholic folky pro-gressive rock (how's that for adjective overkill, L.). His eponymous debut was recorded in 1970, followed by "Korowod" in 1971, "Droga Za Widnokres" in 1973 and 1974's "Magia Oblokow". Half of this record is the soundtrack of a film called "Jastrun" and consists mainly of instrumental prog rock with lots of guitar and violin interventions; the supporting band on this album is called Wiem (meaning "I Know").

Grechuta's former band, Anawa, recorded an album of their own, with ex-Dzamble vocalist A. Zaucha (who was shot by a jealous French guy recently, after having picked up the latter's wife. Oo la la!, L.). The album is great with a very original brand of progressive rock similar to the early Grechuta records but with a more powerful orches-tration, choir arrangements, lots of strange instrumental parts and Zaucha's great voice.

And since we're talking ethnic and folk-influenced bands Ossian has to be men-tioned as well: they were formed sometime around 1973 and released two brilliant albums under their original name ("Ossian" and "Ksiega Chmur" - "The Book Of Clouds") both containing music that is based mainly upon the use of acoustic instruments. After splitting up and reforming as Osjan in the late seventies they recorded was is probably their best album to date, called "Roots" and containing only two very long ethnic-acoustic tracks of rare beauty. The follow-up, "The Rite Of Sound And Silence" was in the same vein but lacked the strength of its pre-decessor. They recently recorded a new album, with their former guitarist Wojtek Waglewski (who's now with a band called Voo Voo), but I can't tell you anything about it since I haven't yet heard it yet. You can't win 'em all.

One band that always tried to break all the rules in Polish rock music was SBB. It was founded by Jozef Skrzek, a bass, harmonica, violin and keyboard player who started his musical training when he was four years old. As he wanted to become a concert pianist he enrolled in Poland's most prestigious music school (situated in Kattowice) in 1967. After having broken his hand (while playing an etude) he wasn't able to practice for about half a year, and in 1969 he gave up his plans to become a classical pianist and started playing in various rock and jazz bands.

In 1970 he joined Breakout as their bass player. Funnily enough, the reason for his de-parture from this band didn't have anything to do with music: one night when the band were watching a football game on television after a gig drummer Jozef Hajdasz starting making fun of Skrzek's favourite team, thus causing a violent emotional outburst (hell hath no greater fury than a football supporter scorned, so to speak) at the end of which Skrzek just took his bass guitar, went away and never came back.

A year later, he teamed up with drummer Jerzy Piotrowski and Greek immigrant guitarist Apostolis Antymos. When the three started playing together in 1971 their financial situation was none too good; they rehearsed in a damp cellar (all good rock bands rehearse in damp cellars; our own rehearsal room has had regular lakes in it, L.), didn't have any equipment of their own and almost no hope of ever earning enough money to be able to buy any.

As The Silesian Blues Band they played at various places in Poland's countryside with a repertoire consisting of rock, blues and swing. In 1972 they had the good fortune to be noticed by Poland's rock idol number one, Czeslaw Niemen, who hired them as his backing band.

As this is the second time he crosses our path, a little explanatory parenthesis seems in order: Niemen was born on February 16th, 1939 in Wasiliszki, Byelorussia, as Czeslaw Wydrzycki (let's face it, the name "Niemen" has a lot more commercial potent-ial). His father was a piano tuner, so he was able to start teaching his son music from a very early age. As a child, Czeslaw sang in a Gregorian church choir and during his high school days he was in a band that only played songs that came from the Slavic folk heritage. He studied for four years in Grodno (a town that lies in Byelorussia, very near the Polish border) where he learned to play Russian in- struments like the domra and the baian. His jazz and pop career started in 1958 (two of his main influences being Bill Haley and Elvis Presley). In 1962 he won the first prize in the "First Festival of Young Talent", after which he toured in western Europe with a pop band called The Blue Blacks, and visited France, Sweden, Hungary and Yugoslavia. In later years he was to amass more trophies, like the Midem-award and a special award by Billboard magazine, as well as being crowned musician of the year. Early albums include "Dziwny Jest Ten Swiat", "Czy Mnie Jeszcze Pamietasz" and especially "Enigmatic", a record that tends towards the psychedelic.

On "Vol. I" and "Vol. II", released in 1972, Niemen can be heard with backing by the three SBB musicians, but the end result is not wholly con-vincing (mainly due to the "chanson" way of singing), although the records in them-selves are far from bad and contain some pretty weird noises. The SBB boys also felt the more commercial approach of Niemen cramped their style a bit and found it hard to live with the fact that they were being reduced to the status of backing musicians only, so the collaboration only lasted for about a year.

Niemen went on to record lots of other albums (one of the best of which -in my opinion- is the double effort credited to Niemen Aerolit and titled "Idee Fixe") and work-ing with well-known musicians from the west, like John Aber-crombie, Jan Hammer and Steve Khan as his music gradually became more jazzrock-oriented. Skrzek, Piotroswki and Antymos -now calling them-selves Szukaj, Burz I Buduj ("Search, Breakup And Build")- started out on their own once again, making their debut on February 4th, 1974 and re-cording a first album in the same year; it was simply call-ed "SBB" and was recorded live in the Stodola Club in Warsaw. There are only two tracks on it ("Odlot" and "Wizje") both full of fuzz and bass guitar duels (Skrzek must rank among the world's great rock bass-ists, using his bass guitar as a solo instrument) not entire-ly dissimilar to the sound of Clear Blue Sky or Blonde On Blonde. Generally, their music is very "underground" and at times sounds like a cross between Mahavishnu Orchestra and early Pink Floyd or even Group 1850.

"SBB" became another in-stant collector's item, since the sales figures were very satisfying indeed from the very beginning, so it wasn't long before the entire supply was sold out, with the record fetching very high prices on the omnipresent black market. Their second effort, "Nowy Horizont", was in the same vein, although side one now consisted of several shorter tracks all mixed into one another (recorded in a rather curious fashion, with the drums mixed to the foreground in a fairly unusual manner, I might add, L.). 1975 also saw them issuing their third, "Pamiec", and by the time "Ze Slowem Biegne Do Ciebie" came out in 1976 SBB had become a household name throughout what used to be called the eastern bloc, having been asked for radio and tv shows in various countries. By this time, their music still had its psyche-delic tinges, but had evolved towards a more symphonic sound.

After having been voted the most popular Polish rock band by the readers of an in-fluential music magazine and recording an album in Czecho-slowakia, SBB started to broaden its horizon by 1977, touring in Belgium, Austria, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany. In November 1977 they recorded their first "western" album at the Ton-cooperative in Hannover. It was released on Spiegelei in 1978 (Marc Mushroom still has a poster that adorned Antwerp walls at the time, to promote their concert in a small venue on the outskirts of town, L.) and was called "Follow My Dream".

The same year saw them appearing on German television twice, as well as winning the "Gouden Zeezwaluw" ("Golden Sea Swallow") award in Knokke (Belgium). Their second "west- ern" release was called "Wel-come" and had been recorded in September 1978 in the Polish Radio & TV Studio at Opole; the remixing was done in Conny Plank's studio in October. By the time "Slovenian Girls" was issued (in 1979; it was actually a sort of a remake of "Odejscie", their Czecho-slowakian album) the music had shifted completely from the psychedelic towards progress-ive symphonic jazzrock (if there is such a thing) but SBB didn't make it into the eight- ies: they split up just before the turn of the decade. Jozef Skrzek went on to make a number of (mostly electronic) solo albums in the eighties.

Unfortunately, after 1975 most of the good Polish psychedelic rock bands seemed either to split up, change style or stop recording. The first Budka Suflera album was probably the last genuine psychedelic-influenced Polish lp; in this view the period '75-'92 seems a bit of a waste, really: there were some good bands in the beginning of the eighties when literally hundreds of young groups popped up, playing anti-government music (quite a fashion in those days). The consequence of this rather militant anti-establishment stand was that most of these bands turned either towards punk or heavy metal as being the loudest and most provocative styles of music, both of them sure-fire ways to irritate the hell out of the older generation. There were some bands that opted for the psychedelic way but, as was the case in the early seventies, only some of the names are left and almost none of the music. Most bands that managed to record anything were either punk, metal or pop.

Although there is one album made in 1980 that exudes a certain seventies spirit, sounding like a cross between Yes, Genesis and La Dьsseldorf: it's called "Ten Najpiekniejszy Dzien" ("The Most Beautiful Day"). The makers of this little gem (their first) called themselves Exodus; An- drzej Puczynski (guitar, bass, synth, vocals), Wojciech Puczynski (bass, guitar), Pawel Birula (vocals, guitar), Zbigniew Fyk (drums, per-cussion) and Wladyslaw Komendarek (keyboards) had been playing together since November 1976. From the start, their intention was to play rock music with strong classical influences; they used to play mainly at the Warsaw student club "Riviera-Remont" and had been gradually attracting a growing number of fans with their performances. This popularity among the young generation aroused an interest in them of the radio, television, and Polish record companies. So less than a year after their inception they starting appearing all over Poland, notably at the Light Music Fair Poltest in Lodz in 1977, at the Light Music in the spring of 1978 and at the International Confrontations Pop-Session in 1978 and 1979 (can you imagine a festival in America being called that?, L.). They also made a cycle of appearances at the festival "The Music Of The Young Generation" (another great name the P- R boys dreamed up; "come on Boris, I want something young and snappy and now, like the Cynthia Lennon Tractor Factory Experience"; sorry, I let myself go there for a moment, L.). In the first half of 1980 Exodus gave a series of concerts in the Soviet Union and the D.D.R.; they did several television shows, many radio recordings and issued three very warmly received singles (released by Tonpress).

Their music is done more justice by an album, surely, but judging from the fact that I've only heard of one follow-up to "The Most Beautiful Day" (called "Supernova" and re-puted to be even better than the first) the fans can't have been all too enthusiastic. A pity really, for they were a very good band indeed. Their guitarist now runs the Izabelin studio, recording some of the new bands. He remastered a number of Exodus tracks from various singles and issued a very interesting CD recently. Pawel Birula emigrated to the States and Wladyslaw Komendarek is now a rather famous synthesizer player, with three solo albums to his credit.

Similar to Exodus in style and approach but a bit heavier and more Hawkwind- and Eloy- influenced was Mech. They only had two albums out, both released in 1983 and called "Bluffmania" and "Tassmania", respectively. Unfortunately the band split after these two releases.

That's it, basically. The above is not really an exhaustive list of all Polish progressive and psychedelic music, but most of the interesting bands are in it. Surely, there's not too many of them, but the some of ones that have survived are really great, so if you ever come across the likes of Test, Nurt, Klan and the others, don't hesitate to pick up on them for your psychedelic collection, I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Wojtek Hankiewicz
(with some rude interventions by Louis)