PragueBuzz!

This man has been around for ages, ask any Czech and Slovak grandma/grandpa, mommy/daddy, uncle/auntie or your teenage friends, he will surely know Karel Gott. Some Eastern German might surprise you as well.

As boring as Karel Gott’s face and voice might be to many Czechs, along with Lucie Bila, he was recently voted best singer of all time on top of having a museum dedicated to him. Not bad!

The song is sung in Czech by Karel and in Slovakian by the little girl.

Cechomor is having a concert on December 22th at midnight at Vinohrady Theater (N�m?st� M�ru 7, Praha 2). Cechomor writes and performs traditional Czech songs arranged in modern style. Started in 1988, Cechomor got famous a few years ago after the release of the album “Promeny/Change.”

This album is available available in many Czech music shops for 200 to 300 CZK.

English version

Czech version

[Via abcprague, Cechomor site]

This intimate musical gathering at Male Nosticovo Divadlo put together two solo acts of explosive mixed of experimental and festive Brazilians rhythm performed by a Brazilian percussionist, Flavia Torga and a more traditional and elegant style of music from accordion artist Vesna Vaceres.

Vesna Vaceres

 I’ve never been to any concert where accordions were played so Vesna’s performance commanded my full attention, especially her accordion skills. Her frail voice–rather weak in a few songs–can be charming in some of those longing, dreamy like composition.

Website: www.vesnacaceres.com

Flavia Torga

Flavia has been the teacher at my company’s Samba Music club. Apparently some Brazilian in the company came up with a cool idea that the company should have its own percussion Samba band. After all, most big companies in Brazil sponsor some sort of musical activities. The club starters somehow convinced the company to purchase an entire set of percussion’s instruments and rent a basement studio somewhere near Flora for us to practice. Through another Brazilian employee, Flavia was invited to teach us all these funky beats coming from this amazing country Brazil. The artist herself arrived from Rio de Janeiro, the famous “city of god,” in a country known internally for its cult-like soccer activities and street dancers vigorously shaking their bon-bon.

From the chaos and beauty of the most famous Brazilian city, cradle of the samba and of the Bohemian movement, land of music and culture mixed to the urbane chaos of a Latin-American megalopolis, of any inspired movement, of where all the colors can be seen and all the sounds are hear

Flavia on MySpace.

Jukebox

Website: Male Nosticovo Divadlo
Entrance Fee: 120 CZK

On the way to work on the metro, I saw a short article about Gipsy.cz. Not able to understand almost anything but I was able to catch the words “dnes” meaning “today” and “Lucerna Musicu Baru.” By the time I was at work, I’d already received an email and an SMS invitation to the concert.

For a long time, I’ve had this inexplicable obsession with Romani culture, especially their music. Perhaps, their existence and their history are still something to be discovered and understood for me. Whenever I visited an European country which had any link to the Romany, I always asked the locals to take me to a gypsy neighborhood or to introduce me to some gypsy they knew. Most of them did not take my interest seriously. They usually pointed out to some dirty dressed, dark skinned people selling stuffs or doing weird things on the streets. It was only in Croatia that a friend pointed out an error of my search: “C., the gypsy you are looking for are the artists, the entertainers. They are not here. These gypsy you see here only steal and do nothing.” So then where are these gypsy artists? They have to be Europe somewhere, mixed together with other stealing and begging gypsies. It’s not like they have a community of just entertaining gypsies of their own.

But anyway, my enthusiasm for looking for gypsy waned. I stopped looking for gypsy all at once. Want proof? I’ve lived in Czech for almost a year, and I had no photos of any gypsy. I heard many time about Karlin’s gypsy ghettos, but did I bother to go there? No!

Concert
So, I was really excited looking forward to this concert, the first concert since living here. The ticket was only 120 CZK compared to tickets to concerts of other Czech popular singers and bands and other who come from the US. Lucerna Music Bar’s small size with less than 200-people capacity was excellent for taking photos and seeing the artists’ up close.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of their music: vocal, instrumental and melodic elements. Their overall music style could be summed up as rap, hip-hop, pop and gipsy tunes cleverly blended to produce addicting and seducing melodies. The main singer’ Eminem-like rap, jokes (which I did not understand), sound-mimicking with only his voice, charisma and pure talents brought down the house.

Eurovision
And, of course it’s all about Eurovision. Gipsy.cz was the 2nd runner-up, after the more popular rock band Kabat in the Czech Eurovision’s qualification. Kabat’s pure Western rock style didn’t fare well in a heavily pop-themed Eurovision. Gipsy.cz had many Eurovision’s elements: pop/hip-hop, funny, unique and could have gone far.

But on the other hand, they might find themselves in last place like their countrymen Kabat due to European’s general disdain toward gypsies, thus not giving them any vote.

Songs