Czech Republic - Brno (Part 3)

As far as concerts are concerned, there are only few of them in winter-time, but spring/fall is always full, even a few gigs in one week. There ain’t no squats or any similar centre in Brno (but some plans to start an autonomous diy centre here are slowly being made). Most gigs take place in Yacht-club (don’t worry – it’s just a name), which is partly being run by two really nice and open-minded guys. In other cases, various smaller venues and bars are being used, sometimes it works good, sometimes not.


Occasionally there are also small private butchery-gigs in SYIH’s rehearsal room.

Events are being organised here by various “crews” of people. It can be said, that people here are already kind of divided by the “kind of punk/hc” that they prefer, which is not really a happy situation I’d say, unfortunately…

“United Crusties”, that’s people from SEE YOU IN HELL. Shitloads of great and (organization-wise) perfectly managed concerts of bands from both Czech/Slovakia and the whole world – almost exclusively raw and fast hardcore/punk/crust/grind... (at random: 9 SHOCKS TERROR, CONFUSIONE, MIGRA VIOLENTA, VIIMEINEN KOLONNA, FLYBLOWN, TRAGEDY, SICK TERROR, SEVERED HEAD OF STATE, CATHETER, BORN/DEAD, SOCIAL CHAOS, DISTRESS, FxPxOx, HELLSHOCK, THIS HOME IS PREPARED, FRAMTID, CAPITALIST CASUALTIES, MOB 47, HELLBASTARD...).

They also organise the annual “Killed by Brno” festival with only bands from Czech playing. Great event, the 7th year took place last December.



“Loser crew” are partly running more in the musical spheres that I don’t enjoy so much (various melodic punkrocks, indie-emo-HC...), but they have also put on many concerts I really enjoyed (REMAINS OF THE DAY, REQUIEM, RATOS DE PORAO, CHILDREN OF FALL, TOTUUS, ENDSTAND, POISON IDEA...)

We, from F.D. also sometimes do something. So far we have done shows for REIGN OF BOMBS, BLACK STAR RISING and SVARTENBRANDT from Sweden, BOMBENALARM from Germany, DOG SOLDIER and SANCTUM from the USA, KOMATOZ and TED KACZYNSKI from Russia, TOTALICKERS from Spain, JACK, HUMAN ERROR, DOZER.HU and GYALAZAT from Hungary, VASELINE CHILDREN and MLADINA KINA from Croatia/Slovenia, some bands from Finland etc. Recently it’s been just me organising the shows, but they were nice ones – PAVILIONUL 32 from Romania, DISTRESS (Russia), DISKELMÄ (Finland) or AKTIVNA PROPAGANDA (Slovenia).


Also people from MAD PIGS – “Friday Night Kids” (www.fridaynightkids.wz.cz) – are very active in organising shows over here, putting on mostly punk bands like KRUM BUMS, MONSTER SQUAD, OBTRUSIVE, MOUTH SEWN SHUT, WHISKEY REBELS, ANGRY YOUTH, GEWAPEND BETON, ENGLISH DOGS, SICK ON THE BUS, VARUKERS, ANTIDOTE, UNIT 21, NO NAME, TOTAL CHAOS, DESTRUCT or SS-KALIERT. A few weeks ago I went to a show of DRÖMDEAD from Venezuela and it was amazing!


Other groups are “Radiobufera” (radiobufera@sendmail.cz) (mostly melodic punkrock, antifascist oi!, dub…) or “Noise Mafia” (noise, grind, crust, gore…). For shows you might also contact Mirek from Ultima Ratio or Johan from PRUMYSLOVA SMRT, who just moved here from Jihlava (shitrecords@seznam.cz). Oh and a brand new crew are Gatastrofa – an all female crew that started organising DIY shows of various genres - punk, reggae, hip-hop, drum'n'bass, crust, hardcore, electronic music...


As I mentioned before – Brno is no megapolis at all, but that satiety with concerts – syndrome of bigger cities – sometimes occurs here too... great bands, weekend night, huge propagation and still very few people come – but fortunately this is not the rule (you can get a show with 20 people as well as 200, it depends on many factors…). However, thanx to a friendly atmosphere, the fun is usually going on all the time and many bands have already been talking in superlatives after their Brno gigs heh... so there probably is a piece of truth about it.

For most people it is taken for granted that they try their best to give the bands enough money for petrol, to treat them well, to give them (vegan) food, warm sleeping place... Some are also trying to keep the concert-places non-smoking. There are also occasional shows in the villages on the south (contact Adam from EVIDENCE SMRTI through adam.lang@seznam.cz). Recently there have also been occasional shows in Blansko, a small town 20 km North from Brno – get in touch with Radim through brad182@centrum.cz.

Kodl of AGE OF DEATH was doing a nice photo-webzine called Pivo Misto Zbrani (Beer not bombs) with lots of pictures from the local shows. The old website is here. Lots of other photos can be found on the website of SEE YOU IN HELL.

Just recently, several crews organising DIY events in Brno (not only punk/HC, but also other genres) have started a weekly show at the Internet radio of the local university. The show’s called “Dojezd”, it broadcasts each Sunday evening, but it’s only in Czech.