Underground is with you
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Jaroslav Chromek was born on 23 December, 1956 in Šternberk. He spent his childhood in a suburban part of Olomouc. During vacation in his basic military service his brother Karl introduced him to a group of Olomouc hairies, which later became his second family. In 1979 his parents threw him out of the house and he lived together with his friends in Velký Týnec and then in Olomouc. As a carpenter he worked at Pozemní stavby. In 1980 he got married and moved to Senice in Haná. Three years later the marriage broke up and the witness worked in Brno for half a year and since 1986 in Prague, were he began to meet up with underground folks. Apart from visiting pubs he participated in anti-regime events too. He attended the Lennon marches and demonstrations. He used to get samizdat related to music from František Stárek, which he then distributed to his friends in Olomouc. During the weekends he attended secretly organised concerts all over the Czechoslovakia. In December 1986 in the Labourers house in the Olomouc part of Černovír he organised his first underground music festival with band such as Psí vojáci, Stará dobrá ruční práce, Klikoroh, Moderní doba or Absolutní bezedno. There were over three hundred people attending. Eventually the festival ended up police forces. Then Jaroslav Chromek organised several other secret concerts and music festivals, for example in Dubčany (1986), in a pub U Potoka in Mariánské valley (1987), in a pub Na Pile and U Kaple in Olomouc (1988 and 1989), in a pub Na Hrádku in Prague or at a steamboat flowing at the Vltava river (1987). Several times he experienced the attacks of police forces and many times he ended up being driven to the police station. Obviously he was also active during the revolutionary days of November 1989. With his friends he organised a meeting in the Olomouc square with a banner: Underground is with you. In 1991 Jaroslav Chromek returned back to Haná. He re-married again and bough a devastated farm in Haňovice near Litovle. He repaired the building and since 1995 he organises music festivals there. Amongst others there are also his old friends attending and the band balled Dirty underwear that Jaroslav Chromek founded with his friends already in 1989 also performs there.
