Antonín Mikšík

“In 1983 I went to Žabčice to a music event. The first year in 1982, when I was still service in the army, it went all fine. In 1983 it was also allowed, but two hours prior to the beginning they banned it. There were crowds of people and the police chased us back to the train with batons. Along with my friends we went to Brno and went to the pub Střelnice. A meadow, sun, we played guitars, it was simply cool. All of the sudden tons of police cars arrived and policemen with batons and dogs without muzzles; they began beating us. I was also beaten by a police dog. It was pretty rough. That was my very first clash with reality.”

"It was organised by Janek (Jan Soldán - author of the book). It was the second event. Before that, he had his wedding there and that all happened peacefully. The other one was attended by police cars with cops and dogs. A policeman took me there because he knew I had a camera. I had lots of tapes in my pockets, so I thought it all sucked. He wanted me to pull the film, so I unscrewed it and lit it. Then I was dragged to the car. I asked if I could take a leek or else I could piss myself inside the car. He sent me to the fence. I could see that they had problems with other people, so I disappeared through a hole in the fence and went to the train station. A bunch of people were waiting there for a train, and then they came back with the dogs again. With one buddy of mine, who played in the Obligatory Blind Band, we ran through the meadow into the woods. He was carrying his baritone saxophone on his back, but he could not run fast enough, so he hid it in bushes. We saw them chasing us with their dogs. It was like some stupid Russian film. We ran through the forest through the puddles for them to lose track. When I think about it now, it seems funny. They never got us, but probably discovered and seized the baritone saxophone because we have never found it.”