Jan Rejžek

"Along with other exotics, Karel Štorkán, a writer of all kinds of novels for girls and the like, also worked there [at the Faculty of Journalism], and he was sometimes filmed writing a novel. Once the film Midnight Column was released, and he was praising the film at the seminar, and I couldn't stand it and told him that I didn't like the film at all. Again, from today's point of view, a curious objection, and the worst thing about it is the music by Petr Hapka, which is so dramatic, so incongruous. And Štorkán didn't know what he was saying when he gave me the assignment, since I'm so smart, to write a term paper on film music. Someone wrongly advised me that Pavel Chrastina, the lyricist of Olympik, studies film music at FAMU. I found Pavel Chrastina and asked him if he would consult me on film music, and he laughed madly, he said: 'I study documentary, what film music?´ And a bit like with Mr. Šimák, with sports, he said, are you interested in music like that? "Look, Melodie is looking for new writers now. So I came back to the then Melodie editorial office as a second student with red ears." - "What year was that?" - "74. The generous Čestmír Klos asked me again, as he did with Mr. Šimák: `Well, where are you from? České Budějovice? Hey, there's an interesting folk band called Minnesengers, so write a profile. I wrote the very first article in Melodie about this great folk band Minnesengers from my hometown and then it took off."

"Suddenly, in the morning, a neighbor came with the news that we were occupied by the Russians, so I turned on the radio, and they were playing some weird science fiction game that someone had come here with tanks. But I was actually very happy that I didn't have to go into the forest to pick those blueberries when the occupation was on. Well, I soon got in the picture through that Austrian television, and as I said, the Russian troops were closest in České Budějovice, so maybe on the second or third day I went out to explore my hometown where the Russian soldiers were. I have the impression that there was also one of the first dead. And again, in an adolescent story, in one of the cafeterias there was a patriotic sign saying "Russian eggs are not and never will be," which of course made me laugh.

"During one workshop at the Faculty of Journalism I had a terrible row with my professor, the would-be scriptwriter and writer Karel Štorkán. We were supposed to critique the film Půlnoční kolona [Midnight Convoy - transl.], which was based on a book he wrote. And I said that the film was completely ridiculous among other reasons because of the awful film score. And he punished me, and thus decided what my life would be like, by ordering me to write a paper on Czech film music. At the time I was already, I think, working with or writing bits and pieces for Mladý svět [Young World - transl.], and so I stopped by Petr Hadler (?), who had worked there at the time, and asked him if he knew of anyone who understood the topic, who could help me write the thing. He sent me completely off-course, to Pavel Chrastina, the former lyricist of Olympik, under the impression that Chrastina studied film music at FAMU [Film Academy of Arts - transl.]. I found Chrastina, he had a good laugh and told me that no, he was only studying film production. But he found out a bit about me. And he sent me on to Melodie [Melody, a music magazine - transl.], where they were apparently in search of some young blood. So I went to Melodie and said Pavel Chrastina sent me - I spoke to Čestmír Klose. And he laughed as well and said: 'Well, we don't really need authors, but very well.' He asked me where I was from, I told him: 'South Bohemia.' And he came up with the idea that there was this very interesting band starting up in České Budějovice, the Minnesingers (Minnesengři), that I should do a background piece on them. So I did a background piece on the Minnesingers in České Budějovice. Then there was this student from Podkrkonoší who came to Prague, she sang beautifully, extremely so, she was taken in by Semafor. So I did another article, an interview with this Petra Janů, an up-and-coming singer. So it carried on like that and suddenly I found I didn't have any time for the football. I wrote for Melodie on a more-or-less monthly basis, plus I made the occasional trip to South Bohemia where they knew I was already caught up in Prague and thus they were very glad I would stop bothering them about being given a job. So all of a sudden the music became predominant and of course what was also important was that besides the interviews or background pieces I dared to write my first reviews. And of course the feedback at the time inspired or encouraged one to carry on doing this. So I pretty much stopped following football, or if I did write for Gól [Goal, a sports magazine - transl.], it was something that had to do with my main work, so I might do an interview with Karel Gott about football, for instance. Or during the World (Ice) Hockey Championship I bothered celebrities for comments and I watched the match against Sweden in Jiří Sovák's cottage."

"It was a job as well of course. It depended on how I had spent the evening before. If I had arrived from somewhere far away or if someone had brought me along from Moravia, then I would have gone to sleep around two, three o'clock. I had it sorted out thus, that I had told the organisers who were in contact with me that the best time for them to get in touch was between two and four o'clock, when I generally had my office hours, when the organisers would phone and agree on further programmes. Well, I would either sleep through the morning or I would spend the time writing an article for Melodie or possibly somewhere else, or I would set out on my ritual favourite walk in Prague, where every day I would go visit the Centre for Hungarian Culture on National Avenue, next to where Reduta is now." (Q: "You did write a lot of articles about Hungarian bands...") "Not only that. It was a unique source of information. Five days a week they published the Daily News newspaper in English and German which was meant for tourists, and which apart from information about Hungary, including the Hungarian rock scene, also contained news agency articles from Reuters and such stuff that was obviously much more open-minded than what we had here. So I found out, I dunno, say who was recording a new album, who had died and so on. Or who was planning a visit to Hungary during a concert tour in the West. So it was a pretty valuable source of information. Besides that I also visited the American embassy where they had the International Herald Tribune, that was another source. So in the morning I would basically be gathering information. Or again, friendly countries: I went to look if maybe the Poles had got any interesting new records in their cultural centre, whether domestic or licensed; the same applied to the Hungarians or the cultural centre of the GDR as well [East Germany - transl.]." That's how I gathered materials. Then I put my mind to the evening programme, if I did have one. Mainly I wrote down quite carefully what I had played there the previous time, so as not to repeat myself. Or here and there I kept slips of paper with questions from the audience in the second half - so I would remember what records or singles they had wanted to hear again. Well, and after that I did all the phoning between two and four, and then usually my dear driver Pepa Bajer arrived and took me wherever. And if not, I used the time for my family or my social life. The important place to be in those times was opposite the Mozarteum, opposite the Mozarteum studio in Jungmann Street - a small place called Dikobar. And because it was opposite the recording studio, then it was regularly filled with those who happened to be recording or who had just nipped out for a coffee, singers, musicians, music directors, journalists - so it was kind of an important hub. Or the Film Club close by in Adrie, that's where the film-makers went. So when I had the time, I very much enjoyed visiting those places, discussing life with my friends."

"I came into proper contact with it for the first time in grammar school of course, when - our class was made up of twenty-five girls and five boys - by some miracle we succeeded in having, apart from two or three exceptions, no one in the Youth Union for the first two or three years. But then the possibility of going to university started getting close. Our dear class teacher came to us and said: 'Look, I'll be blunt. You have to decide. It's just the way it is now, and if you don't join the SSM [Young Socialists' Union - transl.], you won't get into any university.' In other words, I think that as we were quite fond of her, then almost all of us, apart from the two or three exceptions that had been members all along, we all joined the SSM in that year, 1972. But it was a formality of course, because surprisingly for the time, some had... Or like this: my classmate Vladimír Bosák had a father who had been a functionary in the People's Party in 1968 I think, and who was punished after the August invasion and forced to do manual labour - in other words the class was made up of all these sons and daughters of local protagonists of Prague Spring, so we had a strong core you could say, with opinions of the right-minded sort so to speak, or at least definitely not friendly towards the new regime."

"Well, I'll say again for safety's sake, I had already been presenter for Lipnice the year before. And it had been great, only I found out as master of ceremonies that there is always this one troublesome moment for the audience - when the band changes and they're setting up their instruments and so on. So the first year I solved that, I dunno, by telling jokes or something, and so that it wouldn't happen again, I reckoned: how should I fill in those gaps? Again, a complete chance. I already knew the director Helena Třeštíková who happened to be visiting Lipnice to shoot some footage for, I dunno, some film about youth or about some young people. I was wondering how to fill in the gaps, and Helena was already quite well known, some of her stuff had been broadcast in the television, so: 'Hey, Helena, I'll get you on stage during the break and we'll just do an interview like with a director about your work and about young people.' And she agreed. We arrived at Lipnice where we met up with my friend and stage director Jarmila Poláková and I told her about this idea of mine. She took on to it very much, saying yes, it would be refreshing and also she said: 'Look, Joska Skalník is here too, people know him from the Jazz Section, he would be great as well...' I said: 'Yeah, sure.' And already I reckoned that we had the gaps filled like that. But then Jarmila, I think she kind of invited Havel along, and she said: 'Well, look, there's Vašek here too.' I replied: 'I know Vašek is here. So what?!' She said: 'Well, if we've got a film maker and an artist, then a writer would also...' I said: 'Look, I don't care. But it'll cause hell.' She said: 'Well, it'll cause hell. Look, I'll go ask. Not him yet.' And dear Jarmila went backstage where she asked really just the right people: Honza Burian and Petr Skoumal. They were thrilled, saying definitely Havel yes... So she came back saying that it was okay. I told her: 'Alright, but it'll cause hell like crazy.' She said: 'Yeah, I guess so.' - 'Okay.' She went to get Havel in the auditorium, in the meanwhile I was introducing a band or something, then there was another break and I, and that's already been recorded, I said what I said and I pulled Havel out. But before that he came into the back and he was terribly nervous and he also told me the same as Poláková did. I think he was informing me that if they put me in jail then he would give me the pamphlet about how to behave in prison. So I thanked him, I guess we were on first-name terms by then. And I think I can tell one secret, it'll make him a bit more human: I think that he was so nervous he kept rushing off to the toilet, and I think that he soothed his nerves with a shot of something or other before going on stage. But nonetheless, we're ready to go, and now the funny bit starts. We're ready to let him on stage, Havel's right behind me. And suddenly this heavy hand lands on my shoulder. So I think - it had to end like this, of course. And it's the local fireman, and like in a Forman film he says to me: 'You're the presenter of this concert here?' I reply: 'Yeah, I'm the presenter, what's up?' - 'Look, please -' It's necessary to imagine the hillside below Lipnice castle, where the toilets where, quite immobile, kind of on the hill to the left when looking from the stage. Well, and the fireman tells me: 'Look, please, tell the people to get out of the way, we can't drive up there with the honey wagon. You know, so we can...' - 'Not now, in a minute, there'll be an interview here now.' So I dealt with the fireman and what followed is the well-known stuff, where I stated that we had had someone from the film industry, someone from the art scene, and so now we would have a playwright. And when I spoke Havel's name, then to this day I still think it was as if the ten thousand people or however many there were had an heart attack. Because Lucifer had appeared. I mean the Devil. Almost everyone knew his name, but not Havel in person. I asked him two mundane questions, he spoke about the conspiracies and said it had been twelve years since he had last spoken publicly. And I told him: 'That's just about right.' And the shock. So I thanked him and the audience started going crazy, and so we wondered what we should do, whether we should go back and start bowing or something. And when the people realised that Havel wasn't coming up on stage again, they started pouring into the back like it was after a rock concert with Mick Jagger and the fan girls wanted autographs on their arms and ID's..."

"Again, like I say, and (Jiří) Černý would confirm this: people would sometimes as if confide existential matters through the records. I know that, for instance, someone wrote whether they should emigrate. As if one said yes - like with National Avenue, with November 17th (answering a question from the audience, Rejžek had recommended going to Prague for the November 17th demonstration in 1989, saying that it had been allowed by officials and that there should be nothing to worry about - ed.), maybe it would change his life somehow. I don't want to make light of it like this, but it was really great. Of course, there were clubs or places where this didn't work or where the people came for a normal dance disco. Slovakia had a very strange audience, especially in the eastern end. Sometimes it really felt like I was somewhere in Mongolia, as if they didn't know anything at all, but there were always some local knowledgeable intellectuals who would ask me who played the drums in the Frank Zappa recording from 1969. So that was pretty weird. One unpleasant evening was on the 10th of December 1988, when I couldn't be at Olšany Square because I was in Košice at the time. But somehow I managed to find an odd compilation by some Polish company, from the Jarocin festival - that was a famous festival of theirs. And in it was this one beautiful single that I used, misused. And I said: 'You know, it's Human Rights Day and I would love to be in Prague, but, no offence meant, I'm here in Košice. And so I would like to pass on to you a bit of the atmosphere there, so I'll play you this one highlander.' And the highlander played a fujara [a traditional Slovak deep-toned three-hole flute - transl.] and in this doleful voice he sang, for two minutes straight: Oh freedom, freedom..."