“It was year zero”: Miloš Hroch maps ‘90s Czech shoegaze scene in new book
Perhaps the only time Czech rock bands have made a significant splash internationally was in the early 1990s, when groups like the Ecstasy of St. Theresa were covered in the UK music press. EOST, who made the independent charts in England, were the vanguard of a local iteration of the shoegaze genre then in vogue in London. And that scene is the subject of the new book Šeptej nahlas: Český shoegaze mezi Východem a Západem (Whisper Aloud: Czech Shoegaze Between the East and the West) by music journalist and academic Miloš Hroch. I spoke to the author at our Prague studios.
Miloš, you were born in 1989, pretty much the time that this music genre was starting. Why did want to write a book about the Czech shoegaze scene in the early ‘90s?
“I guess one of the reasons was pretty personal, because I wanted to understand more the context of the era into which I was born, in a way, if that doesn’t sound too clichéd.
“But also later on when I started working as a music journalist I sort of discovered this trove, or treasure, in the early ‘90s – all those records that were pretty famous, or they had a reputation, in their time but we’ve sort of forgotten about them.
“We sometimes remember the successes those bands had, but we didn’t really dig into all the relationships and dynamics at that time, especially because it happened between Prague and London and nobody really asked the UK journalists about the how they listened to those bands and how they perceived them.
“So I sort of wanted to fix that. And also I didn’t understand why nobody did it before me.”
For people who don’t know shoegaze music, it’s kind of guitar-heavy with lots of effects and often ethereal vocals. It’s most associated with My Bloody Valentine and also bands like Ride and Slowdive. Why do you think this particular genre caught on here, with a small group of people, but people who achieved something?
“It was the first genre that could exist in London and Prague at the same time, without any delay. Because in the pre-revolution times there was something that we called an ‘information blockade’, which was more or less fluid.
“It was the first genre that could exist in London and Prague at the same time, without any delay.”
“But this could happen at the same time in Prague and in London. There were institutions such as the British Council which sourced Czech music fans with magazines like NME or Melody Maker, so they had sources here.
“But also I guess it has something to do with post-revolution dynamics, because Prague became this new Berlin. A lot of people from the UK or the US wanted to come to Prague. There was a good bohemian culture here.
“So I guess there were more influences, or more factors, at once. And there are also some other things that have to do with imagination – something that Andre Breton identified when he said that Prague is a magic city.
“And shoegaze has a lot to do with things that you cannot express in words, so maybe there’s also something magic there.”
Were there also obstacles to the Czech shoegaze bands in terms of even acquiring the kind of equipment that their heroes, or their inspirers, in the UK were using?
“I guess many times they were trying to guess how to achieve the sound My Bloody Valentine were making, for instance.
“John Peel invited the Ecstasy of St. Theresa to London to play a session and it really ignited the scene.”
“But after the revolution, in 1990/1991, they were able to buy this equipment and they were buying it not only in Prague – in shops with equipment, in the Rock Café club for instance – but they were also going to Berlin to get some of the pedal effects and distortion boxes they were dreaming of.
“But the Ecstasy of St. Theresa’s bass player and guitarist, Jan Gregar and Jan Muchow, had in total like 30 effects and distortion boxes, so they could achieve a pretty good sound [laughs].”
And the Ecstasy of St. Theresa were the main Czech shoegaze band?
“Yes, I guess they were sort of pioneers. By some circumstances nobody can describe well to this day, their CD got to [legendary alternative DJ] John Peel and John Peel recognised the band and played it on BBC Radio 1.
“He then invited the Ecstasy of St. Theresa to London to play a John Peel session and I guess that’s the start – it really ignited the scene.”
I often think one reason for their success was they chose the best name. Imagine if they were called something like Bongo Bongo Bongo.
“[Laughs] Yes, the name really ignites the imagination and makes you think about all the stuff. And if you imagine St. Theresa swooning, it pretty much captures what shoegaze is about.”
Shoegaze music is seen as vaporous, even wishy-washy. But at the same time you write that Jan Muchow, the founder of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, was really uninterested in pre-1989 underground music and was even against a lot of popular elements in Czech culture, like Jára Cimrman, Švejk, Hrabal.
“For him, Czech shoegaze music also meant a rupture with the pre-revolution culture, pre-revolution music.
“For Jan Muchow Czech shoegaze meant a rupture with the pre-revolution culture, pre-revolution music.”
“It was year zero, 1990, so they wanted to have a new start with something which nobody had done before them.
“Also shoegaze music was pretty much anti-rockist. They were not about all the stuff rock stars were doing – they were more introverts and introverted.”
Also you write that there was some kind of altercation between Ivan Martin Jirous, the poet and close associate of the Plastic People of the Universe, and an associate of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, somewhere outside Prague.
“That was René Brejla, the first manager of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa. René Brejla went to Ivan Martin Jirous and the band Extempore somewhere at a gig in Slovakia and Jirous was just talking about the old days.
“René Brejla wanted to bring up some of the new stuff that was happening in Prague, some of the new music, the new sounds.
“And Jirous always interrupted him and said, No, I’m not interested in that.
“Then René Brejla tried to break through that wall and he sort of slapped him – that’s the story [laughs].”
Rock’n’roll. As you say, The Ecstasy of St. Theresa got a John Peel session. Another band, Here from Vyškov in Moravia, also had a Peel session. This must have been an amazing thing for music fans here in Czechia?
“Yes, definitely. Here, as I perceive them, were more, like, underdogs, probably also given the geography.
“But the Ecstasy of St. Theresa were quite amazed when the first they went to Vyškov to play a gig, because they came there, to Moravia, somewhere outside Prague, and everybody knew the music; they were really knowledgeable about all the Czech shoegaze stuff.
“So they felt, This is our place. Because every time they played outside Prague it was a disaster. Jan Muchow described it as like from the movie Easy Rider.”
Is that because the local people didn’t appreciate the music? Or the sound men at the venues didn’t like what they were doing?
“I guess it was a mixture of stuff. Sound engineers were one thing and also people didn’t really understand why the guitar riffs were not readable, they couldn’t understand the lyrics.
“For people who only started learning English after 1989 it worked really well, because vocals were drowned in the mix.”
“It was something really new for them, while in Prague they [EOST] really had their own audience.
“But you were asking about Here. It was probably also given by the successes of the Ecstasy of St. Theresa. They were prepared for Czech shoegaze, in a way, in London.
“And John Peel recognised the CD by Here, their debut album Swirl, by accident.
“Probably some Czech editor or Czech BBC correspondent brought it to him, or brought it to his attention. And he liked the cover of Swirl and then it happened – he invited Here to London to play a BBC Peel session.”
I’ve often wondered if the fact that shoegaze music doesn’t foreground lyrics or vocals also benefited the Czech bands. Many of them wouldn’t have had great English, some of them would have had really rudimentary English, but still they were singing in English.
“The UK journalist Simon Reynolds had a concept of ‘oceanic rock’, which described bands like AR Kane and the Cocteau Twins, but also you can throw in My Bloody Valentine and shoegaze stuff.
“He said that their lyrics came as from nowhere, or the language came from unknown lands or something like that.
“And I guess for people who only started learning English after 1989 it worked really well, because vocals were really drowned in the mix so they didn’t really have to pronounce well and so on.
“So for some of those bands it worked really well.”
Is there anything about shoegaze from this country that you feel is specific to Czech shoegaze? For example, you quote journalist Simon Price as saying that the Ecstasy of St. Theresa were shoegaze but “positive”.
“The Velvet Revolution gave Czech shoegaze a bit of a different context.”
“That’s correct. The first time Simon Price saw the Ecstasy of St. Theresa in London’s Bull & Gate he said, Do you remember you My Bloody Valentie the first time you listened to something like Loveless? You have to listen to the Ecstasy of St. Theresa.
“There’s also another interview [in the book] with the writer Tom McCarthy, who lived here in the early ‘90s. He’s the author of books like Remainder, C or Men in Space – his Czech shoegaze novel, as I dub it – and he said that he felt like those bands had the weight of history on their backs and they were more positive than bands in the UK.
“I guess the Velvet Revolution gave Czech shoegaze a bit of a different context.”
Ultimately these bands, even the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, they had these Peel sessions, they did get in the indie charts, but it burned out pretty fast. Why do you think it never really went anywhere for these groups?
“Maybe the reason is that the whole shoegaze scene, also in the UK, sort of disappeared by the mid-1990s.
“The bands wanted to move forward from the shoegaze sound, they wanted some kind of development, so they moved into a post-rock phase, they were influenced by IDM [early ‘90s genre Intelligent Dance Music] or ambient music, and they just wanted to move forward.
“Then also Ecstasy signed a contract as probably one of the first former Eastern Europe bands to sign with a London label. They had their contract, they recorded probably one of their best albums, Free D (Original Soundtrack), released in 1994.
“But then their singer said that she wasn’t interested in playing with Ecstasy anymore and they dissolved the band organically.”
You interviewed a lot of people for the book. I guess a lot of the musicians are now in their 50s and some of them are even older; Toyen would have been in their 30s at the time. How do they look back on this period in their lives?
“It’s probably one of the best periods of their lives.
“Jiří Šimeček, the drummer from Toyen, is a really good archivist and I guess the fact that he has such a good archive also is given by the fact that he wants to live in that era, like, forever.
“For many of them they were some of the best days of their lives, as I see it. For some, they don’t suffer nostalgia that much, but it’s always an important phase of their lives.
“For me, sometimes I’m a bit sceptical about all those stories about the ‘90s, how free the whole decade was and so on. But these early days in the 1990s must have been really amazing, with all the stuff that was happening at the time.”
There are quite a few nuggets of information in the book that I didn’t know. For example, that the now very well-known movie director David Ondříček played with Toyen – and had a music label.
“Yes, he played in Toyen in the early days. He was really into David Sylvian and Japan, which [laughs] I was really glad to hear.
“And he had this label where he released some of the stuff from Priessnitz or Prouza, more goth-rock or post-punk bands.”
What instrument did he play?
“He played keyboards.”
Also the book for me was very much a walk down memory lane at the personal level. I too used to go to the British Council and read the music magazines and so. Some of the people you refer to I have known, like for example Glen Emery, the late bar owner. There’s also another character in the book that’s interesting: Colin Stuart, who I don’t know but I’ve met. What was his role in the whole thing? He was a British sound engineer, or producer?
“Yes, he was a British musician and sound engineer and then he became the, like, shadow architect of the Czech shoegaze sound, I would say.
“Probably that’s another factor. You asked previously why shoegaze landed in Prague, and probably it’s also because of Colin Stuart, one of the people from the UK who moved to Prague.
“He helped to build that sound because he had the knowledge of how to do it in technical terms.”
Also the Ecstasy of St. Theresa stayed with his family when they were recording the Peel session?
“Yes, they had accommodation there. Part of the band stayed inside the house, but because it didn’t have that many rooms two of the key members, Jan Gregar and Jan Muchow, had to sleep in the caravan that was parked outside the house.
“It was freezing there because it was January, but they have this memory of how they recorded the Peel session, they had it on cassette and they played it in the caravan.
“And freezing breath was coming out of their mouths but they were so happy, because they were holding the best record they ever recorded.”
Now 30-plus years later, how well do you feel this music stands up? Is it still listenable today?
“There are some records that have aged really well and if you listen to them they sound contemporary, to me.
“For instance, Here’s Entre Deux Soleils, from 1996, when they had already moved into their post-rock phase – I think that’s one of the hidden treasures of the 1990s.
“Also the Peel session from the Ecstasy of St. Theresa is pretty good. And Free D also aged pretty well.
“During the work that I did on the book we did a listening session at this techno club, Ankali, where a lot of young people came. They listened to Free D and it was fully-booked; everybody was fascinated by the sound they were making.
“We had an interview there with Jan Muchow and he always said, Oh, this is just an accident. Or, This will be boring – it’s 10 minutes of ambient.
“But you could see that the audience really got immersed in listening to the record.”
But still, for example, that album isn’t on Spotify. The only Ecstasy of St. Theresa that is there is the stuff from later, when they became a different group entirely, doing kind of trip hop music. How much of this music can you find now online?
“Some of the Ecstasy you can find not on Spotify but on other streaming platforms.
“Then you have to dig into the depths of YouTube – and we can only hope that there will be some reissues of this music in the following years.
“And it’s already happening. For instance, another dreamy guitar band, Naked Souls – there is this Chicago label, Painted Air, and they released a double LP of Naked Souls, a reissue.
“So we can only hope that there will be more records coming.”
Hugely impressive to me, you have written about the Ecstasy of St. Theresa for the Guardian. You also had just recently a piece on The Quietus about Here, an extract from your book. Is there much international interest in the Czech shoegaze scene?
“I think there are still people who can remember the gigs that Here or the Ecstasy of St. Theresa played in the early 1990s in London. So there is definitely some audience.
“I guess globally, or internationally, there is some interest in digging into shoegaze history, and digging into shoegaze history from different geographies, outside London.
“So yes.”
There are no plans at present to publish Šeptej nahlas: Český shoegaze mezi Východem a Západem (Whisper Aloud: Czech Shoegaze Between the East and the West) in English. An extract has been translated and was published on the music website The Quietus: https://thequietus.com/culture/books/flower-noise-here-the-story-of-czech-shoegaze/
