About Echt

There is more than one artist with this name: 1) A German pop band from Flensburg active from 1997 to 2001. In 2000 the band was awarded with the Bambi. 2) A Czech pub-rock band which should be referred to as "Echt!": Součástí názvu české kapely je vykřičník, měla by tedy být uváděna v podobě "Echt!" 2) In Prague, in the 1970's one of the main underground venues was the pub Klamovka where many musicians and artists would meet. The band Echt! was formed from some of these musicians in 1988 performing in the new Prague "pub-rock" style, attracting successively larger audiences. After the Velvet Revolution in November 1989 the groups Echt! and "Pulnoc" were invited to a prestige concert in Paris. This event was the vernisage of the first exhibition of Andy Warhol after his death in the Georges Pompidou Centre. Echt! and Pulnoc (former members of "The Plastic People of the Universe") performed alongside with the original The Velvet Underground who played together for the first time in 20 years. After the Velvet Revolution there came a very successful period for Echt! - the band took part in a few festivals in Germany, France and Austria. In 1990, under the patronage of the president Václav Havel, Echt! and Pulnoc recorded together a single called "Sanitka pro Rumunsko" (Ambulance Car For Romania) where Echt! presented the song "Morning, Morning". Later on Echt! recorded two songs on the SP "Kroky/Adam" (Steps/Adam). In 1993 Echt! took part in a CD compilation called "Ujezd" (named after the first official rock club in Prague) with the song "Sedm statecných" (The Magnificent Seven). During the last two years the band didn t have many gigs because two of its musicians played at the same time in the group "Hudba Praha/Jasná Páka" and the third musician played as a guest. (Hudba Praha won the Rock and Pop music award for the best band of the year 1996.) Now, the band is together again and in March 1997 recorded its first real album - "Horký pití" (Bitter Drink), produced by the independent editor Black Point. The cover design was made by the famous designer Karel Haloun. A video-clip was also released for the track "Kytara" (Guitar) from this album. The music of Echt! is similiar to the american punk and also to a kind of country-rock, in the style of the irish pub groups like The Pogues. Josef Janícek (ex-The Plastic People of the Universe) was invited to play on this album and contributed two songs: "Noc je dlouhá" (The Night Is Long) - playing accordian and "Smutný nebe" (A Sad Sky) - playing mandolin together with Jirí Kabes (ex-The Plastic People of the Universe). The lyrics of the song "Oligo" was written by Zbynìk "Sýfa" Petráèek in the eighties. The underground band "OPN" put the music to the lyrics and now three members of this band are in Echt!. Petráèek is now the assistant editor of the weekly magazine Respekt, which was the first independent magazine published after 1989. "Vojna na Itálii" (The War In Italy) is a melancholy song with an interesting history. The lyrics are supposed to have been written by Alois Topol and found after he was shot during the 1st world war. Alois is the grandfather of the writer Jáchym Topol.