Posted on 03/21/2005 9:08:07 AM PST by twinself
LP about Warsaw Uprising by Lao Che rock group will gets to music shops today. - These were young people like us. We decided to make a record about the time of moral test - say the musicians.
They come from Plock. Age average in this band is twenty something. They played heavy metal and hip-hop. Under the name Lao Che they've been working since 1999. They do not resemble a typical rock band. Before they start writing a song they discuss the vision of new album very long, research the subject thoroughly they intend to speak of. Their first album "Gusla" surprised the audience - published in 2002 longplay was a journey in Polish ancient past. - Everything on that record should give away the mediaeval spirit and historic relations with Polish borderlands. - we can read on band's Internet page. On "Gusla" we could hear rock, ambient as well as songs inspired by Slav folk. In lyric's band reached for ancient Polish inspiration . Several songs were sung in Ukrainian.
The work on "Warsaw Uprising" [Powstanie Warszawskie] lasted almost two years. Its result is record which is absolutely stunning. Tha band itself call it "record-radio broadcast". It is so called concept album, closed unity shaped by given scenario. Each of ten songs is a picture of fighting Warsaw. From last days of July 1944 and waiting for an order to fight until the fall of the Uprising. Their names like "Barricade" [Barykada], "Drops" [Zrzuty], "Break through to the City" [Przebicie do Œródmieœcia]. Over their site www.laoche.art.pl there have been comments of band members, giving the historical background for each of the songs.
Musically the album is streched between hard rock (partly metal, partly punk), avangarde of progressive rock/jazz and stylized folklore of German occupied Warsaw's street. There are sampled fragments of gen. Sikorski's speeches, too.
Lao Che says about the actions from 60 years ago with unusual language. Avoids both pathos and being death-serious and reaches out for sometimes rough - language of the streets. There are quotations, too. Like "An axe, a hoe" [Siekiera, motyka] or famous "Michl's Palace" [Palacyk Michla], Krzysztof Kamil Baczyñski's poems, travesty of pre-war "Oh, Sea, our sea" [Morze, nasze morze].
In songs there's plenty of referrences to today pop-culture. Album's opening is reference to song called "Wolnosc" by Chlopcy z Placu Broni. In following songs fragments of lyrics by groups like Siekiera, KSU or Izrael can be found.
"Oi, oi, oi" shout like orthodox punks Lao Che members when names of Warsaw insurgent battalions are called. Their names sound like the names of punk crews. Thanks to that the story Lao Che tells becomes vivid and still up-to-date. Album's closing makes a great impression. Song called "The End" [Koniec] is based on text of praising knightly ethos by polish poet from XVI century Adam Czachrowski. This very bitter but all in all optimistic summary about the drama of Warsaw Uprising.
(((ping)))
The one remarkable thing about the Warsaw ghetto uprising is the fact that the Ghetto Jews who took part in it had nothing more sophisticated that a simple hand gun to use against the Nazis. They had limited ammunition but unlimited courage. They lasted about twice as long as the entire French Army of 1940. This amazing story of the Warsaw Ghetto can not be told often enough as far as I am concerned.
The problem is, that this thread is related not to Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, but to Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which was different event.
Just as long as it doesn't sound like "Lady Pank." (I actually remember back in the 80s when they played their video on MTV)
The only jazz-rock Polish queen I remember from back then was Basia Trzetrzelewska (gee I wonder why she didn't want to go by her last name, LOL).
I've just started reading Norman Davies Uprising 44. It's going to take awhile to get all the way through it.
Right, there were two uprisings, in 1943 and 1944.
But why commemorate only the one of 1944, omitting to remember that the one of 1943 was likewise a demonstration of the Polish courage and tenacity?
Because they are two different events the second of which is almost unknown in the West. The Warsaw uprising of 1944 involved 50,000 of Polish Home Army troops, led to the liberation of the Polish capital for two months and ended in the destruction of the city as expected help from the Soviet Army did not materialize.
Uh, wait a second there.
An examination of American newspapers and magazines from 1944 show that indeed the uprising of that year was covered, and publicized--and that there was much resentment that the Soviets did not hurry to Warsaw, to help.
On the other hand, the uprising of 1943 was barely known of at the time, and not in the newspapers and magazines at all.
It is also high time that these heroes whose memory was suppressed by the Communist regime are finally recognized and honored. A few years ago, the German President when visiting Warsaw was amazed to learn of the 1944 Uprising; he had heard only of the 1943 Ghetto Uprising. The 1944 survivors are fast dying out, and Norman Davies has captured their story.
But to be fair, the closest Allied troops to Warsaw were hundreds of miles away in 1943, it was much tougher to get detailed information on what exactly was happening then. Remember most didn't know about the concentration camps until the camps were actually liberated.
Right, sir, and now we have the situation where the 1943 uprising is better known than the one of 1944 (mostly because of the best-selling book by John Hersey, "The Wall," published circa 1950).....which is the opposite of the situation back in 1943, 1944.
I am sorry, I do not have much access to the "American newspapers and magazines from 1944". What I notive is that most of people in America today know about the uprising in Warsaw Ghetto of 1943 and if they hear about general Warsaw uprising of 1944 they confuse it with the first.
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