Can’t wait for Yellow Spots live performances in Sofia and Plovdiv? Let’s take a word with the band before that.
anna: Have you been to Bulgaria before? What do you expect?
Daniel Schlekman (dobok, vokál / drums, vocal – Schleki): Yello’ everybody! We are waitin’ to show you our absolutely not normal and very spectacular performance. These concerts will be our first appearances in Bulgaria with Yellow Spots, looking forward to meeting you, you can expect a high energetic fast swing-a-billy show!
Our singer “Mr. Toothbrush” played formerly with his ska band, called “Tizenhét“ (Seventeen), and he said that the atmosphere were great in all two cities, we expect at least the same big party again.
I was on holiday in the Bulgarian seaside in my childhood 30 years ago in the socialism. I remember the sea isn’t too salty (luckily) and the prices are very low and you fry great small fishes there too! I have some Hungarian relatives who live in Sofia, this will be a great opportunity meeting with them too.
Anyway this time we don’t go to the beach, but we hope you will call back us for a festival there!
Our message to all rock’n’roll lovers to come to our gigs, you will get fast rock’n’roll music mixing with swing, happy punk and ska! Okey we sing 80% in Hungarian language but you cannot miss our grotesque gestures on the stage.
What about the Hungarian punk? Does it have specific features? Which are the most popular punk bands in your country?
The Hungarian punk scene is deferentially alive! There is a more popular side with a lot of older bands whose listeners are a little bit like a “retro music” fashion girls and boys. There are 4-5 big old names among them (HétköznaPI CSAlódások, Prosectura, Böiler, Fegyelmező Részleg, Hatóságilag Tilos, Macskanadrág…), who have 2-3 big events per a year, and have got just a few new songs with new themes and lyrics. They prefer to play in the classic punk, oi or skate punk vein of the flow.
But there is also a more interesting and experimental side with some newer bands and new projects of older punk rockers with a lot of small shows in underground holes of Hungary. In this part the connection with hardcore / crusty punk / industrial / alternative / ska bands are very strong. Just a few names: Padkarosda, Diskobra, Gábor & The Gábor Gábors, Rákosi, Büdösök, Csermanek Lakótelep…
Where was the strangest place you have performed?
We played once in an ex, 100 years old psychiatrist institute in Halle (venue name is Die Kneipe), Germany and we got the accomodition in the basement of the building. We felt like we found the place what we had been looking for for years, ha-ha.
Once in Podebrady, Czech Republic we played in Boss Bar where we could also sleep, and there was a very very poor bath room what was opening right from the only one woman toilet cabin. We felt to arriving in another universe. After our concert an electronical party started and it lasted until the morning, so we had to go through the public women toilet cabin (often was busy by a party girl) had to wait to get through if we wanted to take a shower or wash our teeth…
But our most weird concert was in Hungary, Rakóczifalva in the local cultural house. This is a very small city in the flat part of Hungary and it’s famous about that the citizens wanted to change the name of the city to “Bear city”, ‘coz they have a nice puppet bear museum…. When we arrived the local punk rockers gave us a lot of local shot, called “döbbenet’ (dismay), everybody was so drunk in the band that our singer started to sing the songs of his other punk band, the local technician went home just before our concert saying the double bass is an acoustic instrument so it doesn’t need any microphones, at the half of our concert the police came out and took a razzia, and after we went home with an old “zhiguli”car on mirrorice on the road, I had to drive it first time in my life, ‘coz the original driver guy was so drunk that he was vomitting out from the car with open doors, and this is only the half part of the story…
Anyway we had a lot of adventures in the history of Yellow Spots, mostly in that kind of venues where there is a strong local group with all the crazy creeple guys from the neigborhood. We appreciate them all very much!
I really like your album covers and your visions. Tell me more about them and how they illustrate your absurd humour?
We love comics! Our older covers was designed by Imre Fekete, who was working to the Hungarian “Cretin” magazine. I was a big fan of that paper, we were very happy to could get him to draw covers for us.
Some years later we met with a younger boy, Gergő Oravecz, and he draw our comicbook for our first normal LP called “BrainLobe Flirt no. I.”. He is now working on the second part of the comicbook for our new album, “BrainLobe Flirt II.”, I hope we can publish it soon, just we trying to get some support from our listeners to be able finishing our new album, ‘coz unfortunatelywe ran out from the money in the studio… We gonna start a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign, and who support us very much, we gonna draw her/him into our comic.
The conception is really simple: picture our crazy lyrics in the best expressive way. Gergő Oravecz is very good in this, and he use a lot kind of comic styles what makes the lyrics book more interesting.
What kind of music scares you?
I’m afraid of every kind of boring clichés in the music. I really prefer the genuineness in the music, it doesn’t matter that the musicians can play on their instruments proffessionaly or just amateur way, the originality is the point for me.
Favourite European festivals? We love SZIGET, but tell me, please, about other fests in your country.
There are some really great festivals for example in Czech Republic: Mighty Sounds or Pod Parau; in Germany some very good specialized style fests, like Psycho Mania or This is Ska!, or in Netherland the Psychout Circus fest and I have to mention the biggest surf music fest, Surfer Joe in Italy. I’m lucky that I could play on some of them.
And the festival where we are in every year (with Yellow Spots or with my other band or just like a tourist) is the Grossmann festival in Slovenia, this is basically a one week long horror and fantastic film festival in a the more spots of a small city called Ljutomer with wine competion and some crazy music parts, like the zombie marching, where a band play on a van (often us) and more hundreds pf zombies follow them. Bizarr and funny together, the same why we like horror movies…
In Hungary there are a lot of cliché fests with the same pop-alternative boring performers, but there are also some great gatherings too, like the “Fekete Zaj” fest (Black Noise), Rockmarathon, or my small mini surf-ska-r’n’r fest called “100 Fest” at the lake Balaton.
Have fun & cheeers & see you soon!
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