In the middle of nowhere.... but Slovakia

A week after our Hungarian trip with Bombatölcsér (which did not get realized, just see previous post) we were to play in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. It was a bit doubtful that we would get there, as both Tereza and me were just recovering from our illnesses, but even days before that Saturday things got better and better (just like the weather, the neverending winter seemed to end) and we managed to arrange everything and agreed to meet there (as I was coming all the way from Hungary, where I spend the week after the Morsa show in Budapest). Thanks to Filip, everything I needed for this show (my cymbals, double-pedals, even a part of my distro) got into Tereza's car from Morsa practice room


I decided to go through Košice, where I spent about four hours waiting for the train to Banska Bystrica and also Adrik (www.punkgen.sk) and his girfriend to join me. The town was not new for me, but the day before I made some google search for new things to see as I knew I would have some time there, and found someone on some forum recommending: "when in Košice, visit Lunik IX, it's free!". I did not feel it was supposed to be a joke, so I concreted my search and founf the following video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUFUkVivh_M

I did not expect something like this exists in the 21th century, just a few kilometres from my hometown...

In the end the four hours had passed fast in Košice, not like the four more hours on the train - it was an extremely long journey in the mountains, but at least sometimes the still wintry landscapes (with hights and peaks of about 1000 metres) compensated us for the tiring conditions. Šariš and Corgoň also proved to be good companions:)

Kaktus club was in the middle of the centre of Banska Bystrica, and on the way we met the guys from Bomba, they just arrived. We needed to find and exchange office for them to get some Euros, which did not turn out to be so easy - we missed the first band while trying to find the only option, the one-kilometer-far Tesco store.... Well, for sure we walked at least 5 kms, just to find it closed.... So no money, no beer, but we got back to the place around 20:30, right in time to catch the host band Gordon Shumway. This night they played only as a duo, the bassist was abroad as I understood well. I definitely missed the bass, as I felt their Grind/ Hardcore music a bit airy. Ave's vocals sounded a bit Black Metalish, I don't know if it was direct, I heard their music for the first time. For sure there was no problem with the sound, the drums were fully miscophoned, very fast could have been heard:) As I heard well, there was some Paskuda cover played, the drummer being in that band too...

There was a fuss about the preparation of the next band, which the audience seemed to have been looking forward, indeed: Sedem Minút Strachu consists of some ex-members of sadly departed Idiots Parade, and their concept, as their name says (Seven minutes of fear) is to produce some grinding noise in seven minutes... For this they have even prepared a big quartz watch (which unfortunately did not want to work) and an extremely long playlist on a 2-metre-long paper... For me their set sounded shorter, with no pause we could experience a bizarre, noisy apocalypse... The even come back for a short, some second additional song, hahaha! I traded some demotapes with them, that is their official demo containing their first show sometime last year in Zvolen. Soon a review and distro update is expected here as for this material... 

Next one was Human Humus from Poprad. It is enough if I say they cannot go wrong. This is how Grindcore should be played. And with such an insane vocallist, it would not be hard to sell it if the music were bad..:) This young guy, Ižd'o, is one of the craziest frontman in the recent scene, that's for sure! He really lives and moves with the music on the stage. I am waiting for some new recodning from them, hope it will come soon.
  
We closed the night with Bombatölcsér, and apart from the fact we had no practice in the last two weeks, the show was okay, people seemed to have enjoyed it. By midnight everything was over and anyone could continue drinking till morning or go home - we chose the second option with Tereza and set up for the (again) four-hour-long trip, this time by car. Neither a bumper of  a car in the middle of the dark highway (!), nor a small rabbit getting almost under our wheels could stop us, until the dawn finally welcomed us at Brno...