AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLHELM GRASSLICH OF UNCLE GRASHA´S FLYING CIRCUS
This interview was made like a partner text of the Stalinist God review that you can read (sorry, in Spanish) right here:
• So, first,
I knew your project thanks to an edition of Greek Cult undeground label
Sweetohmrecordings. I got really amused with the music and the powerful
of the image/concept of UGFC. So, Could you tell me something about
your past, where the fuck do you come from… what bands where you
involved previously? And please, can you give me an explanation of your
name?. I got obsessed comparing terms with Monthy Python Flying Circus
so perhaps you can tell the readers something about that.
Hey, thank you for your interest and for giving me pleasure to pollute your mind and to shoot down your hat, my dear Colonel!.
Uncle Grasha is nick from Willhelm Grasslich, my eternal pseudo, the
struggle, the liberation, the inner self, the master and its creature in
one entity, the evil twin, which gives the sense to lifetime misery …
“Uncle” represents the move to innocent/obscene archetype - western
Allies used to call Josef Stalin as “Uncle Joe,” or you can see Uncle
Claudius from Hamlet (the real Claudius was an uncle to Emperor
Caligula), or for example pedophiles sometimes introduce themselves as
“uncles”... since you prepared more question concerning this, I will be
filling the mosaic step by step, there and then.
Concerning the mentioned, brexited and by death a bit sorted out MP
company, that I naturally always liked, UGFC name IS NOT influenced by
them. But they must have been fascinated by the original meaning like
me, I guess.
The term itself, as far as I know, was bound to promotion of the early
aviation, which was in fact dangerous adventure at that times. FC also
meant entertainment for people in the form of synchronized flying, but
soon also the war entertainment – during WWI the most famous flying
circus was born - Manfred von Richthofen’s Jagdgeschwader I. This one is
direct inspiration for UGFC. The bombing, bombardment, death from
above, death coming instead of sun the lifegiver, that’s the issue
always present within UGFC’s story.
Anyway, withing art, I started as a poetry writer, no musical skills, no
cultural capital, homo novus… but my inner flame forced me to learn and
to create more and more. Well, to list and describe all my projects,
artworks, collaborations etc, it would be probably more pages than
bodycount in For a Few Dollars More. So in short... I was always
fascinated by surrealism, dadaism, existentialism, moreover I was
absolutely swallowed by Maldoror concept of surreal evil fascinations,
realities and dreams, which fitted to my early lifetime experiences.
...and well, I spent my teens by most at metal, punk and later hc-punk
and grindcore concerts, so I was caught by that. I sing in a provocative
band called Bambulkyne Dobrodružstvá. Maybe your hat would be shot by
howitzer after seeing some BD live video.
Concerning avantgarde and experimental projects, I play in psychedelic
poetry&noise project Karel Braun And The Black Magic as live member.
The other projects into which I put my dirty hands are Surfin’ Bazooka,
Theremin Quintet and Lhostejnost, now all in the state of hybernation,
and an alternative band Yamabushi is already a past for me. I also
played in various random improvisation groups, that were creating live
backgrounds to old avantgarde movies. They are now called “Strakův
Pojízdný Circus” (traveling circus, not flying), within “Pavel Straka”
youtube channel you can find live short recordings, I bet you will like
them!
• I
think you are a Duo and your musical partner is Petr Habrych. Am I
right?. Where/when do you met and what is the context that evolves to
UNCLE GRASHA´S?.
We started like that. Actually my first musical experiences happened
thanks to Petr, he is my longest companion, we know each other for
longer than a decade. UGFC was primarily my idea. My work and my sick
mind has been behind all the noises, chaos and even the compositions
later, Petr acted as live member.
Later we started another project called “Lhostejnost”, that was on the
contrary Petr’s idea. His compositions and doomy drone guitars were the
base at that case and I played just minimal noise and drone backgrounds.
But he is a musician focused on skills. He has improved himself
remarkably and he wanted to move on, this kind of stuff like UGFC, based
mainly on atmosphere with minimal and even primitive compositions, can
hardly be satisfactory for him now.
So now we practically don’t play together, but we are still in contact, in one collective.
• Czech
Music was an important step in the controversial movement of
underground culture in Prague. In fact, I am here writing this to you
cause I am a lot into The Plastic People of the Universe and all that
strong period of time. Do you have a direct influence of industrial acts
like DG307 for example?. That was Avantgarde but, where is Avantgarde
Culture in your country now and what artist have influenced in your
style?.
Underground movement from 70thies is strong influence for any
band/project dealing with such kind of issues, I guess, moreover the
people behind and their behavior nowadays, that’s is even more
disputable and evocative for cultural reactions.
For example one of the legendary underground gurus Čuňas Stánek become a
secret police officer right after Velvet Revolution and now he spreads
ultraconservative ideas (he is a fan of Pinochet etc.) ... well...
“evolution” of ideas, indeed. And the whole community is now more like
“nostalgic veterans movement”, seldom dealing with contemporary
avantgarde.
But there was a second movement, younger, labeling itself as
“alternative”, with bands like Máma Bubo, OZW, MCHBAND etc, despite they
are also quite stuck in the past, many of them are active as avantgarde
musicians with new projects. And they are far more inspiring for me
personally, with some musicians from that bands I was even honored to
share stage or even band/project....and then there are names like
Paprsky Inženýra Garina, Oldřich Janota, Pavel Richter, or Veselí
Filištínové...check them, I bet you will be fascinated!
Anyway I feel more influenced by Yugoslav new wave scene from 80thies, the inspiration
from Laibach is quite obvious, but there are even greater names for me,
especially O!Kult (fetishizig the death of marshal Tito), Marzidovsek,
SexA, Satan Panonski…
Coming back to Czech avantgarde once more, we cannot forget the first,
interwar one. Especially the rare poems of Vitezslav Nezval blew my head
when I was teen. One also cannot forget Karel Teige or Emil František
Burian, great avantgarde masterminds.
• Prague
Spring was an impact for your country and an intesting period of
history that really interest me. Sametová Revoluce or Silk Revoution
came later. We can´t deny this as a substratum of music influences but I
don´t really know if that influences are in UNCLE GRASHA´S…
Well, yeah, it is, the idealism was very inspiring, until it was
uncovered that it was first of all the restoration of capitalism. The
elites of economic sector of late socialist state waited in the shadow,
to get silent deal with “velvet revolutionaries”, then becoming rich,
later ruling oligarchs like our actual prime minister Babiš.
I am younger, so hadn’t experienced that days, but the “evolution” of
that idealism was quite a blow. President Havel, first velvet
revolutionary, former humanist/pacifist, advocated NATO bombing of
Serbia, later even George Bush’s militarism.
Bombing for humanity, cluster bomb peace keeping, that’s the kind of real dark humor mirrored within UGFC.
• After
1989 world in Prague changed, so musicians changed. Ideologies got into
simply music and the poetry of Egon Bondy got dissolved into a Jazz
Rock Zappa Style in Plastic People that is not of my interest. So, I
mean… when people/musicians/writers are oppressed, they are able to make
extreme things. After that, people forget pioneers and all is more
easy. I think you are “son of all that movement” so, what kind of scene
in the undeground exist nowadays in your country?.
Well, we have underground/alternative scene operating since
70thies/80thies, more nostalgic, not much collaborating with young
artists. Then there is hipster-like scene, sometimes supporting also DIY
underground, but in its typical “coolness” approach.
Then we have artists and groups funded by grants, which are often
elitists glorified in their social bubbles. Finally there are
punks/hardcorists/grinders and extreme metal groups…
... we may say that in all of above mentioned scenes some
avantgarde-underground coexists, but it is marginal. It depends how
open-minded the particular scene is, and that changes constantly. In
fact it does not matter from which scene some independent/outsider
artist like me comes from, nor whether we are inspired by Zappa, Mayhem
or Hanatarash. We are very few in fact. The most important point is
whether we are able to collaborate and support each other or not. And we
must have some open-minded labels and most importantly open-minded
venues.
And that’s a question, who and how will he/she survives this siege and lockdown...
• ¿Can
you explain the spiritual o idea message behind a title so
controversial as “Stalinist God?. I am sure there is a good story
there.
Oh yes, many stories, but I must warn you, Colonel can go even greyer
because of them! Basically, I am trained historian, so many of UGFC
issues are driven by my education and needs to interpret history in my
specific way. But of course all of that is permeated by my personal
stories, emotions, state of mind…
I usually start with this example – in the hatches of small soviet
people, usually peasantry, when religion was not in the curse, they
simply placed the portraits of Stalin or Lenin instead of icons, but
using them in quite similar (or even in the same) way. This is fantastic
example – the people were on one hand so indoctrinated to do it, on the
other they simply used this new cloak to dress their own old habits to
an actual need. You find your freedom of expression, but in fact you
absolutely concurs with the power over you.
I was always fascinated by power relations. In the macro views about
some dictator’s power as well as in everyday life relationships, in the
basic roots of your life (family, sex…), and especially I am endlessly
exploring the crossfade. I mean power over someone, the usage of it,
from everyday communication, pushing someone to something in your favor,
finally the existential discovery that you are just in the net of power
relations, when someone you have trust in, just pushes you down, when
power allows him/her to do it. Just because you can, you reveal the
worst in yourself and use it for your pleasure and for possibility to
gain power over someone.
Stalin created almost perfect system of power-oppression, he was a
superdictator, probably the most efficient dictator in history. Changed
past for some, determined the future for others. And there were also
filthy sexual issues included, to have all the juicy things on one pile.
Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s hand of terror, was in fact rapist, who
forced women to have sex with him in return to save their partners,
relatives, partners… Despite in our system cloaked in democracy the
complex of oppression is not so tight, the experience of in fact
macroscopic Stockholm syndrome is felt, when we live with our everyday
power-over tactics. We learned how to use the oppressors against our
brothers in misery. We love oppression, in fact.
I am trying to outreach these issues in surreal way, with a bit of
empathy as well as with offensive approaches. I am not saying I am
possessed by some special ability, I have never experienced war, but I
experienced torture. Five years of bullying at elementary school brought
me into state of mental war and permanent danger. I felt helpless,
socially isolated and I just regretted I was not able to kill anyone as
revenge. Extreme state, systematic power-oppression, no help… for
example after such kind of experience, the victims often welcome any
opportunity to belong somewhere, for example to some potential
dictator’s guard…
Well...enough stories for now, I suppose, I warned you, haha! Maybe just
few short points - noise music is always a bit of revenge against the
society, and extreme dark humor is often the only chance to tell some
hidden and heavily unpleasant issues…
• There
is a powerful message of the images in UGFC. The artwork talks me about
war, propaganda and ideologies. Booklet in “Stalinist God” is jaw
dropping. I read in the insert: “When your propaganda reach the maximal
success, and you became a god per se, you mus just sound your trumpet
por apocalypse and destroy everything you have created”. War of any kind
is united to propaganda so… Is UGFC a reivindicative or a provocative
act?.
UGFC’s absurd and psychoanalytic approach intentionally shakes the
dialectical or linear mental logic. Many has already been said before,
so now I underline this - In the former eastern bloc the shadow of
dictatorship is still present. Many people wish that times to come back,
what can be hardly surprising, when it is revealed how the quality of
their lives declined.
Simultaneously there are the others, especially in the west, who can
hardly imagine, how life can slide to the dictatorship state. How
rapidly can things change, how easily it can be done. These days of
quarantines and anti-virus measures, which in fact, as Foucalt said,
always strenghten the authorities, are the niche for dictatorship
desires. It already happened in Hungary, and other countries can follow.
The image how your life can be steered under such circumstances, is so
absurd, so inconceivable. And to shout warnings usually does not help,
because of that...so I am trying to reveal the hidden fear, the state of
imagination, the potential experience, or even transgression...But
well, nothing is guaranteed, they maybe already think that they would be
happier under some new dictatorship.
One way or another, I think it is above any provocation or reivindication.
• “Stalinist
God” is a fucking good album with a lot of really mighty samplers that
goes directly to Industrial or Martial Music. Could you tell me
something about them? (“Headquarters” is really amazing). I can listen
speeches by Gillo Pontecorvo, N. Ceausescu, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un
and Emil HachaI (I can be wrong but one of them seemed to listen Easter
Week (holy week) percussions!).
Thanks, hehe...well, as the meaning has been already explained, so the
samples...Truly there are speeches of DPRK great leaders, two
Ceaușescu‘s speeches, including his last one. Emil Hacha was president
of Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren during WWII, hated by some as quisling,
advocated by others that he had prevented the worst at that time. He
says a prayer as his Christmas president’s speech.
But there is no Gillo Pontecorvo’s speech, he was just the director of
Battle of Algiers movie, from which the sample is. The movie is so great
in its almost-documentary approach, that I found it efficient to use
it. And Headquarters roots from North Korean battle song, where there is
sung : “thousands of lives become guns&shells, ready to defend
you!”
...but well, I don’t know what you mean with that holy week percussions :-)
• Your
style changes with the albums but the spirit remains the same. In terms
of artwork, in “Stalinist God” there is a good photo session in
Památník Duchcovského Viaduktu (of Karel Lerch, 1954) while in the Split
with Kostadis you use a photo of The Bridge Builders. Could you explain
both powerful statues and their meanings and why did you use them?.
I always liked monuments, especially the socialist ones. I like them as
the motives of historical memory as well as propagandist art forming the
public space in the way of cultural negotiations or even by in fact
kulturkampf approach. To embody then into UGFC’s semiotic arsenal, that
seems to me even like a natural step!
• In
the Split Cassette with CALF I can read: "a dada-surrealistic project.
It was found on Spitzbergen, avantgard poet Willhelm Grasslich was
beaten to unconsciousness by 51 nuns there. It produces style called
nun-core, basically it means surrealistic noise ambient". What the fuck
is this?.....
This was primarily intended as simple crazy dadaist approach. The older
stuff of UGFC was strongly influenced by such kind of dynamics, it is
quite recognisable when you listen to the older stuff. Artistically I am
waving from this simplicity to more widespread, complex and powerful
approaches.
Next release will be even more epic-lyrical. Well, I suppose you cannot
walk forever with dadaism. Even the DADA founder Tristan Tzara turned
his art to very deep and heavy surrealism. I always liked DADA for its
state of wannabe childishness, to have this in mind you can far better
see the magic behind common things. But they can be quite unpleasant
sometimes.
• All
of this remains me to Guy Debord, Dadaism... Are you influenced by
Debordian idealism or Dadaism?. Is Propaganda a God in is own and by
what terms?.
Of course, strongly! Or at least I used to articulate it more in the
past, now I am back into psychoanalysis again, I would say. And the
propagandist god...when “god” refers to “true”, then creating new
“truth,” especially by repeating some lie strongly, it must certainly
give almost divine feelings! But it is always disputable, whether
propaganda is ever capable of gaining such power...if so, we are pretty
fucked.
• What
is Pravěk Noise Section organization and what kind of artists are
involved there?. I compare this movement with other organizations like
Gruppo Ungido in Spain, Protos Orofos in Greece and similar ones.
Wow, I didn’t now them, thanks for inspiration! Well, concerning PNS, I
think there was nothing like an ideological plan or key idea, it was
simply DIY, autonomous direct action, right here and right now,
primitive step how to find some soulmates from all around.
As I said above, DIY scenes often promote just their social bubbles, and
there are many “outsiders” left, without support or isolated from some
reason. To that kind of people I wished to dedicate PNS. So under this
mark usually some co-releases are committed, by most for the bands from
poorer part of the world. And our own stuff, naturally. But as many of
us lost substantial part of our incomes because of this crisis, who
knows how we carry on with this in near future...well, when we cannot
release music, we can release bricks and stones!
• What
is the umbilical thread between Greek underground scene and UNCLE
GRASHA´S? It´s only a question of labels and the Splits with CALF and
Kostadis?.. cause it seems something different to me more like a union
of similar ideas.
With Calf we met each other in Prague, when we played as their support
band. Their show was...well, I suppose you can imagine that, Christos
burned his amp and neither them nor me (as UGFC) were allowed to play
in that venue again, haha!.
After the show I got the idea to do the split, so we started the
cooperation, then I always helped with booking Calf in Czechia. The
split with Kostadis was Christos’s idea, he released it alone as
Sweetohm, he told me that it was very successful release in Greece. Then
he organized a tour in Greece for me...so not just cooperation, but
comrade spirit and soul mate!.
• What
projects of future do you have wih UNCLE GRASHA´S FLYING CIRCUS?. So
that´s all. This is your space and you can write whatever you want
here.
While this interview was being filled, I released a new videoclip based
on the track You Have To Be Death To Be Wise from Stalinist God. It is
about pandemic anniversary and history repeating itself. As I stated in
the past, all the tracks of Stalinist God will receive a video
background, so I will finish them one by one, you can watch the older
ones at my youtube and vimeo channel.
Moreover with Italian project Il Vuoto we are finishing a long-term
collaboration recording, it should be released soon as limited edition
of tapes by Sky Burial label.
And finally the new album is almost finished, I hope I will be able to
release it soon! As I stated above, it will the most epic-lyrical UGFC
stuff so far, based by most on ambient/drone-doom and martial industrial
vibes, and finally it will be in fact reflexive issue. There will be
some really old and “almost forgotten” UGFC motives reused, hüzün
concept will be revisited, too. And I hope I will grow thanks to
catharsis imposed on me by that stuff, as I already grew remarkably with
Stalinist God.
So that’s it, flight is over for now, thank you once more, Dear Colonel!
Pick up your hat and have a good aim in all the days to come!
