Music

I have been very curious about this building on Lónyay U. in IX district: the Budapest Music Center. Sporting a very 90s-ish sign that looks like something found in a dumpster behind Frank Gehry's house, this place warms my heart every time I walk past it. I mean, every great city of the world should have an official music center with such an extroverted presence.

But what the hell IS the Budapest Music Center?

I'm still trying to figure it out, exactly. It seems that the heart of the Budapest Music Center is the building sporting the groovy sign and the archive within. Founded in 1996 by trombonist/professor László Gőz, the Budapest Music Center exists to provide a repository for Hungarian jazz and classical music, and to advance awareness of Hungarian contributions to contemporary music in these genres.



There is a music library containing works of 20th-21st century Hungarian composers, a collection that, according to their website, consists of 7400 books and periodicals, 5600 LPs, 800 cassettes, 2380 CDs and 13600 (instrumental and choral) scores. And all access is free!

They have a music label with a lot of people I've never heard of. But since it's primarily a jazz label, that's par for the course. Jazz labels are always stocked with people you never heard of because most famous jazz musicians have developed the unfortunate habit of being dead. The curious American can glean some of the quality from the lineups though by noting that Archie Shepp and Herbie Mann make appearances with local talent here and there. So you cynical expats can relax - Hungarian jazzmasters must be doing something right.

The aforementioned record label, BMC, has a roster of important home grown talent such as the Mihály Borbély Quartet and the incomparable Peter Eötvös - he of the opera Angels in America and the audacious Beethoven's 5th symphony with the wacko mic placement on the Ensemble Modern's string section.

Got a new iPhone a few weeks ago, and when going through the ritual of transferring my contacts and numbers and media from the old phone, I found this forgotten photo from a Romano Drom concert at Godor Klub last year.



Romano Drom are the gypsy band that are wildly popular in Budapest and many other cities in Europe. The band's name means "Gypsy Road". They have two guitars, violin, stand-up bass, a percussionist, and a dedicated milk jug player!

Everybody in the group sings. They are liable to have guests join them at any given segment of their live performances - singers, accordion players, you name it. Sometimes it appears that any wise guy in their extended posse can come up and grab some spot.

The music of Romano Drom is infused with a virile energy and a call to dance that is hypnotic. Their music sounds like freedom. By the middle of the show the crowd at Godor Klub was densely packed around the stage - all kinds of people, young magyar, middle aged Roma, Spanish tourists, Canadian expats, grooving to the hopped-up 2/4 beats of this cathartic gypsy krayzeeness.

I've discovered that like many other countries in the 1960s, Hungary also had some Yeh-Yeh girls.

What is a "Yeh-Yeh girl" you ask? Well, a Yeh-Yeh girl (or Yé-Yé girl) was a mod-looking young girl made overnight into a pop star. It helped if she could carry a tune, but, if not - no worries; style and attitude were the most important things.

From the late 50s to the mid-60s many European countries all had home-grown versions of Yeh-Yeh girls. The premiere Yeh-Yeh girl was France's Françoise Hardy, who was not only great looking and had a beautiful voice but wrote all her own songs too.

Curiously, the USA had few Yeh-Yeh solo stars, as American pop music fans of the 60s preferred to buy only the records of girls who ran in packs (The Supremes, Shirelles, etc.).

Anyway I've found a few films of Hungarian Yeh-Yeh-ish pop stars that were deemed good to go by the communist censors. I expect these nice gals give a good jolt to the planned economy.

Sarolta Zalatnay

Hungary's grand dame of bad-girl pop. She was often backed up by the top Hungarian band of the day, Omega. A few classic hard rock-funk LPs from the 70s cements her reputation as the "Hungarian Janis Joplin".

In 2004 Zalatnay was indicted on charges of fraud (embezzling from her investors) and sent to prison. She's out now and a fixture on Oprah-ish Hungarian afternoon TV shows. She posed in Hungarian Playboy some years ago too, so in addition to being a convicted felon and Hungarian music's soul sister #1, she's also the undisputed Queen of the Cougars. Te mész lány! (You go girl!)



Mária Toldy

Mária's usual persona and musical stylings were usually more traditional than what she shows in Moskva Téri Lányok. But here we see her charting a course into mod culture territory with this Joe Meek-inspired production, and the accompanying video showcasing our diva in various Mary Quant-ish outfits.

The title means "Moscow Square Girl". Moskva Tér is a main transfer point for Metro and buses. Not sure what kind of glamour could be found there in the swingin' Socialist 60s, but Toldy makes it sound quite fab.



Zsuzsa Koncz

Here's everyone's sweetheart, Zsuzsa Koncz, getting sloppy with the booze with her band Illés in their hit "Mr. Alcohol". Koncz was an exponent of Hungary's student club scene who was thrust into fame in a nationally televised talent show called Ki Mit Tud? ("Who Knows What?"). Seems that Magyars have always been smitten with this kind of thing.

Of all the Yeh gals of the 60s, Ms. Koncz has held up the best. She still looks great and sings the favorites to her fans at revival shows on TV. Seems the damage she was dealt at the hands of Mr. Alcohol all these years was pretty minimal.

For New Years Eve, Gödör Klub put on a shindig for the price of a 3500 ft ticket. The ticket bought you live entertainment all night in a venue made for large crowds, lots of space to wander about and two long bars serving up the goods.

Temps of -9c meant public transport was out of the question. But taxi madness at 9 p.m. wasn't too bad and we still made the first band, Pluto. They were running through their last few songs when we all got inside so I can't give a report about them.

Well no, that's a lie actually. There are lots of things I could say about them but I don't want to. Judgmental reviews of pop concerts are the exclusive preserve of puritanical grad students looking to hustle jobs at E! or Rolling Stone. Playing god by toying with with the livelihoods of working artists. Imagine dreaming of that old tired routine as a vocation, here on the cusp of 2009. Follow the links and decide for yourself!

After Pluto stopped jumping around and re-straightened their ties, I put my camera in my pants and headed for the bar. We followed the Zubrowka we were drinking at the house with a few vodka tonics. Unfortunately the vodka you get at places like this is always supermarket-grade stuff, so the VTs did not make the grade.

We also mused on the phenomenon of how bars in Central Europe are always stingy with the ice. This is true from the Baltics to the Balkans. If you order a mixed drink anywhere in these parts, you get just one sad looking little cube to make it cold. Requesting more will get you another much smaller cube, popped into your plastic cup with disdain, and which melts before you can say "köszönöm". And this is in the dead of winter, with snow on the ground everywhere. Meanwhile, somewhere in L.A., someone is serving up a tequila sunrise in 82 degree heat and tumbling the ice in the glass by the bucketful.

So, inevitably... Tessék, pincér - a masik Zubrowka, legyen szíves. Yumyum!

Turned from the bar to find Specko Jedno had set up their gear in a jiffy and had started their set. I will defer to the band's own words, cribbed from their website, to describe the music:



Wow. So true. I couldn't have said it better if I had an expense account from NME and five editors to sculpt my rough draft for me.

After the Specko Jedno set I wandered around the club a bit. Gödör have changed the layout a bit since I was last here. Opened up a large back room, nothing but a large bar and a sea of tables that suggests a cross between a beergarden and a gallery installation space, with you the Staropramen-swiller as the art. It was quite nice to have the extra space for the New Year's show.

A fellow named János Másik mounted the middle stage armed with nothing but an accordion, and sang a few numbers. If what I was hearing is correct, Másik is something of a legend in the art/music scene here. Did he really do the music for Károly Makk's Another Way? And play keyboards for Gábor Szabó? I guess someone will have to leave me a comment so I can know more.

Másik sang three songs, one of which was the Hymnusz - the Hungarian National Anthem, and many sang along.

In-between acts I saw quite a lot of love action going on in the crowd. This is always a nice thing - when it occurs between two unattached singles. But Hungarian women have this unnerving habit of giving guys the sexy chick eye-contact business when they're with their boyfriends! Always happens while he's busy paying for the drinks or something. It is not subtle. It's of the "let's just go out in the parking lot and get it on RIGHT NOW" variety.

Shortly after midnight when everyone kissed each other (the people they came with, for the most part), local favorites Kistehén Tánczenekar set up their gear. Kistehén Tánczenekar translates to "little cow". They're a group that have been around awhile and have a devoted following. They get the prime slot, coming on just after midnight when everyone is in fine fettle.

Kistehén Tánczenekar were a good choice for the slot, as they really know how to play to a party. Again, I'm only too happy to let someone else do the dirty work for me and play music journalist:



Yep, sounds like what I saw too. They played a hell of a long time, and by the end the call-and-response chanting between the band and audience was at full tilt. Even if they were the only act of the night we would have gotten our money's worth.

After a prolonged wait we expected a grand setup for the next act. But it was just some double-dutch singer in a bowler hat, a geezer who looked like a hassidic Jew impersonating the guy on the Quaker Oats box, and 3 others. From the looks of it, they only had the gear that they hitch-hiked here with.

They were the Caspians Hat Dance Band, who came all the way from Holland to play for us Budapesti. They were accompanied by a caravan of rich international college students who followed in the band's path like the rodents of Hamelin. These fans were belly up to the stage three layers thick and climbing onto the stage to offer testimonials about the genius of this band until the burly security force got in their faces and threatened violent bodily ejection.

The Caspians fired up the fiddle for some neo-Balkan pogo, and their squad went bananas. I pledged to not review the music of the acts here tonight, but I don't think I can steer you wrong if I recommend The Caspian Hat Dance Band as a natural for weddings, bar mitzvahs and hen parties.

Down the street from the Gödör we could hear some ungodly racket coming from someplace with terrible insulation. All of Déak Tér sounded like a punker rehearsal studio from hell. Speculation had it that it was from the Merlin Theater. What in the world was going on there?

Lots of life on the street at 4 a.m., all age groups represented too. Happy Budapest!

Puccini's Turandot was on the schedule last week. Staged by the Hungarian State Opera at one of the world's most beautiful venues for opera. Yes.

I saw Madame Butterfly a.k.a. Pillangókisasszony at the State Opera two years ago and was quite satisfied. The opportunity to see my favorite opera in the same setting - with seats in the 11th row going for approximately $45 each - was too good to pass up.

The State Opera House was designed by Hungarian architect Miklós Ybl and was built in the late 19th century. Finally finished in 1884, it was an instant hit with the culture and music-loving public. Like most of the great monuments in Austria, it was built exclusively with Hungarian craftsmen and labor (I'm making a little class war joke here). Statues of some of the world's greatest composers decorate the third story railing on the outside, and the inside boxes and section railings are stunningly burnished with seven kilos of pure gold.

Károly Lotz' ceiling frescos of the gods on Mt. Olympus kept my neck at a 90 degree upward tilt whenever the house lights were up. I took photos while in this posture...








First curtain was at 7 p.m. This production starred Hungarian crowd-pleaser Georgina Lukács as Turandot, Attila B. Kiss (what a name for a tenor!) as Calaf and Frankó Tünde as Liu.

The singing was very good. Lukács was a good fit for Turandot in attitude and voice. Kiss I enjoyed as Calaf - he projected plenty of the kind of husky masculinity required for this instigator of irrational passion. In his singing Kiss sometimes lingered a bit long on the runway taking off into the high Cs, but we can write that off to personal style. The orchestra and chorus were in good form too.

The set design was the usual for Hungarian opera - traditional and solid. I had one nagging complaint about the stage setup, though. Poles with white featureless heads mounted on them formed a fence at the front of the stage, as a reminder of Turandot's former boyfriends (check the synopsis if this confuses you). These poles often obscured the action, even blotting out the faces of Kiss and Lukács as they delivered their arias. This hiding of the singers' faces behind styrofoam wig forms on broomsticks didn't strike me as brilliant staging. As the curtain opened in Budapest, somewhere in London David Hockney may have felt a mysterious pang of indigestion.

But there's no indigestion that some distilled spirits in the luminous bar can't cure. Intermission, to me, means: champagne before first curtain, and a whiskey to prepare for Act III. And as the house lights came up we trotted upstairs to indulge.

I remembered from my previous experience that you need to high-tail it up to the mezzanine bufé ahead of the pack if you want to get anything before the curtain bell. And true to my memory, the Opera House bartenders were lazyass good-for-nothings who couldn't pour water out of a bucket in the rain. Adding insult to injury, they scorned their unearned gratuities with a snobbish leering. But good planning around these hack bartenders allowed for plenty of time to chat about the performance, and so resulted in two perfect interludes.

Act II exposed another slight problem with staging. Ping, Pang and Pong sang their nostalgic three-part in front of the curtain, painted to resemble a chinese screen. Only problem is - the production designer forgot to saw a rectangle in the screen to show the supertitler, and for 10 minutes or so anyone not fluent in Italian was in the dark as to what the three were singing about. Doh! No wonder the Hungarians feel alone in the world.

Act II intermission: Disappointed to find no admission to the outside balcony, to prevent cold winter draughts from bothering those in the foyer not equipped with wraps. This is too bad. A breath of fresh air on the handsome balcony overlooking Andrássy Út is a ritual I looked forward to.

The third act began with its proper air of mysticism borne of demented passion, awash in midnight blue light and Kiss' Calaf's wandering the stage in a manic-depressive trance. Nessun Dorma got the only bravo of the night, shouted from someone in the stalls. However, bravos or no, the finale and curtain brought hearty ovations from the full house, with Tünde getting extra helping of huzzahs for her performance as Liu.

Unknown musical artist serenading Christmas crowds outside Keleti Pályaudvar on a rare dry day in December. Playing tuba accompanied by kick drum and hi-hat.

If you see him, you owe him a 100 ft download fee for watching this video. Hey ain't no thang, it's only 60 cents!

In planning for coming to Budapest for the duration, I tackled the problem of how to satisfy my huge appetite for music while abroad. I decided to buy an iPod classic with a 160gb hard drive - big enough to hold my entire music collection and then some. I got one and spent many long hours burning, organizing and fussing over a massive iTunes library to copy to it.

But then a few weeks before I left I took it for a trial run, and found out how crazy it is to carry all that stuff around with you. Ever tried to search through 1000 + artists or titles while walking on a busy street? No dice.



So I went against my basic minimalist nature and got a second iPod to carry with me around Budapest - an iPod Shuffle. No big hunk of stuff, just a teeny little player that I could ride the Metro with. Always in random playback mode so I never know what's coming. A nice sentimental inscription on it too.

It's a great way of listening to music when trotting around in the city. New sound/image companions to mark fresh adventures in the big town.

Today I was in iTunes looking at the favorites from the last two months.

CURRENT BUDAPEST METRO ROTATION RANKING

1. Electric President Good Ol' Boys
2. Boxcutter Good You Dub
3. B. Fleischmann Broken Monitors
4. Lali Puna Faking The Books [Dntel Remix]
5. Electric President Dotted Lines
6. Broadcast Illumination
7. Deerhoof Panda Panda Panda
8. Laibach Now You Will Pay
9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
10. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone We Have Mice [Boombox Version]