Hungary's Kontroll Csoport played on Saturday as part of the Extremely Hungary Hungarian cultural season in New York and Washington programme. The band, who broke up in 1983, shared the evening with Polish underground group Dezerter.
Psi Vojaci (Czech Republic), Bez ladu a skladu (Slovak Republic) and Timpuri Noi (Romania) played on Friday.
During the 1980s, the music of these bands served as a form of political rebellion, carrying coded messages against oppressive regimes. Twenty years later, the same music is a celebration of a successful movement for change.
Kontroll Csoport played just 40-50 shows in the three years they were together, but their radical lyrics and punk-influenced music affected fans long after they disbanded.
Kontroll Csoport was never involved in political in-fighting; it did not set out to become an enemy of the system, the band's guitarist and singer Csaba Hajnóczy said at a roundtable talk at The New School.
"We were just playing music and singing...we wanted to express ourselves and the general feeling in society,"
Another band member, saxophonist Árpád Hajnóczy added that even if they were not allowed to write openly anti-communist songs, several of their songs had a political edge.
In spite of this, the band held talks with the state-owned record company about releasing an album. The release was scrapped after a recording company official heard Kontroll Csoport dedicate a song at one of its concerts to the Polish dissident Lech Walesa.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
