Monday 16 July 2007

Czech Heavy Psych Find


The Matadors EP -Hate Everything Except Of Hatter/Get Down From The Tree/I Think Its Gonna Work Out Fine/Indolence.

This is a 45 that was found a couple of weeks ago at the local flea market. A Czech Psych outfit that are known for the song `Down From The Tree` which can be found on Nuggets II.The version on this e.p. is different from the self-titled LP version that appears on the compilation,with less production and a grittier sound.`Hate Everything Except Hatter` contains the hilarious line `your selfish,your stinkin`,your bad`.this is pretty cheezy psych, with a certain amount of naivety to it.there probably weren`t too many psych bands around Czechoslovakia at the time.

I couldn`t find any info on this EP .it would be interesting to see a picture sleeve if it exists.the sleeve pictured is a generic label sleeve.

The standout track here is `Indolence`.

1 comment:

Lou Kash said...

This version of "Get Down From The Tree" is the original one. The album version is the same basic track with a new vocal overdub and with an (in my opinion) inferior remix.

"Hate Everything Except Hatter" is misspelled and should mean "Hate Everything Except Of Hatred". The English lyrics were often unintentionally funny indeed. Keep in mind that the people weren't fluent in English at all, neither the musicians nor their audience. At gigs they were singing only some kind of "pseudo-English" an no one bothered. If you check out the live album "2, československý beat-festival 1968" - the attempts from both Flamingo and Flamengo to cover James Brown are simply hilarious...

There were quite a lot of "psych" groups then. But most of them didn't get the opportunity to record anything. Also, it was not seen as a genre on its own. Many groups recorded tracks in a similar vein, but hidden between mediocre pop material.

Info about Matadors:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matadors
It's not complete yet, but I've corrected the worst errors already and added first hand informations from the official Matadors biographer Aleš Opekar.

A picture sleeve existed only for the export version of the EP which also had a different catalog number and a different label design. Your EP sold on the Czech market in a generic sleeve like this one (but also another one - Supraphon has simply been using sleeves they had in stock...) The export EP appears every now and then on eBay, reaching insane prices. I for one have the same version as you have. :)

If you're interested in more Czech music, subscribe to my blog Funky Czech-In (blog.loukash.com)