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Current AffairsPlastic People resurrect Passion Play

On Good Friday, the legendary underground band, The Plastic People of the Universe performed "Passion Play" which is about the crucifixion of Christ. They played it for the first time in 1978 at Vaclav Havel's country cottage but given the political situation back then, they were not able to play it again. After the fall of communism the band was reunited and recently decided to revive "Passion Play". They are now performing it in cooperation with Agon orchestra. Nikola Brabenec joins us now for an interview with her father, Vratislav Brabenec, who is the Plastic People's saxophone player.  More

Current AffairsLegendary underground band- Prague Selection- celebrates 25th anniversary

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of legendary underground band- Prazsky Vyber. During the mid 1980s the band was blacklisted by the communist regime and became a symbol of resistance. Following the Velvet Revolution front man Michael Kocab acted as one of Vaclav Havel's main advisors and oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops. To celebrate the anniversary, Czech television has just released a documentary film which tracks the bands history and makes use a of a wide range archive material.  More

SpecialA brief look at 'protest' music plus the underground scene in Czechoslovakia from 1968 - 1989

Fifteen years ago to the day student protestors took to the streets of Prague demanding an end to one-party rule, kicking off a process that would quickly - far more quickly than anyone expected - lead to the unravelling of Czechoslovakia's Communist regime. Music, too, played an important role: with the outcome of those turbulent days far from certain, tens of thousands demonstrated on Wenceslas Square, singing the civil rights anthem, 'We Shall Overcome'.  More

Talking PointChildren of the Underground

To mark the 15th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, Nikola Brabenec set out to speak with the now full grown children of dissidents involved in Charter 77, the human rights declaration which brought together the dissident movement.  More

Current AffairsLegendary rock group - Psi Vojaci - celebrates 25th anniversary

The legendary Czech underground band Psi Vojaci - Dog Soldiers in English - played a special concert in Prague on Tuesday to celebrate their 25th anniversary.  More

Czech BooksMartin Machovec: exploring the rich literary world of the Czech underground

This week we visit Martin Machovec in his book-filled flat. Martin Machovec is a well-known literary critic, translator, editor and expert on the Czech underground scene. We'll start with a short piece from one of his articles on Czech underground literature between the years of 1969 and 1989.  More

Current AffairsFrank Zappa: "God of the Czech underground"

11 years after his death, the music of Frank Zappa returned to Prague on Tuesday night courtesy of the Grand Mothers, a band composed of 3 former members of his band The Mothers of Invention. Zappa's influence in the Czech Republic is legendary and his popularity persists to this day. Today we take a look at how this iconoclastic Baltimore native became what Vaclav Havel called "one of the Gods of the Czech underground."  More

NewsPaul McCartney plays to 50,000 fans in first Czech appearance by former Beatle

Current AffairsPaul McCartney's first concert in Czech Republic big occasion for generations of Czech music fans

For many years the Beatles have been hugely popular here in the Czech Republic, and this coming Sunday, Czechs fans are in for a rare treat, when Paul McCartney plays a concert in Prague, becoming the first of the Beatles to appear here. To find out what the concert will mean to Czechs, I spoke to politician, broadcaster and musician Michal Prokop, who himself started a rock band in the 1960s.  More

Czech BooksPavel Zajicek - a Czech poet who crosses the line between words and music, reality and dream.

Pavel Zajicek is a contemporary Czech legend. Now in his early fifties, he is a poet, musician and artist, and although he prefers not to use the term, he was at the very heart of Prague's underground scene in the 1970s, when the regime was slowly and systematically paring away at all the reforms of the decade before.  More