Pērkons (band)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the band. For the Latvian god, see Pērkons.
| Pērkons | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Rīga |
| Country | Latvia |
| Years active | 1981–1992 |
| Genres | Rock |
| Members | Juris Kulakovs Ieva Akurātere Juris Sējāns Leons Sējāns Raimonds Bartaševičs Nauris Puntulis (1982-92) Dainis Strazdiņš (1981-88) Māris Students (1981-91) Ikars Ruņģis (1988-92) |
Pērkons (Latvian for 'thunder') was one of the most important and scandalous Latvian rock bands of the 1980s and is still performing in concerts. The group's lineup was Juris Kulakovs (keyboard), Juris Sējāns (bass, vocals), Leons Sējāns (lead guitar), Ieva Akurātere (vocals), Raimonds Bartaševics (vocals), Dainis Strazdiņš (drums).
At first, Pērkons played two completely different kinds of music - instrumental classical music, and wild, fascinating rock'n'roll bordering on hard rock. The band is without doubt better known for the latter. Their songs became the folklore of the youth, speaking about things nobody else dared to speak about. Therefore it comes as little surprise that the band was for no expressed reason banned by the Soviet power in 1983. They continued to play as an ensemble of the kolkhoz "Soviet Latvia", careful not to mention the title Pērkons again. In 1985, after a concert in Ogre, a group of teenagers demolished two train compartments. After this, the group was banned again immediately, even though it had nothing to do with the incident. After a few more years, in 1987, they arrived to the song festival Liepājas dzintars ('The Amber of Liepāja') as the ensemble of the fishermen's kolkhoz "Selga".
The texts of their music are at least as rebellious as the music itself, mostly written by Māris Melgalvs. These include i.e. Ballad about the Swan - Lyrics of this song are translated in English as:
- A skinny crow
- On a wet tomb
- Croaking her truth to me
- Didn't she really realize that it all - just for fun ?
- Oh, how stupid
- It is to beat swan until it is dead
- But it is even stupider
- If you feel sorry later
- It is so bloody stupid - in each (sun)set a red swan glows
- So stupid glows
- That (one) must beat again
Curiously - band claims that they made censorship to believe that this song was dedicated to ornithology, although it almost literary bids to overthrow the ideology in force (consider that in 80s communist leaders were dying one after another and were usually mourned by broadcasting Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake).
