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Play that funky music

By Benjamin Thomas Cunningham
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
December 12th, 2007 issue

When you first hear G8 Transglobal’s funky “Hot Sex Love” it brings to mind Prince in his early Minneapolis days.

But most songs from the eight-person Prague band sound a lot more like “world beat” music from Peter Gabriel. The band’s three female singers harmonize in several languages, including Swahili and Berber. “Můj milačku” (My Dear) is a 20th-century remake of 16th-century folk song.
Front man Martin Stránský raps, plays keyboards, writes the melodies and comes up with lyrics. “Dr. M,” Stránský’s “nom de hudby” (yes, he really is a doctor and a magazine publisher as well) says he looks to his earlier time in the Caribbean and traditional classical piano music background to come up with the catchy, danceable beats.
In a recent concert, fans ranged from Dread-heads bobbing up and down in front of the stages to teenagers out for a night on the town and fiftysomething couples standing near the back of the room.
G8 is one of those quintessential Prague bands that make up the music scene here. Many of them were created by Americans and other foreigners who came in the 1990s looking to make their way in a new market without much competition.
It worked for bands like Blaq Mummy, which plays a sly riff on underground club sounds from the ’80s. Others, like “Stan the Man” Bohemian Blues Band and the Dave Murphy Band, also have huge followings. Some UK promoters send their young bands here to get some experience in playing club dates.
We don’t pretend to know the music scene as well as the tight-knit group of musicians that we’ve met so far, but it seems like a lot of other bands make music as much for the love of performing together as for the chance to become famous.
Brian Reagan, a drummer who has played with the likes of the Lazy Pigs, says as much. Clubs always come up with at least 2,000 Kč ($112) per performance, just enough to keep the members in beer money these days, Reagan says. He’s currently involved with two bands here, including Raketa (Czech for “rocket”).
Now Stránský wants to take things to the next level.
“We have serious ambitions,” Stránský says. “Our aim is to break out of any use of the word ‘local’ and become an international band.”
While other bands here distribute music through MySpace pages and create huge fan bases, Stránský produced a CD on an independent label and signed a distribution contract with Sony.
While others book gigs at trendy nightclubs like Club Bordo and Vagon, G8 is gearing up to play at the Trebbia benefit gala at the State Opera Jan. 18. (For more info on the benefit, go to www.opera.cz)
Stránský even took his band on a New York City tour, booking gigs largely through personal contacts with Czechs in the United States.
Stránský continues to wrangle with Czech-language lyrics, trying to get them to fit into the American rock and world music beats he creates (the syntax isn’t right, he complains) He looks to his favorite Czech pop band Čechomor for inspiration. (Lots of Celtic-sounding melodies and back-ups with Czech lyrics.)
And Stránský confides that he dreams of the day when he will be asked to give a lecture at a medical conference in New York the same day the band is booked at Madison Square Garden and he has to choose between the two events.
“The record business is so much luck; it’s partly who you know, and partly if they like you or not,” Stránský says.
The listeners will decide.

Benjamin Thomas Cunningham can be reached at bcunningham@praguepost.com


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