I was a pretty musical child. From an early age I showed keen interest in dancing and singing. Far from actually enjoying performing in front of people (“come sing a song for nana”, ugh) I kinda liked exploring my talents on my own. Whether in the bathroom, singing in the bathtub drain because it had a nice echo, or singing into an empty metal pitcher, I wanted to express my artistic side, oblivious to how it affected other people – we lived in a building after all. Thank you, dear neighbors, for putting up with that.
In kindergarten, there was no way to escape the talent scouting eye of the teacher (or educator, as the official title was). As soon as she saw I could dance properly to a rhythm, I was given lead roles in the holiday dances. I have no clear recollection of her liking me, because the educational system in communism wasn’t exactly focused on positive reinforcement, but apparently she would often tell my mom that I was a good dancer. Back then, a lot of teachers would have rather died a horrid death than tell a child he is good at something. Instead, just like leeches, they would drain and exploit the talent of the child for their own gains and reputation: “Look how good my kids are at dancing, all my merit”. I didn’t realize at the time, but I was getting my first lesson in showbiz, right there in communist school.
Once out of kindergarten, my mom, like any insecure parent who needed to gain praise for the child’s accomplishments, had me start primary school in music school. The test was straightforward: sing a song, then reproduce a fairly complex rhythm formula that someone clapped. They looked for rhythm skills and memory. I remember seeing this short, chubby lady clapping the rhythm for me. Her entire body jiggled as she put her whole energy into that damn clap. I reproduced the rhythmic phrase successfully and there I was, a new student in music school. So exciting … until I realized I had to actually practice piano every day. Ain’t nobody got time for that… I soon started skipping lessons and pretending to be sick, going to the park instead of the class. Sometimes I didn’t even bother to let the teacher know I was ‘sick’. I just didn’t want to play music on a schedule or see her grumpy face.
Truth be told, it was never about the music. It was always about the teachers’ ego. Because, just like my kindergarten “talent scout”, my egotistic piano teacher knew damn well that my performance would be a reflection of her work and a boost on her reputation, and the pressure is not exactly the best motivator when you just start to learn music as a teenie weenie kid.
I eventually had to get myself on track, or maybe grow up, and attend lessons like a normal kid. I excelled at music theory, cause duh, I had a nice teacher (and a naturally born perfect pitch). But every walk down the dark hallway to my piano class was pure agony, cause I’d never know what mood my teacher would be in. On the way to the piano studio, I would hear music coming from other rooms, here a violin, there a piano, then a flute… and occasionally some frustrated teacher yelling at a student that just played a shitty note. “Oh that poor bastard”, “glad it’s not me” were common thoughts going through my head.
One day, as I walked to my piano studio, right before I entered, I could hear someone inside playing a melody I knew very well from a science TV show opening credits. It’s a piece by a Romanian composer and it’s an epic piano shred. I walked in to find an older student playing it like it was no big deal. That was probably the teacher’s greatest pride, this student, aptly named Elvis. He was so talented I wanted to barf. As I saw him play that piece I knew I wanted to play it one day as well.
But as the years passed, my pro-communist teacher would only give me Russian or Hungarian composers to play, although I begged to be given prettier sounding pieces to study. “I want more Mozart” – “Ok, here’s Kabalevsky” she would say… “ Can we do Moonlight Sonata?” – “No, we are studying Tchaikovsky now”. Shit. As she slowly realized she couldn’t turn me into a Russian sonatas superstar, she passed me on to another teacher. Needless to say, that one also failed to keep me interested and although I loved music, I left music school after the 8th grade.
I did what a normal kid would do and joined a band where I could play whatever the fuck I wanted. No more Russian nonsense, there I was – in a heavy metal band. The only issue, coming from communist music school, the pleasure of performing in front of people was not exactly my forte and got even worse than the age when I would shout songs into the bathtub drain hole. Nothing a few beers wouldn’t solve… I didn’t quite like beer back then, as “craft” brews were not a thing, with only a couple local factories to choose from, but don’t fret, I discovered good beer later in life.
We recorded our first demo on tape in a shady studio (ok, the owner was shady) and we built a ‘solid’ fan base of a handful people in our hometown and a couple other nuts at festivals. Tape trading was big for a while, so whoever got a copy of that demo can consider themselves special. Sound wise, and to today’s standards, that tape is so bad, I want to find that studio guy and make him listen to it on repeat for weeks as a form of torture.
Tapes were the norm. We traded and copied tapes over and over again. If you’d get sick of a band, you could easily re-record something else over it. If the tapes broke, we’d fix them with scotch tape (which required surgical precision). Our machines were usually Russian or Bulgarian made boomboxes and they sucked. We created our own sleeves and drew the covers by hand, then inserted them into the tape case. After original tapes started appearing at local shops, we would save for a month to be able to buy one, and then bask in the god-like feeling when we had other people make copies after our original.
Music was just beginning to flourish after communism, when it had been severely censored, now there was full freedom to play whatever you wanted and be whoever you wanted to be. It was exciting to see new music spreading over in schools, as we took it upon ourselves to act as little prophets for our favorite genres. Heavy metal was gutsy, and frowned upon especially in such a religious society that was still holding strong ties to communist dogmas. What strikes me nowadays is that we listened to English lyrics long before we even knew English. It didn’t matter what the songs said – the music was enough. We had a hunch it might be something about the devil and gore (totally false for 99% of the songs) but as long as it sounded cool and some guitarist would leave us in awe with his playing, it was enough. I didn’t look up to Elvis anymore – I looked up to heavy metal bands.
I was not the first in my family to play heavy metal. My older brother was the trailblazer. I think that’s what got me interested in live gigs, as I was able to witness some live shows from an early age, mostly because of his band. These rock shows were so much more interesting than your regular sit-down-clap-your-hands kind of shows. People would stand up and headbang, mosh or whatever. No constraints. Yes, sign me up.
During my early childhood years I had only attended the random, censored, pop or folk shows with my parents or my school. Being in music school, I also attended and even performed classical music shows at the local Athenaeum in my town. I don’t remember many of the pop shows, except the odd folk duo Seicaru-Hrusca where, for the first time, I saw the singers with somewhat long hair and wearing tights. I didn’t know what to think of that look, but now thinking back, these two were daredevils, with their long locks and their tights, during communism. Hah. We had some active rock bands as well (think Uriah Heep inspired bands) and we owned a few vinyls of their toned down music. That was the seed…
When the doors to western music and rock’n’roll opened wide, holyyy… opportunity. We can listen to any kind of music now, and attend shows. Artists can also play freely and get as loud as they want!
My brother’s band played his high-school prom and there I was, at 11 years old, with my friend, headbanging our heads off to rock music. After that, I attended a local metal & rock festival in my town, where the ticket price was two empty packs of Hollywood cigarettes. Cigarette brands were just expanding on the Eastern European market and they would sponsor events often. I was about 12 years old, when I heard the festival was happening right by my house at the outdoor theater. So I went to my parents and demanded they give me money to buy two packs of cigarettes. I came back, gave my dad the cigarettes, he wasn’t exactly happy cause those were not his brand of choice. Took the empty packs to the box office and got myself into the festival! My brother’s band played again that night. The whole show was awesome – It started in the afternoon and ended well past midnight. I was cold and tired, my neck hurt, but I saw so many bands from out of town and also so many friends. I got hooked.
It took a while to see my first international band, as there wasn’t a promoters circuit for such events yet, but even so, having access to music, be it pirated, was a huge step for our little brainwashed heads. I think a lot of us harbored a bit of resentment when we realized just what we were missing during communism. There is no place for censorship in arts of any kind. If something doesn’t sit well with someone, then there is also the freedom to choose something else, and be thankful for that freedom of choice. There should be art of all kinds, and something for everyone. It’s just up to us to allow it to happen.
It's Okay, I'm Eastern European. 