Text taken from GRÜST #3 zine, published on 06.2023.
GUYS CHILL WE COOL…
TURBOHOBO the vocalist here, telling you the story!
BROKEN ENGLISH FOR BROKEN TOURISTS
You’re holding a punk zine in your hands. Probably used to roll a joint. Check for leftovers!!! You never know.
This one’s called GRÜST. Kinda like CRUST but with a G. It means PUSH!!! Push the scene. Inspire youth to make communities, activism, create zines and music with ideology. You know, pushing them to care!!! And I’m so desperate I decided to write this one in English. The international internet language.
In the last 5 years the Riga scene has been reborn. It’s been years, man! Last time something like that happened was in the 2000s/10s. Jerked chain: if you ask me. Youth has no one to look up to. No idols. No metal dudes in their 40s wearing leather jackets with a WOLFBRIGADE backpatch, questioning themselves if the NO FUTURE they soo riot against has actually arrived.
Damn it’s a foggy Wednesday night…
So the scene before the last wave and this wave was really calm, almost not existing. Punks got married, moved to a better paying country, started to play post-metal or switched to the STURM scene (our local industrials). And the ones that stayed didn’t evolve along with the scene. Because there was no scene!!! …Well you got the idea. Nowadays the older guys naively believe that they can keep the scene like it was in the old days. Like it was when humanity didn’t try to accept each other as much as they do now. At least in Europe.
And so here’s something we did to inspire youth that they can step up and change something. We organized something revolutionary – first Latvian Queer Punk fest! In Eastern Europe… ex-USSR country. Yeah… We are the first European country with a gay president, tho! So in your face Western Europe!
In a week-long festival we led lectures about safe sex, sexperiments and sex traumas. During the second part of the week we held a queer patch workshop with a beautiful acoustic concert in the background. We also organized two punk shows with female fronted / queer bands. They were packed! Even the police paid a visit. Busted 3 underaged kids for public drinking. Luckily we stopped them from coming inside. Backstage was used as a joint factory. And weed in Latvia is as illegal as heroin or meth or whatever. Anyway, for 11 grams you risk 7 years in prison. I actually was once caught with that amount. Cycled to a pagan metal festival 60km outside of Riga with a full bag of weed. Had those small plastic pockets and scales with me. To sell obviously. When I noticed that they had cops with dogs patrolling at the festival’s camp side I rushed to the backstage area to give my bag to a friend and act a fool. While I was waiting I got surrounded by 10 pigs and their snitching paw patrol. Got escorted straight to the cops van with my hands locked behind my back and a taser pointing to my waist. “If you try anything funny I’ll shoot!” God damnit. It’s fucking weed you morons. I came up with a story that I’m a bartender and a customer that knows me (but I don’t know him because obviously I don’t know all customer’s names) sold me weed. A little lie to not bust my dealer or anyone actually. Cops didn’t believe me because I had pockets and scales with me. “Well… I carry scales around so I know how much weed I put in a joint.” – “And pockets?” – “Oh, they came together with scales at the tobacco store.”
I had to work 180 hours of forced labor and pay around 300 eur for having 11 grams. Actually on paper they were only 9 grams. I don’t know if cops smoked a little bit themselves or saved my ass (less than 10 grams – 1 year probation, over 10 grams – 5 years probation) but I’m 100% sure they took some of it! Corrupted fucking system’s slaves.
Soo… The Queer Punk fest. On the 7th and last day of the festival we organized yoga with PIDARI playing in the background.
It was an early Sunday morning. A yoga teacher was leading the group in the rain, hiding only herself from it. She was flowing and we followed her. I played clarinet, PASTNIEKS acoustic guitar, MINITURBO drums and ARMADILLO synth. Without melody, without rhythm. Like a Gregorian chant OM kinda vibe. The jam started to breathe together with the yoga teacher’s breath. Friends gathered around, spread out the blankets on wooden pallets and stretched along. Rain was falling the whole morning. But yoga people didn’t mind about it. Absolute calmness. Rain was the 6th instrument in the performance (5th being the teacher’s voice). People passing by froze. Waited a bit. Enjoyed their present. What a beautiful moment to exist!
Sometimes after longer festivals I take a sketchy pill to pass out. To switch off my brain after overworking. To give my mind a break, to stop running. Forced turn off. But on that day I learned something new – to meet myself with peace. No, not by meditating or concentrating. Not by thinking about creating peace. No! I didn’t even have to make an effort. I didn’t catch myself calming myself and giving my brains a rest. Process ended and I slowly started to be aware of my thoughts. Wow! Such a peaceful moment with an empty mind. I stopped running. How beautiful to spend the well earned rest with myself alone in the moment. This chapter ended and the next one will start soon. What’s next on the list? We’ll see… Let this one end first.
This happened 10 days before PIDARI European tour with HELLBASTARD.
It was a beautiful week full of love. PUNK IS LOVE! Remember that!
The ideology behind this fest was to unite two minority groups of Latvian society. We need to support each other against USSR mind-sets that still live among us. We are power, bro! We also received a lot of hate during the week. Nice! Bigots care to comment on our actions! Triggered small-minded people = free advertisement for us. Fuck who you want. Look how you want. What is this? Nazi Germany? Be free, kid!
PIDARI MANIFESTO
Would we really call our band FAGGOTS and perform at queer shows? It’s not a Russian swear word. Fuck russia! It’s Latvian. Means ASSHOLES, HOOLIGANS, RUDEBOYS. Something you say to a young skater boi that nails a sick trick – BĻĒ, PIDARS! AHUJENNA, VECĪT! (“Fucking hell! That was rad!”) So yeah we named our band PIDARI.
We started off as a wedding band, actually. Shared drinks with mother-in-laws and earned cash at seaside cafes. Same 100 Latvian schlager and country cover songs on repeat every weekend.
Yeah well fuck that… It’s not about the money, man. Fuck money! Fuck capitalism and fuck this fucked up system where you need to have wealth to survive in a society. Fuck it!
One day we decided that we have to make a punk band and play punk with an attitude! Pass the message, you know!
So we got together to STICK THE HATE IN THEIR FACES. It was October ‘22. We managed to write some pretty angry tunes despite having a blues guitar teacher, jazz drums student, music programmer and a burnt out crustie in the same team.
9 months later we got Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland under the belt. And we didn’t stop there. In late June ‘23 we are going on tour with UK crust pioneers HELLBASTARD. Yeah the same guys who’s ‘86 demo is the reason you call your stinky-drunk-all-black-wearing-passed-out-on-your-momma’s-sofa pal a CRUSTIE and not a DIRTBAG, YELLOW-TEETH or whatever.
Oh yeah another thing – social media? Nah! You wanna hear us? Come to our shows. This is live music and not some hearts and followers collecting instagram pages. We are music! We are in action! We are energy that we share with you LIVE! Don’t need to exchange politeness in the comments section. Come to the show! Shake hands. Buy merch or sell merch. Hell, even better – trade merch! That will give way bigger support and respect than re-sharing a facebook story.
Yeah, it’s all about that. Being alive! Maybe no one will remember us in a few months. So what? We will! Live your own life to the fullest!
Not the smartest decision for a touring band but oh well… We are just some jazzy crust band from an exotic country named after an LGBTQ N-word. We actually made the punk band play 3 shows only and disband. On the 3rd show ARMADILLO even smashed his bass on stage. The end. BASTA! Yeah, well we thought so too. And look where it has led us! Touring bands from Latvia is not a thing. We have maybe 20 punk bands in total from which maybe 3 have played in Estonia or Lithuania (neighbor countries). Latvian punk bands touring Europe are a rarity. You should stick to this zine like Yugi sticks to his rare Exodia cards.
We have absolutely no idea how the style of music that we are attempting to play should actually sound like. A country solo in the middle of a crust song, a reggaeton song that finishes off with doom and blast beats underneath the tunes of standard jazz. A wonderful trip.
In August PIDAR are going on another tour. This one will take us to Finland and back with our Tampere friends .338, a high caliber d-beat band. TURBO Dave the vocalist from PIDARI is playing bass with them as well.