VESPA

VESPA’s members call themselves “the worst band in Poland” at once finishing all comments on their skills as the instrumentalists. They adhere to a punk principle “perhaps we can’t play (and sing for sure), but it's still fucking great” – always played on the verge of clowning around – realising a lot of positive energy both within themselves and audience. VESPA is a dansing parties’ glamour of cheap suits, narrow black ties from the times of our parents’ proms, shining trumpets and music which totally does not match modern trends. Ineptly swinging brass section, a pinch of Jamaican wedding reception from the golden era of carton drum sets and five handsome men shadowed by the charming vocalist. VESPA is one of the first Polish bands playing ska music. Created in 1995 by Radar (vocal), Krzaq (bass), Pasterz (drums) and Kantor (guitar). The band was soon joined by Maciek (guitar) and they called themselves VESPA and began to conquer the world. At this time the band members were fascinated by so called third wave of ska but due to poor music skills at that time, they sounded more like ska-punk. Soon their instruments were joined by alto saxophone (Szymon), tenor saxophone (Alicja), trumpet (Ania) and keyboards (Grzesiu). In this squad Vespa recorded the garage demo tape “Hoolana do rana” distributed among friends in amount of 50 pieces. The band performed on stage intensively and finally thanks to the gig with the legend of Polish punk rock - Dezerter – they made contact with Pietia, the boss of Warsaw based QQRYQ Records, the mightiest Polish label realising independent music at that time. Although, its catalogue was dominated by hc and punk, QQRYQ took the risk to release Vespa’s material, despite the fact that Polish ska scene AD 1997 could hardly be called “a margin”. In autumn 1997 in QQRYQ catalogue finally appeared the tape with the debut material simply called “Vespa”. There appeared a few classic songs such as: “Skutermania”, “Sasiedzi”, “Fantomas”. In 1998 the band performed in Bad Muskau (Germany) being a support group preceding such bands as Benuts or Mr. Review, and after that for the first time in its history the band suspended its activity. The band rejoined for a few times to play single concerts until its members were reinforced by Tadeusz Kumela (alto saxophone) and Blazej Jogibabu (baritone saxophone). Thanks to new members Vespa caught the second breath. Slowly the Wasp’s repertoire turned towards classical Jamaican rhythms and thanks to Tadeusz the jazz-swing arrangements appeared. The proposition of recording and realising new material came from JimmyJazzRecords, specializing in streetpunk and ska. Vespa finished recordings of “Bujaj sie…” LP virtually being in the state of decay, therefore JimmyJazz published the information that it was realising the record of ” unfortunately not existing band from Szczecin”. On “Bujaj sie” except from ska there is the echo of jazz and swing, there is also self-ironic song in death metal genre. The latter style is quite often referred by band’s members, calling themselves the Satan’s followers, occultism and animalism zealots. The saxophonist Alicja debuted as a singer on the record, therefore the song “To miasto” is “a must be” during Vespa’s concerts. “Bujaj sie…” received a great acclaim among ska fans in Poland and thanks to their reactions Alicja, Maciek and Krzaq, as the only ones who were interested in writing a new chapters of Vespa’s history, began the actions to reactivate the band. It happened in Taras club in Szczecin in 2004 and since that time Vespa has been playing to the present day. In June 2007 the band released at their own cost the hit single “Gorace lato w miescie/ Nie klam” (“Hot summer in the city/ Please, stop your lying”), followed by the full album “Potwór” (“The Monster”). The single met an enthusiastic welcome, and the first track was played by many local as well as national broadcasting stations. In Autumn 2007 the band decided to take matters into their own hands and founded Showbiz Monstaz Records, a record label which has released “Potwór”.“Potwór” is yet another step in creating Vespa's individual style, of which their previous album was already a signal - a neat combination of Jamaican ska and rocksteady rhythms and American 'swing revival'. “Potwór” also features instrumental tracks (eg. a reinterpretation of John Coltrane’s “Equinox”) and is filled with clear references to the classics of the genre, like “Nie klam” (“Please, stop your lying” originally performed by Errol Dunkley) and “Rub up push up” by a classical Jamaican author, Justin Hinds. The lyrics constitute a separate layer of the album. Written with wit and grace, they tell stories about male-female relationships and life in the city jungle, but also stories inspired by film characters like murderesses, werewolves or giant wasps.