Hello.
We bring you mini thing issue of fanzine on the internet. We are having too many lazy moments to print it onto the paper. No we lie, we have been having sad illness that has been getting in the way of doing the things that we have been liking to do. so we give you some little bits of news and happenings that we hope you have a short time of enjoyment. Originally we hoped to print little newsletter onto paper for next gig with Gypsy Hill but we are having the illness as mentioned before, please do pay attention. Thankyou.
We have uploaded some of the videos we have taken over the times of pleasure up onto that platform they are calling youtube. You will have amicable times, in fact very authentic times seeing past happenings with Mama Matrix, Chavo, Tako Lako and Drunken Balordi. You can have nostalgia if you type into youtube the bands names and include the word Nazdrove then you will have located the right places for inducement.Please take time to look. Thanks to you.
We bring you mini thing issue of fanzine on the internet. We are having too many lazy moments to print it onto the paper. No we lie, we have been having sad illness that has been getting in the way of doing the things that we have been liking to do. so we give you some little bits of news and happenings that we hope you have a short time of enjoyment. Originally we hoped to print little newsletter onto paper for next gig with Gypsy Hill but we are having the illness as mentioned before, please do pay attention. Thankyou.
We have uploaded some of the videos we have taken over the times of pleasure up onto that platform they are calling youtube. You will have amicable times, in fact very authentic times seeing past happenings with Mama Matrix, Chavo, Tako Lako and Drunken Balordi. You can have nostalgia if you type into youtube the bands names and include the word Nazdrove then you will have located the right places for inducement.Please take time to look. Thanks to you.
Not only have the bands been great but so have the cake makers. Thanks!!! They've made some incredible edibles! Here is what those great people made this season.
cheers Surehand Nick & Lizzie B.
cheers Surehand Nick & Lizzie B.
What's Happening??
We thought we would kindly mention things that are going on. We know not much but here are a few little things that we have been informed of......
Johnny Kowalski & The Sexy Weirdos have just come back from eighteen days in Europe. Starting in London, they went on to play in Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Czech Republic, Holland and France. This involved nearly three thousand miles of travelling, quite a few nights spent sleeping in the van and avoiding sunstroke whilst playing in the street. Lows included playing to only four people in Luxembourg and drinking antifreeze by mistake in Prague (don't ask!).
Their highs were too many to list, though the incredibly warm welcome they found in so many of the places that they played was definitely a high point, not to mention the fantastic variety of European alcohol they drank whilst out there! They were also blessed to have French photographer Alice Morelli with them for the last two dates of the tour, resulting in a load of arty new black and white photos which you can see on their blog. All in all, it was a fantastic experience and they can't wait to go back out there.
The tour also gave them the chance to road test the material for the follow up to our debut album Victory For The Monsters. They now have all the tunes ready for our next album, and hope to start the recording process soon. However, don't expect the next album to be rush released - they're going to make sure it's as good as it humanly can be, which might take a while.
They've got quite a few UK gigs coming up over the next few months; visiting old mates at Balkanic Eruption again and playing their first ever gigs in Liverpool and Gloucester. There's also the festival season, with sets to play at Nozstock, Swingamajig, Wychwood and Boomtown Fair. When the new album's nearly ready they'll be making some more videos so watch out for those!!
Crash Nomada from Sweden have a new EP release coming up on 29 May on Transnational Records. It will be called "Broar EP", released digital and as 7" Vinyl, and will for the first time contain only songs in Swedish. Crash Nomada came out of the ashes of Dorelene Love who I have appreciated for sometime, especially the song, 'Cool,Cool, Anarchy'. CN play hugely accomplished and charismatic Gypsy Punk. Taking influences from many places with big folk and punk energy and attitude. Deffo a band to watch out for...
"We have a cool summer coming up with many great festivals in and outside Sweden." On 10th of August they will play at the Boomtown Fair festival in UK and also do some club gigs in London. Also, we will play at Swedens most celebrated World Musik event "Urkult".
Kultur Shock are touring the European mainland taking in Turkey, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Germany and Czech Republic. Unfortunately they are not hitting the UK.
Drunken Balordi are recording their 2nd LP and should be putting the finishing touches to it as we speak. They are doing a few shows at a festival in Croatia in July. The project band that involves Drunken Balordi members, Tiger Söze will release songs on the 6th of July and have just played in Rome last weekend.
Apart from touring Bosnia, Montenegro and Georgia since Trans Siberian March Band last graced Naz Droves stage, the band have made a short film laced with cosmonautical mystery, collaborated with hip hop virtuoso DJ Yoda at Festivals and on Film and are now just embarking on a new summer of festival magic with DJ Yoda and with their own sets.
Watch out for them at Glastonbury, Bestival, Standon Calling and Lovebox. If perchance you find yourself near Naples on 27 and 28 July, you will find them playing at the Casellarte Festival. Tell them you are from Sheffield and a friend of Nazdrove Zine and they promise a special prize! Catch the films on youtube.
The Worldly Savages released their album March Towards the Madness on March 20th. The album was recorded in Belgrade, Serbia with the band singer/songwriter Erik Mut formed when living in London in 2011-2012 with extra help provided by local Serbian musicians. The album features definitive recordings of some of Worldly Savages Gypsy Punk anthems such as "The Evil Never Sleeps" and "Make Them Go Insane" and some newer songs such as "Republic of Suburbia" and "March Towards the Madness".
Upon completing the album, the band has embarked on a 2.5 month tour through Europe driving to destinations as far as Romania and Norway playing gigs and using the website couchsurfing.com to find accommodation. The journey has been long and rough, but also rewarding.
The tour ends May 18th in London at Hootananny's in Brixton for Stranger than paradise after which the band will be taking a break, with different members going in different directions. Erik will go traveling to Israel, Turkey, Georgia and Armenia for new creative inspiration. Ivo and Yula will go to work on organic farms in Portugal. Britton Vincent will go to live in Amsterdam. Ben and Henry will stay in the UK.
The band will get back together in the summer to play the Colours of Ostrava festival in Czech Republic and Boomtown and Small World Festivals in the UK.
Gogol Bordello have released preview track from next upcoming LP. Malandrino is a raging stomper and holds well for next release that is said to combine some of those eastern gems with a bit of the South America. We look forward to hearing and seeing in the future. While you wait out the time for that release we suggest you track down some of the many fine collaborations that Eugene Hutz has been involved in recently. Many fine tunes are coming from this individual and the great people that he has been doing smart things with.
Other short news of being on the release front - Rona Hartner and DJ Tagada will release a CD this month. Preview tracks are astounding!!! Circo Abusivo have a new CD out - great Italian band playing the Balkan Gypsy Punk style. Can't wait!! Mama Diaspora and Yuriy from Rotfront have just released an astounding remix CD. Yuriy also promises the Shtetl Superstars 2nd LP will be finally mixed and released. Hurry up!! I need 'Shengen Visa Wedding' on my ipod. Such a classic song already!!
Finally our friends at Balkanic Eruption have a great event on June 1st to celebrate the start of Roma, Traveller, Gypsy month. They have Johnny Kowalski & The Sexy Weirdos and Romany Diamonds (Polish Roma living in London) playing. Yummy. Sounds great!!! Check out Balkanic Eruption on facebook.
Other Happenings
Dale Farm Evictions
Less than two years ago the residents at Dale Farm were brutally forced from land they had legally bought and paid for by police and bailiffs in one of the biggest evictions of the Gypsy and Traveller community ever seen in Britain. Their land has since been churned and rendered useless by the Council. All this by way of punishment for planning infractions which are not even criminal, but civil offences. The former residents of Dale Farm just recently were informed that Basildon Council would be seeking to recover £4.3m of costs from Traveller families for the eviction which left them homeless in 2011. But that's not all: Basildon Council leader Tony Ball has said that if the money is not recovered then the land at Dale Farm will be seized in place of payment. He has even told the BBC how "pleased" he is with the process. An online petition urging Basildon to drop its claim has been started on the website Change.org.
Mary Sheridan, a former Dale Farm resident...
I came to Dale Farm when my first child was born 12 years ago…You can’t travel any more anyway – the police don’t allow you to travel, the Government don’t allow you to travel. In the 90s people were told to get off the road and buy the land, so that’s what we did. I miss travelling now. It was lovely, but it is also really hard because the police would make you move on really frequently, like every second day….
…I never thought ever that we’d be removed from Dale Farm. I thought we’d be here forever, and so would my kids. Because it was a scrap yard when we bought it and we made it look lovely, beautiful. Saying if it’s greenbelt then it’s a reason to remove us – and that’s just a lie, that’s just covering up prejudice. It’s not that greenbelt can never be lived on, people do build on greenbelt land – Tescos and Sainsburys, flats and houses, get to go on greenbelt land…
We didn’t want Tony Ball to evict us and waste all that money on making us homeless. We just wanted a bit of a wasted ground and he wouldn’t even give us that. I think that’s where Basildon Council went horribly wrong – instead of trying to help the travelling people, they just tried to get rid of them.
Stop press: Romanies in Europe for 1,500 years!
Romanies are Europe's largest ethnic minority group, with a population of perhaps 11 million in present day Europe. In many places, however, they are still looked upon as a "foreign" people whose right to live here is questioned by right wing groups. In recent decades scholars steadily began to agree that it was about 1,000 years ago that the first Romani people had left the Indian subcontinent. This most recent study done by 22 experts on genetics now shows that the ancestors of Europe's Romanies arrived in Europe around 1,500 years ago, which is much further back in time than previously thought. Research group leader David Comas said in the Guardian newspaper "Now we can see that they arrived in one single wave from the north-west of India around 1,500 years ago". Distinctive Romani genomes show that regardless of where Romanies may be living now, their ancestors arrived in the Balkans around 500 AD, not long after the fall of the Roman Empire in western Europe.
End of the Road for Italy’s Illegal State of Emergency
Previously we reported on Italy's declaration in 2008 of a “State of Emergency” to combat the so-called “Roma menace” under which Italian authorities were afforded extraordinary powers. Italian authorities monitored camps and carried out censuses of residents (including children), taking photos and requesting documents to identify and record residents. Roma were forcibly evicted, excluded from education, fingerprinted, segregated, harassed and expelled. At a hearing on the 26th March 2013 Italy’s highest court upheld a previous ruling (from November 2011) which declared the ‘Nomad State of Emergency’ unfounded, unmotivated and unlawful. The court's decision marks the final stage of the legal proceedings in the Italian courts and was the government’s last opportunity to appeal the court's earlier decision. For more information see: European Roma Rights Centre website (http://www.errc.org)
Right Wing Nut Job of the issue goers to ....Zsolt Bayer
A founding member of Hungary's ruling Fidesz party, Zsolt Bayer, has been expelled from the organisation after writing a newspaper opinion piece in which he wrote that "a significant part of the Roma is not suitable for coexistence", and that Romani people are "animals" with "animal behaviour". "I do not need to tolerate and understand, but to have revenge," he added. He also attacked "bastards" and "politically correct idiots of the Western world" who seek to uphold Roma rights. The National Forum of Hungarian Roma told journalists that it planned to file a criminal complaint against Bayer, whose article was widely seen as an incitement to racial hatred.
June is Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month
Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month was established in Britain in 2008 as a way of raising awareness of these communities and their contributions to society, and to offset negative stereotyping and prejudices. This June Community Channel (Sky 539 • Virgin Media 233 • Freeview 87 • BT Vision) will be celebrating the long and complex history of the Gypsy, Roma Traveller (GRT) community with a series of programming from GRT filmmakers. For more information on the schedule see http://www.communitychannel.org/featured/grt-highlights/
In 50 cities all over the world blue, green and red balloons were released in order to show solidarity and unity between all the 8 April events this year. It was a "joined-up" day of action by Gypsies and Travellers protesting against racism, discrimination, deportations and evictions. Young Roma from ternYpe, the international Roma youth network, joined a flash mob organised by Amnesty International in front of the European Parliament highlighting the evictions of Roma by showing the reality of Roma being chased out of their settlement. About 100 people demonstrated at Kensington Gardens in London. The London supporters handed in protest letters to embassies including the Czech Republic and Bulgaria accusing them of violating the human rights of the Romani people. In Dublin there was a protest outside of the European Commission building.
Cool dude of issue - Helios Gómez
Perhaps the most famous gypsy to take part in the Spanish Civil war was Helios Gómez. He a was a militant anarchist activist and artist, responsible for a number of brilliant propaganda posters. He saw the civil war as part of a wider issue which would determine the fate of Roma everywhere.
He was born in 1905 in Seville's Triana quarter into a very poor Romani family with rural origins. As he became convinced of the urgency for political change he joined anarchist groups, and decided thereafter to speak, write and paint according to his chosen political principles.
In 1927, forced to leave Seville for political reasons, he went into exile in Paris. Back in Spain in 1936 he founded the professional designers syndicate which was to launch the activist poster movement during the Civil War.
At the beginning of the Civil War, he took to the barricades in the defence of Barcelona. He was appointed Political Commissar of the UGT (General Workers Union), sailed with the Bayo expedition to free Ibiza and Majorca, and joined the fronts in Aragon, Madrid and Andalusia. He was in charge of culture for the Durruti column. According to some witnesses he got together a battalion of gypsies to protect the republic against the Franco dictatorship.
In 1939 he was forced to go to France, along with 500,000 freedom fighters from Spain. He escaped from the concentration camps in France and returned to Spain in 1944, but was arrested in 1945 and spent most of the next nine years in La Modelo Prison, where he painted frescos in cells to honour the prisoners.
He died in Barcelona in 1956, just two years after his release. The Cultural Association Helios Gómez, based in Barcelona, aims to protect and make known the outstanding heritage of this Romani artist, designer and poet.
www.heliosgomez.org
Reviews
Goran Bregovic and his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra - Champagne For Gypsies CD
Wow! There's some incredible songs on here. High on quality, delivery and intensity. I've already blasted some of these at Penelope's and they've gone down a storm. Presidente and Balkaneros features the Gipsy Kings and rocks out with the GK's trade mark style but with added Balkan Brass to create a fuller and complimented sound. Balkaneros being the most brassed up with a great stomping beat that will move any reluctant feet. Quite a sensational song with passionate vocals and chants that will have you throwing your hands in the air on the dancefloor.
Be That Man features Eugene Hutz and has a laid back beat but remains enthralling due to the lyrics and vocal delivery from this captivating Gogol frontman. With its catchy chorus its definitely one to sing a long to!!
Quantum Utopia has to be the icing on the cake for this release. Up tempo is not the correct description as this rattles along at a fantastic pace as Eugene Hutz shouts 'Sex!! Moussaka!!! Aye,Aye, Aye!!! Not so Quite on The Eastern Front!!" Brilliant!! A thrashing horn section emits a noise that sounds like Balkano Brass doing battle with Mexican Brass. Oh yes!!! More, more, more!! It builds into a crescendo! Beautiful. Already a crowd pleaser!!
Other songs on the CD hold on to the quality level. With a strong focus on uptempo dance blasters. There's also stomping renditions of Hopa Cupa and Bella Ciao to get you shaking things out. Definately one to search out.
Johnny Kowalski & The Sexy Weirdos - Victory For The Monsters CD
Wow!! These guys just came out of nowhere!! Well not really nowhere when you see that The Destroyers, Mama Matrix and the amazing club night Balkanic Eruption come from the same area of this island. What am I happening to say other than Boom!! Another great band bangs you in the head with some great tunes. It's infectious and catchy from the start with opener 'Something Wonderful' banging it out. Great vocals backed by some awesome violin playing that is only strengthened by a wicked brass section. There's a huge dollop of Balkan influences raging in this band but they are not afraid to move in and out of a few other genres creating a release full of depth and character. Colourful and great. Standouts are the opener, 'Codisl', 'Scriptwriter's Song' and 'Klezmer Prayer' …… They're great live as well….. Get it!
TOP 5's
We asked some nice people for their fave tunes at the moment. Here they are!!!
Surehand Nick, DJ - Nazzine, Sheffield
1. The Ukrainians - Anarchy in the UK
2. Haris Pilton - Gypsy partizans
3. DJ Tagada & Rona Hartner - Tornada Rona
4. 4Bstr4ck3r - Tzizanie
5. Eugene Hutz - Nostalgic For The Future
Lizzie Belacqua, Nazzine, Sheffield
1. Les Touffes Kretiennes - Guns of Brixton
2. Goran Bregovic & Eugene Hutz - Quantum utopia
3. The Ukrainians - Oi divchino
4. Shtetl Superstars - Shengen visa wedding
5. Idoli - Malcziki
Marianne Laursen, DJ - Int Balkan Gypsy Rave, Rome
1.Drunken Balordi - Italian nightmare
2.Kultur Shock - God is busy, may I help you
3.Ruskaja - Dope shit marihuana
4.Worldly Savages - Make them go insane
5.JUF - Gypsy part of town
Penny Metal, DJ - London
1. Habadekuk - Polkason
2. G Punkt Effect - Alles ist Schiesse
3. Candie Hank - Psychodixie
4. Robert Tiso - Musical Movement in F Minor
5. Daniel Pemberton - Over the Top
Ellie - Balkanic Eruption, Birmingham
1. Copilul D'aur + Laura Vass - Cine E inima mea
2. Rona Hartner + DJ Tagada - La moustache
3. Kocani Orkestar - Mangelma stoposto
4. Caravan Passe - Bulibasha
5. Shazalakazoo- Zica memo
Billy, Drunken Balordi, London
1. Kal - Mozzarella
2. Csokolom - Amari Szi Amari
3. Leningrad - Dikiy Muzhchina
4. Fanfare Ciocarlia - Born to be wild
5. J.U.F - Muskat
That's all for this short news posting. Lastly, we are publishing this on the same day as Stow Gypsy Fair in the Cotswolds as we have not gone this year, we thought we'd include a few photos we have taken over the years of this long running fair.
