The Hungarian Defekt Punk Scene Report in MRR #336

Out in the dark. While the snow is obstinately falling on my town. Feeling alright. There is a mix of sludgy melting snowflakes and my smile on my face. I feel great because memories from the last night are coming back. I was at a house party but since a couple months, every house party means a bit more than smoking in the kitchen and getting dizzy from cheap beer while nodding to ironic or nostalgic, stupid songs. I was out in the dark last year and did the exact same circle around my neighborhood as I did tonight. Maybe I had a similar ink stamp on my wrist from the show last night, or maybe still a few nights before. The only thing that has been changed is that now I have house parties to go to and have fun with people there. When the routine bites hard you could tell that you probably have an OK scene. When you’re in love with a specific trend it must be an explosion within the scene. And even giving it a name means something more, because names are only given to big things. When I thought about all these kids as a crowd, I came up with “Defekt Scene” as the definition. There was one specific show where most of the people who showed up looked like those that remained from the male population after a war fought in the recent past, who were weak enough to be left behind the safe lines because they are not even good for first-row bullet catchers.

Almost a year ago I have attended a house party in the deep countryside in a barn. I went there to have fun not to witness some kind of magic. I never hated the kids, I always was pissed off by the old people who made up stupid rules or routines to scare away little kids from doing anything out of their hearts not out from a stupid fake ethical code. Although I never was too social with people I had nothing to do with this. I liked people from a distance. But at that party I felt the youth, connecting, rebellion and fun. It was a party full of people who at other parties would be in the corner, completely invisible. Poor wallflowers. Here everyone mattered and it was amazing. Everyone shared their beers, jokes, equipment and contacts for foreign show promoters. Everyone was nice and the bands were kinda great too. Leaving with a huge positive emotional charge I watched all these kids at the shows and they attended all of them, either as a devoted fan of the punk scene itself or as a band member ripping up the stage. After this revelation I had to realize that this year is a center of something really great. Bands formed with the desire to play great music. They tour, host other bands, do interesting home recording sessions. They are active politically and socially. The scene thinks, and people have opinions which they stick into in their acts. Finally, they have fucking great acts. Every show is a big hang out, with the teen-angst in the focus. And the house afterparties are clearly the icing on the cake. These kids created their own scene and they don’t give a fuck about assholes who try to mock them or laugh at them. They don’t need anyone but themselves. Society doesn’t provide them weekend entertainment so they just rot in their rehearsal rooms writing songs in these gifted empty nights.

The quintessence of this scene may be LÖMBIHEAD. On terrible hangover-soaked days I usually wonder if at the show there were about 60 people how the hell can I only remember that 20 specific familiar faces. I first saw Lömbihead at that magical barn fest I mentioned above and I haven’t recognized these kids since they hit the metaphorical stage. After that they disappeared, only to come into view again in the lower end of the night when one of them asked if someone wants to smoke some pot with them. They blended in, they hid in corners or behind bigger room-plants. A couple hours earlier, when they started to play I couldn’t do anything but to surrender and move my head, my body and my whole devotion of punk kids’ bedroom music. They played sloppy but in the good way, when they couldn't care less about anything else but to have fun. Amazing mix of the geeky craziness of Ramones, the witty parts of Fugazi and some visceral Urinals. The latest is the coolest because as it turned out couple months later the band did not know Urinals at all. This post-apocalyptic, nuclear beach party music is one of the finest things that have ever come out of this shithole. The lyrics are as smart as they are obscene and harsh. Their sweet and awkward aura captures me all the time. There’s no show happening on the stage it’s just pure teenage noise music you must listen and see if you have the ability to recognize it. One particular dance has evolved around these kids in which the crowd goes half naked. Looking at this scenario and their bodies gives an idea about the name “Defekt”. Beers in their hands and half naked, young kids hug each other. It’s a magical scene you wouldn’t wanna miss. The formally most unimportant kids in society doing the most important thing on earth: saving their own lives. From boredom, from growing up, from spending a Friday night alone, from pining over rejections.

As it usually goes around in Hungary, there’s no clear reason why this bunch of bands came to existence, all in this specific time. No band sounds like the other and all the kids became friends after they started playing shows together or just found each other by the common coincidence of making something really cool. There were good bands before them. A few but there’s no specific sound bequeathed to this new generation. Maybe hints of some attitude but come on, real punks have their unwritten code of honor since forever. DIY or die. We go everywhere because we wanna play. One band is around for years, starting out in the “non-defect” times, still running and giving us better stuff from show to show. The name is DANCE OR DIE. Finally they have gained their well deserved due – at least here – and they rip. They operate on this late ‘90s, early ‘00s “where do we go from here” gloomy, melodic sound mixed with the “we don’t wanna grow up” desperation which is the teenage angst without an expiration date on it. Some classify them as fast core or crust mixed with some emo, but in the bottom line it’s just fast, and passionate hardcore / punk with three guys screaming and four guys seemingly playing their hearts out on their instruments. The usual criticism of seeing them live is they look sad. Well, the whole continent is sealed with a romanticized sadness which just gets filled with more realism if we go East. Maybe their lovelessness shines through as much from their looks as from their songs, but since when do we wanna turn our heads away if we see something being such real at a punk show? If you wanna have fun then learn their lyrics and sing with them. It’s not that easy to observe other people’s emotional outtakes when you’re singing along and shaking. A couple of weeks ago I saw them with the poorest sound a shady club could offer. That raging, emotionally exhausting noise got turned down and they sounded like a passionate tuneful punk band who does not just write songs that will do the thing but they perform them with a lot of will.

Wandering off from the outskirts and going towards the center of the city that looks like Prague but dirtier (Budapest) we find the residence of FOR MY FRIENDS, a bunch of wild kids, drugged and messed up. They started out from the ashes of NOTHING, a band that finally wanted to play good music and even though they played terribly live… at least it wasn’t shitty music performed even shittier. Falling out from the classical straight up angry kid hardcore, For My Friends rather goes with the beer-flavored bearded pop or melodic punk mixed with a little more anger and geekiness. Although, I doubt these guys had enough time to secrete as many hormones as needed to grow a decent beard. Moreover, they lacked the will for many long months to play their songs properly. I saw them once and it was like Sex Pistols with four Sid Vicious’ on heroin. The ideas behind their music were always cool, but the whole picture looked more like a good draft than an actual act. As it usually goes, time could fix what diligence could have done quicker. The drummer still could enter a “who could beat an egg longer, with full force but without breaking the shell” contest but at least now the music sounds to be more tight. The casual critic, standing right next to me on a recent gig told me: “we rather hear their influences than the song itself”. Even though he was damn right, FOR MY FRIENDS plays a type of music which could capture you, make you bang your head and put a smile on your face. Taking away my personal bias of living the same city, I have no idea how good they could be, but the good thing for me is I don’t have to care about that. If you don’t like them then move here and get used to the mistakes. Trust me, it’s great to see kids swinging in with a beer, some weed and broken hearts, trying to be Budapest’s best dancers. Of course they are far from it but at least they are trying.

Hailing from Salgótarján, here we have Gábor Rádi, former vocalist of SÄW, a guy with two bands and a label which called KIDS LIKE US and still lives in an incubator. One of his music projects is called YOUNG ARSENAL. Inspired by, and sometimes aping, the so-called Kirsch sound they play open chord, raw, noisy but melodic-in-the-emo-way hardcore punk with social/political lyrics and a lot of use of sound collages both at live shows and on record. Well, you rather listen to them on record if you want to hear the real thing because at live shows they play with stockings on their heads (women's nylon, not the bank robber type) which obstruct their view so they don't see the microphones they are supposed to sing in and the mp3 player with which the aforementioned interlude skits should be played from. Even though sometimes they test your nerves and make one query their whole existence, I must be fair because most of the times they do a solid job with delivering fine punk rock. On the other hand, Gábor's other band called FUSEISM is something I haven’t heard before. Their guitarist comes from this island within Budapest called Csepel which is like another universe. It’s residents are chained to the shores, turning into agoraphobics on that tiny land. Especially if we mix punks with the cheapest local beer, enough glue and one of the biggest industrial areas of the country with many abandoned buildings, fine spaces for rehearsal rooms, raves or simply vanishing from society. This guy cut his bonds. He didn’t burn any bridges but delivers the best guitar parts since I could even remember. I read that revolution summer – or maybe just Guy Picciotto’s guitar parts in Rites Of Spring – were hugely influenced by the guitar play of Rikk Agnew. That is what FUSEISM reeks of too. Dreamy, rev. summer guitar rage pushed through the echoes of the surf sound and a little bit of the taste of the guitar overdose given by nowadays Fucked Up. It is delivered with a cold handed rhythm section and consciously weak vocals, like the singer doesn’t even try to sound enjoyable or simply doesn't care at all. FUSEISM dwells on ground that could capture the attention of lame hipsters as well but they have the attitude and credo that can convince punks that all the fancy assholes at the shows are there by mistake. This band is the real deal.

Going west into Veszprém County we get the hotbed of new punk in Hungary. The two epitomes of the scene are PFA and PLAN BEER, a group of friends and tour mates. PFA is formed by four ultimate nasty kids. As news says, now they are backed up by a keyboard player, but no one had the luck to see this formation so far I’m writing these lines. These fucked up little prodigies are killing it every time, everywhere. They play thrashy punk hardcore with sweaty, mutilated one-finger solos. Pace is changing like a rollercoaster of a mood of a drunken person, balancing on the edge of passing out and endless raving. Their short, to-the-point lyrics are like drunken revelations and epiphanies of modern society and of punk itself, murmured at the lower ends of house parties on a couch with vomit stains. Every word have this awakening stink of belching. They need to be digested a bit but all in all they are thoughtful, funny, ironic and most of all true. Like a book consisting of nothing but perfect one-liners one after another. PFA would be excellent music to drop acid to and watch weird movies played backwards, or just wonder about these kinda things. It’s not the sound of terror. It’s the sound of taking weird drugs what make you more punk not a smiling puppy who accepts everything what the world offers.

PLAN BEER, on the other hand, walks along the classical path of punk, playing nothing but fast and smart music filled with the anger of youth. They use more melodies, with singalong parts and mid-tempos, injecting a darkish, atmospheric tone to the whole sound - a kind which totally resonates with the desperation that makes punk music awesome. They sound as punk should have sounded after the glorious days of the 80s, not as punk had been fucked up in the medieval decade of the 90s - speaking of course within the map lines of Hungary. There is nothing progressive in their sound but the timelessness of their songs are truly about the present. Luckily we live and listen to everything in the present so it can stick with us until we becomes the past. They play their guitars and shout their lyrics in a way that offers something to think about and most of the times they nail it with the slight chance of fucking it up which makes their music more interesting. This last sentence is quite true for all the previous band descriptions included in this report. If you’re looking for punk rock in its raw beauty, without any added polish or adjectives, here you are.

The last band that comes to my mind when thinking of something awesomely wrong is MIND YOUR STEP. Hailing from the area of Győr, they play furious punk / hardcore what reminds you to early Agnostic Front, SSD or slower fastcore bands like Youth Attack fame. Well, their point is to play fast and noisy. The first time I heard them I didn’t see them cause I was handling the door the a show. They did a Minor Threat song which sounded sloppy through the door between me and the stage. My friend came to me and told me that they should rather cover Void, because even if they fuck it up it is still Void, or rather it is even more Void. This is kind of what you get from them. A chase for staying in time that sometimes leads into chaotic noise but it still is good and entertaining even when it falls apart, like a tightrope walker who falls, only with punk if you fall you won’t get hurt. That is the best show everyone wants to see. And it’s not even sympathy towards them. They are great in the punk way and punk way is the best way.

So this is the “Defekt Scene”. Mostly. I’m sure where there is punk there are also kids who are exactly the same. And if you don’t see magic in them I’m sorry but you should rather go with radio rock. Young and snotty kids stick together, throwing guerilla house parties or rehearsal room shows, forming new bands, writing fanzines. All in all, they make their shit happen. Of course there are more Hungarian bands. What you’ve read about is just a tiny piece of it. Some groups are even better for my taste than any of these bands above, but this scene captures something significant that is happening now here, in a scene that usually always looked down on newcomers and weirdos, with a government fucking everyone’s lives up. Now punk music and punks in barns and bedrooms seem to have restored what it’s about. A cool, nasty, weird, nerdy but honest secret. And big one.

most of the bands' records are up here: http://heart-a-tact.blogspot.com/