About Dezerter
Dezerter, founded as SS-20 in May 1981 in Warsaw, is one of the most popular punk bands from Poland. The band was founded by three students of Warsaw's vocational high school - Robert "Robal" Matera , Krzysztof Grabowski , and Dariusz "Stepa" Stepnowski . All three were born in 1963, and went to the same class. From the beginning Grabowski wrote lyrics, and Matera music. The three classmates originally planned to name their band Sektor A, but after some time changed their minds and named it SS-20. Soon afterwards, they were joined by another student of the same school, Dariusz "Skandal" Hajn , who, as Grabowski later stated, "looked like a real punkrocker". The band started regular rehearsals in the summer of 1981. With fast guitar riffs and intelligent lyrics written by Grabowski, Dezerter's concerts drew thousands of fans and its LPs were very popular, especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The most famous Dezerter's live appearance took place during the 1984 Jarocin Festival in Jarocin, Poland and it was attended by some 20,000 people. The concert was recorded and later parts of it were released on the LP Underground Out of Poland. The LP was produced by Joey Shithead, vocalist of Canadian band D.O.A. Dezerter however is not widely known in other countries, perhaps because the band refrains from singing in the English language. Nevertheless, it played in several European countries, as well as Japan and the U.S. . In 2010, Grabowski's memoirs "Dezerter, poroniona generacja?" were published in Warsaw.
SS-20 debuted during the Mokotów Autumn Music Festival, in November 1981. In the spring of 1982 the band played at the Rail Worker House of Culture in Warsaw's district of Praga, but the show was ended halfway when management of the house disconnected electricity. Soon afterwards, SS-20 went for its first concert outside of Warsaw. It took place in Toruń, at the Od Nowa Club. In early summer 1982, SS-20 recorded a tape and sent it to the management of the Jarocin Festival. To the surprise of band's members, it was qualified to perform. The August 1982 Jarocin show was filmed by Polish TV ), and by film director Paweł Karpiński. SS-20 became famous, and the band appeared in such films, as "Być człowiekiem", "Film o pankach", and "To tylko rock" ).
In September 1982, the band had to change the name to Dezerter because of the reaction of the Communist authorities . To become less recognizable by the regime, they often changed the name in posters, sometimes spelled as "De-zerter", sometimes as "The Zerter" - it was a cheap and efficient trick to cheat the regime. At first, the band practiced at a Culture House in Nieporęt, moving in the late summer of 1983 to the Dziekanka Student Club in Warsaw. First show under the name Dezerter took place on September 15, 1982 at Warsaw's Riviera Remont Student Club. In mid-November 1982, already under the name Dezerter, and together with other Polish punk rock bands , it went on a tour across southeastern corner of the country. The tour was named "Rock Galicja", and featured shows in Rzeszów, Krosno, Sanok, and Mielec. After coming back to Warsaw, band's members had problems at their high school, since they missed several school days.
In the summer of 1983, with help of Polish Radio reporter Marek Wiernik, Dezerter recorded a four-song 7″ EP, Ku przyszłości also known as Spytaj milicjanta . Before recording, which took place at the state company Tonpress in Warsaw's district of Wawrzyszew, the band provided a list of 12 songs, and Communist censorship office allowed four of them - Spytaj milicjanta, Ku przyszłości, Szara rzeczywistość , and Wojna głupców . The record was issued by Tonpress, and was very warmly welcomed by fans, with 50,000 copies sold. Members of the band distributed it to several fanzines and activists in the West, including Maximumrocknroll, in which a positive review was published. As a result, Dezerter became a recognized punk rock band.
In the first half of 1984 the band moved to University of Warsaw Student Club Hybrydy, where it prepared for the Jarocin Festival. The 1984 festival took place in early August, and Dezerter's show, recorded and later published as Jeszcze żywy człowiek , turned out to be one of the main events of the festival. The band prepared all their best songs, and during the frequent breaks, Skandal and Stepa would read excerpts from popular Polish comic books, such as Hans Kloss. Furthermore, at one point the band requested firefighters, who were present at the stadium with their trucks, to water the dry grass, as there were clouds of dust in the air, caused by the pogo. The organizers refused to do so, and the show was interrupted several times, as the situation almost got out of control, with the threat of a riot. After the show, the band argued with the organizer of the festival, Walter Chełstowski, and as a result, Dezerter was not allowed to perform at the Jarocin Festival until 1987.
In the fall of 1984, after a concert at Warsaw's Hybrydy, the band met a man named Maciej Chmiel, who became Dezerter's manager. Soon afterwards, band's members, for the money received as royalties from Tonpress for its EP, purchased a tape recorder at a Pewex store, opening its own illegal publishing company, Tank Records. First release was Dezerter's Jarocin 1984 show, issued as Jeszcze żywy człowiek , which years later came out as a CD. In early 1985 Dezerter attempted to perform in Jugoslavia, but Communist government of Poland refused to grant passports to the members of the band. In December 1985, Canadian punk rock band D.O.A. performed at Warsaw's Riviera Remont. After the show, the Canadians met with Dezerter, and Joey Shithead offered to take band's recordings to North America, to try to publish them. The Underground Out of Poland, based on material handed over to Shithead, was released in 1987 by Maximumrocknroll. Originally, as Grabowski claims, the album was planned to be released by Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles, but it didn't happen due to Biafra's legal problems with the poster in the record sleeve of his Frankenchrist album. According to Grabowski, Dezerter sent its own cover design for the Underground Out of Poland album, but Maximumrockandroll chose their design. Furthermore, the Americans changed the name of the album, as Grabowski wanted to name it Greatest sHits.
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