Velvet Revolvers: The Plastic People of the Universe

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WHEN THE PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE (PPU) began playing in 1968, it was in the midst of Prague Spring, a time when the Communist chokehold on Czechoslovakia's culture was beginning to loosen.

The Western hippie movement — from the music, poetry and fashion — was idealized and PPU looked especially to The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa for inspiration, naming the band after a song by Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

PPU was banned from playing in public by the Communist government, was arrested multiple times for playing anyway and was the impetus for the writing of Charter 77, which sparked a worldwide human rights movement and eventually brought democracy to Czechoslovakia following the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

But PPU has always maintained that it did not set out to become politically active. "The band was pushed to being political," said bassist Eva Turnova, one of the newer members. "When we spread out, partly because some members were jailed and some defected, there was not much hope that we would ever gather again to play. It's a kind of satisfaction that we can now play freely, which was the idea at the very beginning."

The band reunited in 1997 — 20 years after Charter 77 — and has toured steadily since. PPU now contains three original members and four new ones, and the group's dynamics and performances have changed accordingly.

"Being youngsters, they were a bit more playful using the stage in the way of 'happenings,'" Turnova said. Old PPU shows featured costumes, light shows and set pieces, which also could make for somewhat clumsy performances. "The members of the band have been through a lot of musical experience since then and their playing is much more coherent and shows more casual."

On this tour, Turnova said the band would primarily be playing tunes from its catalog, with a couple new ones thrown in. But given the group's tumultuous history, the older tunes sometimes carry more emotion than is immediately apparent. "Some songs evoke old feelings, sometimes very unexpectedly," she said, adding that though PPU has been playing many of these songs for decades, the band doesn't tire of playing the same tunes.

"Half of the band changed, so we have guitar and double bass, which we did not have in the old days," Turnova said. "The music itself is different — only the harmony has been preserved. But we feel the necessity to work on a new CD very urgently to express what the new lineup has in common and to express the feelings of this new entity."

While the band's influences remain rooted in the avant-garde and rock music of the 1960s and '70s, the group's collective mind isn't stuck in that era.

"The old members of the band listen to more or less the same — The Fugs, The Velvet Underground, a lot of jazz and classical music, Miles Davis, Irish traditional music, " Turnova said. "And the new ones keep up with new trends, mostly alternative such as Radiohead, Einstuerzende Neubauten, Nine Inch Nails, P.J. Harvey, The Strokes.

"The age difference is not an obstacle, quite the opposite," she continued. "The band is clicking and I think we managed to introduce a kind of 'democracy.' There is no leader and everybody has a chance to affect the band's conceptual and musical direction."

The one area where the generations clash, she said, is technology.

"The original members tend to avoid new technologies; they want to keep the raw sound as it used to be."

» Black Cat (backstage), 1811 14th St. NW; with Macitajs on Acid, Tue., 8 p.m., $15; 202-667-7960. (U St.-Cardozo)

» Download PPU MP3s here.

Written by Express contributor Katherine Silkaitis

Photo by Vladimir Weiss