... answers by Mindas.First question. What are your impressions after tour in Poland and Austria? What was strange for you?
Hello everybody! Well, this tour was the very first for us. Thanx to everybody who helped us in, arranged gigs, provided accomodation and just were nice. There were some strange things in different places, but in general, i think, everything went as we eexpected. Maybe most of the things were not strange, but simply different from those we see in Lithuania.
What could you say about the situation in Lithuanian punk scene, about concerts, about bands. How do you see the future?
Lithuanian punk scene is young and small. Punk movement started in about '83-'84. This time lots of punks used swastikas as a punk rock sign or symbol, but i think it was more to show that they are against the system. There were a few really good bands (33% KIAULIU PAKELIUI I VATIKANA [33% OF PIGS ON THE WAY TO VATICAN], UZ TEVYNE [FOR MOTHERLAND -- the words soviet soldiers were shouting during battles and attacks during WW2]). Also one or two small zines. After Lithuania gained independence things changed. Main inspiration of those times was still punk'77, EXPLOITED, SEX PISTOLS, Destroy, Beer and so on. Eventually the scene evolved, now we have a couple of anracho zines (NEPASIDUOK!, PIZDA NOGA PROPAGANDA), more interesting bands. The highlights of the scene are INVAZIJA (HC, played a few gigs in Poland too), L.M.P. (reggae, their new stuff is great but they are almost split-up at this time), SCAT (fast punkrock with some HC influences), BRAMBORAK (power HC), Dr. GREEN (ska). Also some new bands are starting up now. The majority of the bands and zines are located in the capital Vilnius, the province is really quiet, only in Siauliai some people are still playing in a punk/ska band APATIJA ir publishing zine PROVINCIJA.
Ska music -- why ska? Is it popular in Lithuania?
Dr. GREEN started 3 years ago and at that time here were no ska bands and noone was listening to this kind of music. Maybe it sound proud and boasting, but we did a lot to introduce ska music to Lithuanian audience, to get people interested and love ska music. I don't know why we started to play ska. We got our first ska/reggae records at that time and fell in love with the music.
I know that it was very strange for you -- skinheads who jump and dance at your music. What do you think about skinheads? What is the situation in Lithuania?
Not exactly. It was not very strange, as we know that ska is a popular music style among skinheads. The other things were strange. Anyway, first i want to tell something about skinhead situation in Lithuania. In Vilnius there are about 30 or 40 skins, all of them are nazi bullshit football fans. They nevere come to our gigs, they do not listen to ska, and mostly originate from nationalistic metalheads, though they are attracting soem younger kids. But we know about the traditional skinheads from all around the world. So it was not so nice to see those 'kibice' (not sure it is written correctly) on Pszczyna gig. We thought they are nazis. And so i asked if we should play when they are here. But you (jacek said, that we have to play. Another "incident" was in Piaseczno gig. After gig some punks in Warsaw told us, that we should not have allowed one skin to dance onstage as we played the gig. We ahsked if he was nazi -- they told no. Also they said, that that skin and his friends were defending punks during nazi attacks. So what's going on? They like to be protected by skins, but do not like them dancing onstage, having fun? Isn't it bullshit? Anyway, i want to stress that Dr. GREEN never supported nor will ever support any racist or fascist boneheads. We are against all nazi bullshit!
Do Lithuanian nationalist parties have big influence in your country?
There are two nationalist parties in lithuania, one of them has one seat in the parliament of 150. In general the are not very influential. People are not interested in their activities and programmes. Most lithuania citizens are lithuanians, only in Vilnius and surrounding regions there are a lot of russian, polish, jewish, byelorussian people. But Vilnius always was multinational city and i think there are no big problems with it. People do not like russian ex-soldiers, but i think it's because of lithuanian occupation by russia and their bellonging to the occupant's army, not because of their nationality. How can you hate russian or polish people when you know them since childhood. We live in the same house and hang around together.
Lithuania is the neighbour of Poland, bu in my opinion polish people do not know very well the present situation in your country. We still live in stereotype world. We hear: "Lithuania" -- we think: "Part of Poland in some past days". What do you think about connections and relations between our countries?
Yes, we noticed that people in Poland, Austria, Czech Republic or any other place do not know a thing about Lithuania. Alas, Polish people, especially older ones, like to say things like "Litwa nasza! Wilno nasze!". I really do not know, to whom Vilnius belongs. You have to study history of our countries and you'll find it i think. As regards connections between states i think it's fucking business nad maybe some people are going as tourists to see Poland and Lithuania. But in punk scene i think we have quite good and friendly contacts and we have to keep them going. Lots of Lithuanian punks go to Poland to misc concerts and festivals. I find polish punk scene much bigger and more interesting than lithuanian.
Verbaitis: i think all these historical problems are a bit artificially escalated and should not matter that much, although it might sound quite contraversial after all these statements about Lithuanian independence and Russian occupation. I think, let's leave it as is, let's stop, even joking, all these talks about something belonging to one country and not the other, it would be funny if Lithuania or Poland claimed rights to Byelorussia or big piece of Ukraine, though it was once a part of Polish-Lithuanian union state.
Tell me something about you and your band. What are you interested in, how do you spend free time?
We started 3 years ago as a 4 piece band. As the time went one 2 saxophone players joined the band. Our drummer, bass player, singer and me were playing in several punk bands before. Just before the Polish tour our drummer went to Marocco and Radza fro INVAZIJA helped us. But i believe Saragosa will be back in June and we'll go on. As regards free time -- the band is biggest part of it. We have a good big rehearsal room (it's under the big stage of big old culture house), where we sometimes do gigs and partys. We wanted to make an open club
there but it wasn't ok with the owner of the building. 3 of us have jobs, one is a student and i'm unemployed (and the drummer is in Marocco, as we said before). Sometimes i arrange gigs for foreign bands, some festivals, so if somebody would like to play here get in touch with me and we'll try to help you.
Drugs -- is it a problem in Lithuania? Do you have strong straight edge movement?
Yes. The drugs problem is comming. It is getting bigger every day. Lot's of kids started to use heroin recently. Lots of punks in Vilnius got hepatitis while using ketamine. Sintetic drugs are very popular among technoheads. Local punk club BOMBIAKAS did a few actions against drugs and it's forbidden to use drugs in the club. There is no SxE. There were some SxE people and the band SC was kind of into this movement, but they are not active now.
Would you like to tell something at the end?
Thanks to everybody who helped us on our tour in Poland and all the good people who were in our gigs! Hope to see you again.
