Hobo Blues Band - Vadaszat (Favorit, 1984)

Here's something from the dark side of the iron curtain. Five years before it became okay for the Easterners to interact with the rest of the world, the Hungarian government permitted a group of dudes to rock. The label even seems to indicate that there was some hope that the English-speaking part of the world would notice this contribution--there are references to Shakespeare and Kerouac, there's some attempt commodifying the recording through copyright or trademark, and--oh yeah, they're called Hobo Blues Band.

The music on this record (double-album!) is not actually blues. It sounds sort of like the Mothers' 'King Kong' album, and maybe even more like Gong. Zappa was kind of a hero in Hungary--he spent some time there trying to legalize music, so I doubt this influence was accidental. The cover art is great--it's roughly the quality of an 80's hardcore 7" cover (kind of reminds me of a record I had by a band called Ass Fort), and has cut-out photocopies of pigs and bucks. 'Vadaszat,' it turns out, means 'hunting.'

That's all I have to contribute, both today and for the rest of time. This is my last post on this wonderful blog. Let me know if you want to borrow my Hobo Blues Band album. I probably have the only copy in Chicago.