KONWENT A

DISCOGRAPHY Releases KONWENT A/DZIECI KAPITANA KLOSSA split live tape (bootleg) Compilations FALA II tape (Polton) "Kim Jest" INFO -

Band History and Scans compiled by Pawel Scream
Konwent A was the first punk band I've ever heard and seen, so it's obviously not easy for me to write about them, but I'll try my best... The band was formed in May 1983 in Gdansk by three 15-year olds just finishing their primary school: Robert Paczkowski (Parocz) – guitar, Waldek Maj (Waldi) – bass and Jarek Kowalski (Pierzak) – drums. The name Konwent A cames from the Polish anti-communist group operating before WW2. A couple months later two more members joined the band – Krzysztof Jajczyk on keyboards and Jacek Szymanski on vocals - and Konwent A played their first show in a youth club in our neighborhood (they had their practice space in the same club, so they played many more gigs there too) on January 27, 1984. And since they were all from that area (mostly living at the same street) and we used to play some kids' games with some of them, me and a bunch of my friends convinced our parents to let us see the show (it was three months before my 11th birthday!). If only my parents could foresee the impact it was going to have on my entire life, they would likely never do that mistake! But well, this isn't supposed to be about me, but about the band... Four months later (after probably just one more show) Krzysztof left the band which was probably good for their music going towards a definitely rawer, more punk sound. Their first show as the 4-piece was at the same youth club and they played with another great local band called Dzieci Kapitana Klossa (Children of Cpt. Kloss – the hero of a book and TV series about a Polish super agent camouflaged as a Wehrmacht officer, it used to be the most influential war-TV series at the time). Another month or two later the band played an open air show at some neighborhood fiesta type event – the audience was so enthusiastic that the band had to play their 15-minutes set for about two hours. In November '84 Jacek was replaced by Maciek Polakiewicz and shortly after, the second vocalist, Zaneta Mikulska, joined the band. Thus Konwent A became one of the first (if not the only) punk band in Poland with female singer at the time. It didn't take long and Maciek left the band with the line up that was to become their final: Zaneta – vocals, Parocz – guitar, voc., Waldi – bass, Pierzak – drums.

In February '86 the band played at the 3-day festival in Gdynia called Nowa Scena ("New Scene") also referred to as mini-Jarocin. This show (with bands such as Moskwa, Piersi, Bielizna Goeringa, T.Love etc.) finally gave them some recognition outside the Three Cities (Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia) area. Konwent A started to play all over the country, and a not-so-bad quality recording was made of one of the shows (in Szczecin) that somebody put out as a bootleg split tape with Dzieci Kapitana Klossa in the early '90s. In April they played two shows in the south of Poland (Katowice and Gliwice) with Armia. These were the best and most satisfying gigs in the entire band's opinion. Becoming quite popular, Konwent A appeared in a few fanzines and also was interviewed by the West German Stern magazine. In July Konwent A had the opportunity to play at a free open air fest in Darlowo (very small town close to Gdansk, mostly inhabited by fishermen) – they played with one rock band and a couple of so-called student song artists (kinda Leonard Cohen wannabes if you know what I mean) in a front of old grandmas with kids and a huge bunch of local drunkards (fishermen, etc.). The latter surprisingly seemed to enjoy their first punk rock experience and invited the band to the nearby pub where they downed two kegs of beer together with the band...

And couple of days later all the Konwent guys went to Jarocin for the famous festival. Unfortunately it was a year of personal fights between so called rock-promoters from Warsaw (the organizer of the Jarocin fest, Walter Chelstowski) and Three-Town (organizer of Nowa Scena fest, Waldek Rudziecki). Both of them wanted to promote just "their own" bands so Mr. Chelstowski allowed the bands from Gdansk to play just at the so-called small stage (while obviously most people were focused on the main one).

At the end of summer '86 Konwent A played at the 2nd Nowa Scena fest (as this one was organized twice a year) and this was the only case they had real serious problems with censorship (in case some of you are unaware, we had "nice and happy" communist system - martial law ended in '83, but some of its laws were still working. There was an obligation for all the bands playing shows or recording anything to give their lyrics to the censorship office. Usually you could get away with giving other lyrics, but at the bigger events there was possibility of censors coming and checking if you sang the same lyrics you gave them). The main reason was their song called "Prosze ksiedza" ("Dear Priest...") The lyrics were written in the form of a confession and the chorus was saying (the biggest sins): "I've been in the Party (obviously the Communist party, as there were no other parties), I voted in all the elections..." So the censors threatened the band with court and high fines, but thankfully in the end just made them not get paid for the show...

Two months later they won some rock contest and were awarded the opportunity to record four songs in the studios of Radio Gdansk. I guess most of you might not know that all the recording studios were state-owned at the time and so were all the record labels. That's the main reason most punk bands from these times have no recordings at all. You couldn't just rent a studio, even if you had the money. You could get your studio time only if you had a record contract (from one of the state labels) or if you were recording for the (obviously also state owned) Radio/TV station. So this was a big opportunity for a band like Konwent A. They had some minor problems with censorship again, but they agreed to change the lyrics to "Prosze ksiedza." So instead of the Party, Parocz sung "I've been where they wanted me to." Besides that, they recorded three other songs. After that they were hoping to get the songs broadcasted, but the guy responsible for the choice of the repertoire in Radio Gdansk was too afraid to let it. However, even despite changing the lyrics, "Prosze ksiedza" was still considered to be revolutionary, and a punk version of a famous Christmas song was on the other hand considered to be a profanation of the religious song. Thus only the other two songs were permitted to be played just once. One of them, "Kim jest" was later published on the Fala II compilation tape by the Polton label.

1987 began and the three boys playing in Konwent A got old enough for the army to take its interest in them. Parocz was lucky enough to get a civil service right thanks to having many knife scars on his hands (the army didn't want him as one might think he's not happy about being a soldier or he's crazy and thus not safe to carry a gun). So he became a tram driver, but the other two had worse luck. I remember their last show in Gdynia, together with local alternative rock band Unrra and The Ex from Holland – Konwent A finished their set announcing their split as Waldi and Pierzak were both going to become militiamen. Everybody seemed to be fucking shocked, I mean how could you imagine punks becoming cops, especially in such a system where cops (especially those regular, army-like ones) were used usually to pacify riots etc?

Parocz and Zaneta tried to keep the band going although they decided to play totally different music. They found two other members and played a show in Autumn of 1987. The gig was bad enough to make Parocz call the band's demise. Shortly after that Zaneta emigrated to the Netherlands...

The band was about to re-form in late '89 with the original 3-piece line-up, but nothing came out it. Then Parocz and Pierzak started to play again with a new line-up under the name Konwent in 1992, but the music they played was just shitty guitar rock, so I was really happy to hear after another two years they split up again...

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