Genial Obscene Extreme festival is here pretty soon so we talk with Curby about some interesting topics...

Hi, Čurby, in these days most of the grind, death, HC, crust and other kinds of maniacs prepare and look forward this year´s Obscene Extreme Fest... This hell will break loose after less than two months - what takes most of your time right now and what are you working on?

Now I try to make up for what I can. The list of bands is almost complete, right now I have solved the visas for Serbia´s ACROHOLIA (succesfully!), and this week the Columbia s MASACRE are going to ask for visas. That´s the thing that can make me angry, when someone´s cannot get the visas, but what can we do? Right now I´m working hard on OEF 2005 double DVD. I have about 40 hours of recorded material and I have to choose the best, cut it and play with it.. although I like it very much, because I can remind the last year again, and I´m excited of all the bands and it´s great to jog my memory, still it´s very hard work... I negotiate the flight tickets and hotels for the bands, I solve the toalets lease, well, I just come to finish...
Add making the compilation for the audience, and you get real daily work.

What´s gonna be the biggest crowd-puller this year? And what´s the band you look forwart the most - your personal tip?

That´s clear, I really look forward to see the legend of death metal DISMEMBER after all those years here in CR. They´re one of my most favorite bands in death metal, and it´s great that they have survived till these days, and still spread joy for all the death metal fanatics. I regard highly that they never came off the straight and narrow, they never tried to jump on bandwagon, never followed the trends and always played death metal!!! The reborn GUT are the another draw, although I have never seen them playing before, so I have to make up for it this summer, because both songs from older recordings and the songs from new record "Cumback" really excite me! And so I can continue, CRIPPLE BASTARDS, DEAD INFECTION or Sweden´s SKITSYSTEM whose new record I listen day by day and it´s amazingly dark and very raw crust flack! And I´m also curious about not so well-kown bands such as SPLITTER, NASHGUL, DISTURBANCE PROJECT, SICKBACK, SYLVESTER STALINE, DHIBAC, LAMA TEMATICA and the list can go on and on...

Are there some bands that you wanted to invite and they refuse it from any reason? Have you ever been that disappointed? And in the other hand, what band really entrance you with playing on this year´s OEF?

No, that never really happened... I just choose the bands, which I like and I have some relation to them and there´s no problem with communication. Most of them I know personally, and some of them are my good friends and so there´s no problem to collude with them.... DISMEMBER, DISMEMBER, DISMEMBER...hey, should I repeat their name in every answer?

How many visitors do you expect this year, and how many of them do you need to cover the cost of the festival?

I expect more than last years, that means more than 3.000 fanatics... the visit rate was damaged by weather last year, but sincerely I´m not a megalomaniac, and 3.000 visitors are more than enough for such non-commercial and extreme genre that grindcore is. I´m little bit annoyed that this festival is more known abroad than here, and the ratio of visitors from abroad proves it every year... about 70%, and I meet less and less Czech people there. Every year till now ended up succesfully, and sometimes there´s even a little gain, which is cool...

So talking about the cost, tell us about several items... (bands, sound, area, toalets ets...) if it´s not secret, of course!

It´s really not secret... the area lease costs about 150 000,- CZK, the sound and stage about 180 000,-, toalets lease about 100 000,-, promotion about 50 000,-. There are some other items such as identifiation bracelets, eating places and hotels for bands (also a big deal, about 50 000,-), the crew, security service and there´s a lot of things I forgot. And the bands are the biggest team every year, of course.

So what about paying the bands? How much money do the bands - f.e. such as DISMEMBER, GUT, and previously MACABRE, HEAMORRHAGE or ENT - want? Which way the payment completion goes? Before, right there or additionally? Cash or bank transfer? I can´t imagine you giving only the gas money for example to DISMEMBER...

Well, you can't give only the gas money to the band like DISMEMBER... and I think that it´s okay that way.. look, they are mostly fathers of families, they must find some time for us, wear along all day here and back, so I think that about 3 000,- Euro is not the fancy-price, on the contrary this price is fair. Well, mostly I pay the flight tickets before, send them to the bands and then just pray for the bands not to abandon it in the last minute, when you cannot find the adequate surrogate. For example, last year I have sent 240 000,- to Australia to the bank account of Jason of BLOOD DUSTER, three months before festival. I haven´t known him well before, I just loved their music and I was waiting for what´s going to happen. The 240 000,- were all the money I had, so it was really tense thing. Finally they came, we really enjoyed the tour and everything was great! And right on the spot I additionaly give them the rest of the sum agreed.

It´s no secret that OEF is not sponsored or endowed action, there´s no such thing as paid advertisements. Everything is paid by the fan´s entrance money, which is cool. So the OEF is actually their own action, such family party, isn´t it?

Exactly, that´s he basic thing of this festival, it´s an action made by fans for fans. And it´s going through, where else can you meet so many friends, talking, drinking, just enjoying the weekend? The last year´s visitors were the real heroes, they didn´t let the OEF fall even in such unfavourable weather. I regard them even higher. That´s why I try to prepare everything, looking for what can I make better. It´s a elementary thing for the future of OEF, the audience to be quite content.

And what about distros and vender´s kiosks, do they pay for anything? Does Gambrinus (the brewery) sponsore something at least a little?

All the money from beer and vender´s kiosks go to the area´s livery, so there´s no money to the OEF budget from this spring. Gambrinus is giving us free beer for the bands, who regard this highly, and mostly they are giving us a money for some bigger bands, which is great... The distro owners never pay anything at OEF, the only things I want from them is an advertisement in their cataloques and so on... But most of the labels support us every year and add the money for the festival´s CD for their bands, and so we can offer this CD every year to you for free.

The equipment on the stage is usually tended by Tomášek Cornů - can you say that he´s a regular member of Obscene, or you just hire him every year for OEF and Obscene Society?

He´s a dab hand and he´s really close to Obscene. There´s no one more zealous about equipment, sound and the things around, so he always help us, he´s absolutely reliable standby and owing to his help the festival goes as it should. I marvel at him that he can stand being ready for all the 45 bands, and he can catch up the incredible 10 minutes to rebuild the stage. Thanks to his help the progamm goes fast and bands can wildly go on...

What about the equipment? Does some of the equipments or instruments seen on OEF belong to you? (For example the drums at OEF are the same that can be seen on Obscene Society, aren´t they?) If you own some of these things, how much money did you spend on it? Are you going to continue in it and eventualy build your own studio?

I own only the drums. I cannot play a note on them, but the drums lease at any action is very expensive, and if we make two festivals a one or two tours a year, it pays off. The drums costed about 40 000- and now I don´t plan to buy any other instruments. And studio? No way, there´s no one to sponsore it.

The Trutov´s amphitheatre is cool, but life is change... do you think about change of area for the future years?

No, I don´t, you don´t like it there? Just think about the name "Battlefield", that´s a perfect name for our music, isn´t it? He he he... I use to go through the world a couple of years and I have never seen better area for festivals... I´m serious. Great area, good camp in the city park, nearby the town where you can stay in hotel, or just take a walk on Krakonoš´s district...

Hygiene is one of the big problems of all festivals. I was striken dumb with shitted-to-the-roof toalets at OEF (and not only there), that´s somethig I cannot understand. Have you any idea how to make it better? Will there be for example the mobile showers this year?

I think that about 90% visitors are just accomplished people, and the rest are just hogs and are able to do absolutely anything when they´re drunk. The toalets then look like they do... It´s really bad situation, but especially at OEF we have got about 40 toalets and this year we´re gonna add some more. What has to go better is people´s behaviour above all. And mobile showers? That´s the same old problem of our country. You cannot lease them, because there´s no one to hire them out.

It became a traditon to release the last year´s DVD, transcribing the genial atmosphere of the festival, before each OEF. This year it´s gonna be the same I´m sure, so have you already completed the DVD? Is there going to be some surprise? Will there be complete sound from mixing desk?

I haven´t completed it yet, I´m working on it intesively and I enjoy it very much! It´s great to repeat it all again, Sweden´s BOMBSTRIKE, whom I haven´t seen live unfortunately, almost chopped my head yesterday, and there´s a lot more of such bands. We try to make the whole double DVD better than the last year´s release, of course. This year the basic thing is to equalise the sound better than ever... It´s gonna be still the underground stuff but we give our best to it... That´s why we made more interiews last year, we add more bonuses, we want to make it more interesting... For most of the bands it´s the first opportunity to see themselves on DVD, and so we try not to disappoint them. The worst thing is to cut the stuff into the 6 hours. It´s not possible to record more than 45 bands to the mixing desk and then modulate every band / instrument separately. We lack a lot of money to do it that way, but definitely we have got some possibilities to make the sound better. Well, everyone can look forward the itensive shows of HEAMORRHAGE, BLOOD DUSTER, DISFEAR, LENG T´CHE, PUNGENT STENCH, REGURGITATE, AVULSED and many more, the body piercing show of Hell studio, interviews and other dishes...

I´ll go back to money. The fans or beginning editors surely would like to know, how much does it cost to release such DVD as the OEF compilation. Can you disclose this secret?

Of course, the complete costs are about 250 000,- czk.

OK, that´s all for now. Go to do someting, although this advertising interview is also a work on OEF in a way. Hope that everything will be OK, see you there. Good luck!!!

I believe in it, too, and I invite all the fans of the most extreme genres. See you on "Battlefield", in July the 13th. I wish you all to enjoy the football championship, and week after it we´ll meet in Trutnov! Have a good time ad for any other information about OEF see
www.obscene.cz

Čurby/Obscene

questions : Hobluda & Halbi, realized: 17. 5. 2006