Punk rocking from communism to capitalism
|
|
|
By Jussi Niemeläinen
The first lyrics of the song had just barely burst from the loudspeakers on Saturday at the Senate Square when the front of the stage was packed with pogoers.
On stage performing were Villu Tamme, 40, and his band J.M.K.E., an Estonian punk rock band that has been well known in Finland for fifteen years. The song they opened with was, of course, Tere Perestroika ("Hello Perestroika").
The band can be heard playing in Finland again on Friday in Tampere.
"We come to Finland to play two or three times a year these days. At one point we had fifteen gigs here every year", Tamme recalls.
It was not always so. The Soviet Union was extremely reluctant to let the group travel abroad for concerts in the 1980s. The band's first gig in Finland was not until 1989.
The concert was held at a forum organised by Finland's left-wing political parties, including the Communists. At the show in Helsinki, J.M.K.E. naturally performed Tere Perestroika, which mocks perestroika with an ironic flavour.
"We understood its message. There were political reasons for inviting the band, it was a show of support for the Estonian people", says Matti Viialainen, who was one of the organisers of the forum.
Even before then, the band was popular in Finland. Tere Perestroika was a big hit, and Villu Tamme climbed high on the list when Finnish women named the sexiest men.
"The stardom definitely took me a bit by surprise, but of course it felt nice", Tamme chuckles.
It was a new experience to be a star on both sides of the Gulf of Finland, even though the punk rocker had grown used to being in the spotlight in Estonia when the country was still a Soviet republic.
"There were always problems with the militia and KGB."
The militia were in the habit of nabbing punk rockers off the street, tearing their chains and safety pins off their clothes, and sometimes even cutting their hair. The punk gang were taken to a special clinic of the hospital for dermatology and venereal diseases.
"It was like a prison. The authorities could stick anyone there without a trial or formal arrest."
"There were two or three real patients in the ward."
The rare condition toxidermia was marked as the diagnosis in Tamme's file. "Of course I was perfectly fine."
In retrospect the whole incident may sound amusing. "But it was terrible."
The KGB even prevented Tamme from getting a university degree.
Despite the difficulties, Tamme remained a punk rocker. The Tallinn native had become one already in 1978, when Tamme received a Sex Pistols sticker from a friend. The sticker came from Finnish pop and rock magazine Suosikki.
Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious looked so cool that Tamme wanted to be just like them. The only problem was that few people in Tallinn knew how to cut a spiked punk hairdo properly.
"Later I saw the Sex Pistols on Finnish television and that had a huge impact on me."
Tamme formed his first band in school in 1980. There were a couple more bands along the way before his first proper group, Velikije Luki, which was set up in 1982.
The first gig of J.M.K.E. was on January 18th, 1986. "I consider that J.M.K.E.'s birthday."
The audience at the concerts of Velikije Luki and J.M.K.E. always included representatives of the KGB. Usually they were not all that thrilled about what they saw.
Tamme is still a punk rocker. "I don't want to listen to just punk all day long anymore. But it is the only type of rock music that makes my heart beat faster when I listen to it."
The band plays gigs every now and then, but although they perform old favourites, most of the set consists of newer material.
Villu Tamme earns his living these days primarily by designing crossword puzzles. His crossword puzzles are published in an Estonian crossword magazine.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 13.5.2004
JUSSI NIEMELÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi.niemelainen@hs.fi
