Matadors, The
The Matadors – Jubilejní edice (1968 / 2018)

  • Format: LP
  • Band: Matadors, The
  • Title: The Matadors – Jubilejní edice (1968 / 2018)
  • Band's Origin: CS
  • Style: Beat, English lyrics
  • Rating: 5
  • Release Year: 2018
  • Recording Year: 1968
  • Production Year: 1968/2018
  • Record Company: Supraphon
  • Item's Number: SU 6541-1
  • Color of the Label: green
  • Edition: 2018
  • Extras: 180 gram vinyl, inner sleeve
  • EAN: 099925654115
  • Weight: 283 g
Grading
  • Visual: new
  • Acoustic:
  • Cover: new

Supraphon Release Information



Second Czech beat album again on CD and vinyl

It was the fate of long-playing recordings by domestic beat bands from 1968 that they often captured the past. Although Olympic’s “Želva” (Turtle) offered a new personnel, the repertoire partly went back to the mid-sixties. Rebels with “Šípková Růženka” (Sleeping Beauty) said goodbye to the core trio of Čech-Korn-Plíva. And the Matadors? By the time they finished their eponymous debut, things were already simmering inside the band, only to be finally resolved by that fateful August: by the time the LP was released, the original band no longer existed.

And yet it’s still absolutely essential listening, as the Matadors were the perfect continental answer to British rhythm and blues. They had plenty to draw on, though: vocalist Viktor Sodoma commanded a needfully punchy phrasing and incisive timbre, rhythm guitarists Otto Bezloja and Tony Black drove the music forward in an uninhibited manner, Jan Farmer Obermayer wrote stylish songs and supplied equally stylish keyboard sounds, and the highlight was the not-yet-twenty-two-year-old guitarist Radim Hladík, who was proficient in instruments and apparatus at the top international level.

All in all, this was a band well matched by foreign engagements, with a well-selected repertoire and hit songs of domestic origin. It is questionable where their career would have gone from here, but the Soviet invasion decided it. Only Hladík remained permanently at home in rock, while Sodoma as a soloist chose a more pop-like path, and the other three Matadors found a home abroad immediately or a little later. Our beat music thus lost its big stars, replaced at the end of the year by Blue Effect led by Vladimír Mišík (once also a Matador) and again Radim Hladík.

Thanks to graphic artist Karel Haloun, the anniversary edition has been given a new cover, as the original one is unfortunately not reconstructible, especially in LP format. From a substantial set of photographs by Alan Pajer, the exterior colour, very “English”, including the iconic clothing, was selected. The sound has been remastered from the original master tape, the booklet contains past and new notes, and the CD is completed with singles.

So even the passage of five decades certainly doesn’t mean the end of good music!

Tracklist



Side A


1. Get down from the Tree 3:29
2. I Want to See You 2:22
3. My Girl 3:02
4. Bad, Bad Bird 2:28
5. Out of Reach 4:16
6. Extraction 5:49

Side B


1. Shotgun 2:56
2. Hate everything except of Hattered 3:31
3. I Feel so Lonely 4:05
4. I Must Hope 3:32
5. It’s all over now, Baby Blue 4:28
6. You’ll Be Mine 2:27