Poland under communism experienced censorship and state control of the music industry, but never as fully as in the USSR. Protests and worker uprisings, sometimes at great cost to demonstrators, kept authorities wary and forced them to permit more cultural expression than elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc. Officials, for their part, justified their relative leniency […]

Maciej Maleńczuk is a Polish singer and songwriter who has been active in a wide variety of bands in many different styles—rock, jazz, dance pop—since the 1980s. Maleńczuk grew up in Wojcieszów, Poland, where he attended a sports school and was apparently a far from stellar student. He spent more time listening to American rock […]

Bad Dogs (Złe Psy) is a Polish rock band that’s been around since 1999. The name apparently refers to American pit bulls, for which Andrzej Nowak, its founder, has a certain fondness. Nowak also sings vocals and plays guitar in the band TSA. TSA, Nowak’s first major project, is a hard rock/heavy metal band that […]

Cree is a Polish blues/rock band that was formed in 1993. Its name comes from the Cree, a First Nations tribe in Canada. The founder was Sebastian Riedel (guitar, vocals, harmonica)—incidentally the son of Ryszard Riedel, the lead singer of the legendary group Jam (Dżam)—and he was joined by Sylwester Kramek (guitar) and Adrian Fuchs […]

IRA is a Polish rock band that was founded in 1987 and still exists today. Its original members were Kuba Płucisz (guitar), Artur Gadowski (vocals), Wojtek Owczarek (drums), Darek Grudzień (bass), and Grzegorz Wawrzeńczyk (keyboards), who on one fine day agreed that they would become rock stars, according to the band’s website. In fact, that […]

The Boys of Paul Street (Chłopcy z Placu Broni) is a Polish classic rock band formed in 1987 in Krákow by Bogdan Łyszkiewicz. The name of the band is a reference to a Hungarian classic children’s novel about two groups of boys who end up in a territiorial war with one another. Łyszkiewicz was the […]

Tadeusz Wózniak is a Polish musician, composer, and singer. He has performed with various bands over the years as well as written songs for other performers and for films. Wózniak went to music school for a few years when he was young, but didn’t finish. He picked up the guitar on his own a few […]

Sztywny Pal Azji (which seems to mean something like “Rigid Pole of Asia”—something may have been lost in translation) is a Polish classic rock band that was formed in the 1980s and is still active today. It was formed in 1985 by Jarosław Kisiński (guitar), Leszek Nowak (vocals, piano), Paweł Nazimek (bass), Janusz Deda (drums), […]

Citizen GC (Obywatel GC) was a band created by Grzegorz Ciechowski. It was more or less his brief solo career, with the other members of the band cycling in an out according to his need. Ciechowski was a Polish musician, singer, and songwriter who is known mainly for the band Republic (Republika), for which he […]