Babayaga Ojo

Biography

A 5 piece mixed-up multi-generation group of Polish Punk Rockers pound their instruments loudly, proudly, and with no mercy, this is Babayaga Ojo and they play Punk Schock Knockaut. The band has been up and about since 1984, and has had as many band members go through the group as a Hard Rock Groupie. Their history is full of fun, rebellion, and even tradgedy. Robert "Bango" Matysiak and a bunch of other punks put together a band in Communist Poland, and a few years before martial law. The group...

A 5 piece mixed-up multi-generation group of Polish Punk Rockers pound their instruments loudly, proudly, and with no mercy, this is Babayaga Ojo and they play Punk Schock Knockaut.
The band has been up and about since 1984, and has had as many band members go through the group as a Hard Rock Groupie. Their history is full of fun, rebellion, and even tradgedy.
Robert "Bango" Matysiak and a bunch of other punks put together a band in Communist Poland, and a few years before martial law. The group won first place at Warsaw's "Poza Kontrola" [Out of Control] Festival, and at the legendary Jarocin Festival. Demo, Cassettes, and other songs from this era of the bands history even today, such as the cassette "Goodbye Nancy Spungen," released in 1992.
Essentially with the release of the Goodbye Nancy cassette, and the collapse of Poland's Political stability, the band dived underground, and as many other bands experienced, the group was considered disbanded.
Suddenly in 2002 misfortune struck again. The leader, Bango, died in a freak car accident. With him died his dream of Babayaga Ojo.
Or has it?
Kobel, Babayaga Ojo's bass player, decided to not let his dream fade away into obscurity. During the funeral service, Kobel met with other pioneering members, such as Kon and Kostek, to discuss performing a farewell concert in memory of Bango.
One of Kobel's ideas for Babayaga Ojo was to mix up the old pioneer punks with young and ambitious rebels. And so it was done. Kostek joins the group and Kobel handed him over the role of being leader, shortly thereafter Doris was accepted into the band, and Domin joined the group.
Eventually, with lots of work and changes, Babayaga Ojo resurected from the dead and played Oct. 15, 2005 - breaking 13 years of silence.
Thus, Babayaga Ojo's hisory should end here. But, the breakthrough gig forced the band to continue to play, as people demanded the music.
Eventually, the Director of Culture in Puszczykowo - Stanislaus Taraszkiewicz - pursuaded the group to perform at a Battle-of-the-bands, where first prize was time to record a demo at Robert Freidrich's Studio "uLitza".
As fate demanded, the band won first place at the competition, and in that time managed to record an entire CD- Sila.
In the time between those events, Domin had made the decision to leave the group. He agreed to stay till the CD was finished being produced. Radas, responsible for the "Babajalog" logo, also joined the group as guitarist.
And in that moment, Adrian arrived in Poznan from Baltimore to study at the Academy of Music. Looking to start a group himself, he placed ads all-over town in search of musicians. At one of those stores, Kobel discovered his ad, and gave "Adi" a call.
Upon arriving at practice, Adrian played along with the group and was immediately accepted. His role evolved into being appointed manager of the band, and by January of 2007 put together a DIY Indie label, Voodoo MUSIC.
A few months later, he released Babayaga Ojo's first CD recording, Sila.

Reception of the album was good, but limited to the underground scene.
Winter of 2007, Radas had left the group to be replaced by ex-SK.AT guitarist, BASZCZAK.
Springtime of April, Adrian flew to the United States, and was featured on WIYY 98 Rock morning show, the first station in the US to give the group attention.
A few days later, Adrian and Doris do telephone interviews with Bubel, presenter of "Godziny Wolnosci" - emitted on 910 AM New York, and heard in Chicago, Florida, and online.
Currently, the band is preparing their next MAXI-SINGLE, a condensced version of the groups next CD.
More about Babayaga Ojo at:
www.myspace.com/babayagaojorocks
www.babayagaojo.band.pl Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.