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Sunrise in Bucharest :
History of Techno Music in Romania

Sunrise in Bucharest : History of Techno Music in Romania

Welcome in this new podcast series in which we’re discussing about this music segment that brings us up together : Techno House music; and I say Techno- House on purpose because since I’ve been starting these new contents, I just realized how much everything is connected, like really, each of the musical scenes – and I mean classical, disco, rock, pop, I’m not gonna list them all but at the roots of Techno House music, I can say now that these are the roots of our electronic one. Like really, there is no such thing as distinguishing scenes, like underground is just a stage prior the mainstream one happens soooo.. voilà! So today we’re reaching the third podcast, and I’m telling you I love to do that because it feels like I’m learning so much about the music industry in a general manner, but also in a more specific way because being able to connect the dots between musical scenes before 2000s to our current musical cosmos, I feel like this is so fucking cool : in life for everything, knowledge is power, when you know the hows and whys, you get to understand better, and behave accordingly, at least I feel like it.

But so voilà, today we’re getting to a meaningful segment of music of course, in the sense this is one I actually been able to see grow : the Romanian scene. Indeed, for reasons I couldn’t explain besides the pretty cool tastes of some promoters something like 15 years ago, many Romanian artists were coming to perform in Paris and so I’ve been let’s say it, in love with this style for a pretty long time and so I had the chance to see it through special lenses ever since. This said, in order to be giving facts and not feelings only, today I’ve been basing myself on a very well-documented article extracted from the seventh issue « Berlin Quarterly » that has been published in 2017, it has been written by William Ralston and it is focusing on the history of Techno music in Bucharest. And just for the tips, I really do recommend this article for anyone who enjoys Romanian artists because it gives a broader perspective of what it took for them to build such a solid scene there, especially following their historical past which didn’t make it easy at all. Here again, I’m splitting this episode in two parts, starting with the historical context regarding the very roots of culture and music nightlife in Bucharest, and then we’ll talk more about it’s evolution up to nowadays, so as usual let’s not waste any more time and let’s start!

Bucharest, Romania

In the two previous episodes we have been rewinding back to the 80s to have a deeper understanding of the growth of Techno and House music in Europe and USA, and even though the Romanian scene has been developed later than these, there is still a fast backwards to do in 1989, in the sense the historical roots of the country have been contributing a lot to its culture development – yes – and even though this is definitely not the funniest part of this podcast, this is needed to mention to get how Romanians artists are seeing music not only as an art, but also with professionalism since their very debuts. So let’s begin with a bit of history, not only because it’s interesting, I mean history is everything if you want to understand something, but also because for example, as a Parisian person I most definitely didn’t grow up the same way, and for us European peeps today, it’s a matter of knowledge to know about some facts regarding Romania.

So first and foremost, did you know Romania was actually a monarchy before the Second World War, just like many countries in the world, and so following the WWII it became a republic ruled by the Communist party. By this time, the very last communist dictator of Europe – who is Nicolae Ceaucescu – was the political head of the army even though he was a teenager, under orders from the very first Head of State post kingdom period, until he’s been led in some manipulated ways as the Secretary General in 1965, and so the actual leader of Romania. There is a fact about Ceaucescu that might been meaningless still, which speaks volumes when you see the way he became a dictator to Romania, and this is that he’s part of a 10 children family, and actually he has the same name as one of his brothers because he’s alcoholic father just forgot he already had a kid named Nicolae when he was born. I’m saying this because to me it implies that Ceaucescu never really had any authority borders since his own father was forgetting his own children’s names, I don’t really see how he could have benefited from any normal limits when it comes to behaviors in that context. But anyways, let’s not make of this guy something cute because he’s not, but to me this is something that has definitely been reflected in the way he’s been ruling the country afterwards. It’s interesting but he was not directly acting as a dictator in his debuts but as one of the most inspirational European leaders instead, and he was actually seeing arts as a mean of endorsement from artistic communities and by his beginnings, he even helped artistic scenes to grow through western influences like the Hippie movement or Rock’nRoll music.

Unfortunately, this period of liberalisation as drastically changed almost overnight in 1971 as Ceaucescu was returning from a trip to China and North Korea – both under Communist regimes – where he’s been impressed by the way Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung (the grandfather of Kim Jun Un) were controlling their people, so let’s say he’s been importing home such concept from some of the most terrible dictators in History. So back to his country, he came from enabling the richest period for artistic creativity to the most controlled one, in the sense he stated that arts would only be allowed to serve the country and the party : no more western influences, no more freedom of creation, no more rock concerts, only arts allowed by the government.

Under USSR influence since the end of WWI, Ceaucescu has been imposing a cult of personality over time, I mean of his personality, which led him to destroy Romania’s economics strength just to curate impossible projects to achieve – such as the Bucharest Palace Parliament where only 30% of the space is actually used and also today – he started to literally starve his people for the sake of his crazy ideas, but the most horrible is that he was even installing a context a fear within Romanian people, who were threatened by authorities and starved by the week through always more restrictive communist rules, music in all of its forms started to be censored, lyrics considered as undesired or performances felt like illegitimate, so basically every form of outer culture became simply banned. I had the chance to be talking with many Romanian people about this period of their history, how their parents or grandparents had to line just to have food, the frustration to be prevented from having food sometimes because the person in front of you would have the last pack of coffee, the lack of culture due to the closed borders of the country, the despair, the fear, the hopelessness.. For most of this time, international travel was banned, audiovisual airwaves were dominated by the communist propaganda, and of course western music was inaccessible because prohibited.

During this period of culture ban, some artists found a way to get around the rules by using poems as lyrics, because censors were slightly more tolerant with poetry, and so once the poems were validated by censorship, they would turn it into music lyrics. One of the very first music rebel was Florian Mircea – today in his seventies – who is one of the first Romanian musician to experiment electronics material, leading him to build by himself his own synthesiser as he was a teenager. And actually up to the moment Romania has been entering the European Union, artists were basically building their own materials to produce music because it was not possible for them to have access and get delivered any material from the West. So I said Florian Mircea was part of the first music rebels because he’s been bypassing the censorship rules by creating a secret language, which was abstract fables or stories which would need to be puzzled out and through which he was able to deliver anti-communist messages as part of his music. Another way to surround the rules was to be living nearby a neighbour country’s borders, since it would allow people to receive the transmissions of TV and radios from abroad, and especially from countries more opened to Western cultures, some people tried to record music from these foreign radios on tape but the sound quality was obviously poor.

On the other hand, there was a black market operating inside of Romania to deal forbidden items, because people who would be required to travel for work (not many but at least the people managing planes so pilots and stewards, as well as athletes) would always bring back stuff from the west to sell, leading people to host private listening sessions with friends, who would replicate records onto tapes of good quality this time, and so basically most of the Romanian people had the same musical education through these same replicated tapes from the west, and this is exactly like this that Cristian Vladescu – considered to be Romania’s very first dj – started to dj in discotheques, and actually back then, he was not really mixing music but only playing his tapes by introducing them with some information about it. However, as the country became more and more restricted by Ceaucescu rules, all discotheques started to be monitored to be opened only 3 hours a day from 5 to 8pm, since he wanted to increase his control onto his population. At least he wanted so theoretically, but in facts, a huge part of tourism economics was benefiting the Communist party and so, only a week following his announce of more strict rules, he decided to implement another kind of structure for this purpose : division.

Indeed, from this 1971 period, there was nightclubs for Romanian people open up to 1am where you paid your entrance in lei, while nightclubs for tourists would be opened up to 3am and payable in US dollars : and this as a significant importance because for Romanian people, it was worth of jail time to be in possession of foreign currencies. For Cristian Vladescu, this opened a new door because he’s been hired as a dj by a Swedish company to play by the seaside in a club where Romanian people were prevented to come in as entrance was here again in US $, so he started to have access to all the music from the west and literally became a glitch in Ceaucescu’s matrix, in the sense he was supporting the market for pirated western music by sharing his records with Romanian djs as well as friends for them to be able to copy them onto tapes.

Florian Mircea, Cristian Vladescu and Lucian Stan

The situation remains as such until 1983, until new restrictions happened forcing all clubs – even the touristic ones – to close their doors by 10pm, meaning only two hours per day, and this ended the rise of small underground artistic scenes and made rise feelings of resentment within the population, which lasted until this Christmas Day of 1989 when the Romanian people decided to put an end to this in a pretty radical manner as they killed both Ceaucescu and his wife, and this marked new beginnings for the country.

By the early 90s, Cristian Vladescu, known as Dj Vladone, was already playing a huge role in granting access to foreign cultures as I previously mentioned, and he came further by opening the very first post-communist party place called Studio Martin in 1994, the place was vinyl-only considering the scarcity of turntables in Romania back then, and he’s been the first to implement house, techno and more experimental genre during the last couple hours of each events, making of his club the only place in Bucharest to push non commercial electronic music. Another key actor of the rise of the clubbing scene in Bucharest is Lucian Stan – better known as Dj Vasile – who was regularly attending events at Studio Martin, he was one of the first to create his own computerized music, he was also part of the very first electronic music band in Romania (I’m not gonna go this far as to pronounce the name of the band, pardon my French), and he’s the first to have ever released Romanian dance music. Both Dj Vladone and Vasile have been playing a huge part in awakeningnewer generations towards this growing musical scene but also towards the scene we do know today, and this is a couple years later that another person is going to push further the rise of Techno music within the Bucharest music scene, and this is Ion Liberopoulos.

Ion Liberopoulos, Catalin Ghinea and Rhadoo

The Web Club has been a huge part in the development of marginal events, in the sense during the 90s people were sort of obsessed by pop music, and at the Web Club, the purpose was especially to be different, and so Ion Liberopoulos made his own vinyl collection of nearly a thousand records to be shipped in Bucharest and made it the soundtrack of his club where the very first residents were Petre Inspirescu and Dj Vasile – Rhadoo was also hanging out on the dancefloor there – but so voila, the Web Club literally became the one place to highlight another perspective of Bucharest musical scene, and we can definitely say that both Studio Martin and the Web Club have been establishing the structure for this alternate clubbing scene being developed. Let’s fast forward in 1998 with the opening of the Karma club, which was the first venue in town to play House music all night long on a big sound system, where Rhadoo was a resident dj, and whose owner was based between Bucharest, Amsterdam and Miami, leading him to be sourcing a wide range of music to his club residents and was often returning from his trips with loads of new records to play.

There is another person enabling another step to be reached for the Romanian clubbing scene, the actual booking side of this scene, because you have to know that by this time djs were employed by clubs and so, they were basically playing every day, however as I mentioned, someone wanted it differently and this is Catalin. Today called Tati by his colleagues (which means Daddy), Catalin is the head behind the Sunrise Booking agency – the first ever booking agency in Romania – as he wanted to run an organisation to party which he made happen all by himself since 1999 – the fun fact is that the Sunrise name comes out of a joke. So as Catalin was a bartender, was also looking for an extra job to help his family, so he took a marketing position within a national energy drink company which led him to be on the roads of Romania five days a week trying to sell his products to clients, and this is exactly like this that he started to include another kind of product to his portfolio : artists. During this period it was actually not fancy to be evolving as part of Bucharest electronic musical scene, there were basically 50 people attending such events, nevertheless through his bartender job, Catalin was in touch with the most part of djs in the city, and so as he was deeply convinced by their talents, he started to promote them to club owners through the Sunrise agency.

The Sunrise agency was run as an underground operation, in the sense there was no website or advertising – interesting will you say considering Catalin holds a position in marketing – and he was basically doing both of his jobs at once during many years, and the story says that he’s been driving more than a million kilometres between 96 and 2001. One of his first artist was Rhadoo and his roster quickly grown with both underground and commercial artists because there was no competitor to Sunrise agency, this said by 2004 he’s been quitting his marketing job to start running his Sunrise series of events, through which he’s been able to provide international artists to perform for the Romanian crowds for the very first time. There has been a turning point for Sunrise agency around 2007, because most of the bigger names artists have been leaving his agency, a situation Catalin sees as an actual necessity for him to focus on the very essence of his agency : the boys.

So who are the boys..? First of all, Rhadoo, part of the first generation of djs to pop up after the Romanian revolution and who has been a lot inspired by DJs Vladone and Vasile in his younger years. Rhadoo is in many one of the orchestrator of everything that has been developed afterwards until today, but let’s discuss a bit more about his background. He has been starting as a resident playing tapes twice a week during the 90s, until he gain more and more recognition for his tape selections, he had his own weekly radio show by 2000 and traveled a lot across Romania to play music. If there’s something to know about Rhadoo, it’s that he’s part of the generation of just about 18 years old when the revolution happened, which means he had no access to culture as I explained it in the first part of this podcast, and so he was basically craving for a like-minded community of artists to be happening in Bucharest, therefore the possibility to travel to play his music was a meaningful first step for him towards this goal. Catalin and Rhadoo have been meeting during 1990 and started to party together, but mostly they developed a friendship based on mutual respect since day zero, on the one hand, Rhadoo was sure of Catalin skills business wise, and in return, Catalin was convinced by Rhadoo’s talent, they both share the values of willing to push the underground electronic music in Bucharest, and so this led them to start this project of Sunrise Booking agency.

The main purpose of the Sunrise Booking agency was to create a strong community of local artists who would support music events, while the music events would support in return the community, and actually Rhadoo said that one have to find the right ingredients to create the results and so they were aiming at working with people who would not try to raise their heads above everyone else, the idea is more about what one can do for the community, more than what the community can do for them – and I like this vibe a lot. As part of the first members from their like-minded community, there are Petre Inspirescu and Raresh, who Rhadoo has actually formed the band RPR Soundsystem as well as the label arpiar everybody knows. Raresh is known to be the Google of music as he nicknamed by his friends, he has an encyclopedic knowledge that made of him one of the most recognized talents and this, very early; indeed, he started to dj as young as 15 years old in his local clubs of Bacau where he’s from, and so as he was studying chemical engineering, he had to graduate before being able to move to Bucharest, where he had to be located in order to be able to join the Sunrise Booking agency. Catalin was really looking forward to have Raresh as part of his agency, nevertheless he also wanted the members of his community to be based in the same city, otherwise they just would not be able to create such strong sense of community. He connected very fast with Petre Inspirescu and Rhadoo as they used to come regularly to Zebra club where Raresh was having a residency, and he actually describes Rhadoo as a kind of father to him.

Later on more members joined in the Sunrise Booking agency such as Cezar, who teamed up with Rhadoo to launch the ourown project, but also Kozo, Praslea, Herodot and many more. At some point, many aspiring artists were actually making the move to Bucharest from their hometown to join this rising music movement, and this is also during this period that the foundations of today’s music community in Bucharest has been shaped, those who were there became a part of its success, the one everybody goes to Sunwaves for every year : quality and proximity. There is obviously much more to say as the very first time of Ricardo Villalobos in Bucharest was obviously under the good cares of Catalin alongside with Raresh, it was in 2006 and it definitely brought up new perspectives to the Romanian scene.

So voila, that is wrapping up this third podcast transcript about the music industry, this podcast and more are available on Spotify so feel free to check them out!