{"id":1170,"date":"2021-02-01T11:40:58","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T11:40:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2021-03-01T16:20:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T16:20:32","slug":"my-life-as-a-poodle-pudelsi-first-vocalist-an-appreciation-of-andrzej-bieniasz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/my-life-as-a-poodle-pudelsi-first-vocalist-an-appreciation-of-andrzej-bieniasz\/","title":{"rendered":"My Life as a Poodle: P\u00fcdelsi’s First Vocalist. An Appreciation of the Band’s Founder, Andrzej Bieniasz"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In the fall of 1985, as a young exchange student in Krak\u00f3w, I discovered Pod Baranami<\/strong><\/a>, the venerable cabaret on the Old Town Square. After listening to the lineup of folk singers a few times, I showed up with my guitar and asked if I could play some tunes. The soundman looked me over and said, \u201cSure. You\u2019ll go on last.\u201d<\/em> When my set was over, a guy approached me and said he knew of a band looking for a singer. I asked, \u201cWhat kind of band?\u201d<\/em> \u201cPolish reggae and psychedelic rock,\u201d<\/em> he said. How could I resist?<\/p>\n

[\/nk_text][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1612187625744{background-image: url(https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2021\/02\/thegincident_Krakow-Music.jpg?id=1308) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column_inner][nk_text]David Rocks is now the leader of The Gincident<\/a>,<\/span> a Berlin-based, country, blues band.<\/strong><\/span>[\/nk_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”1245″ img_size=”medium” add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”1225″ img_size=”large” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/the-recent-archeology-of-the-krakow-music-scene-call-for-entries-blog\/”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][nk_block_quote]<\/p>\n

I stepped into a small, smoky basement room and was met by a guy who looked to me like a grizzled old rocker (though I now know he wasn\u2019t even a decade older than me). It was Andrzej Bieniasz<\/strong>, whom I would come to know as Pudel…<\/em><\/h4>\n

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A week or so later, I took the tram to a youth club somewhere out among the bloky that stretch north of town. I stepped into a small, smoky basement room and was met by a guy who looked to me like a grizzled old rocker (though I now know he wasn\u2019t even a decade older than me). It was Andrzej Bieniasz<\/strong><\/a>, whom I would come to know as Pudel, the musician and songwriter who recently passed away (20.01.2021)<\/a>. I was carrying my anemic acoustic guitar, expecting to play the folksy songs I\u2019d been writing, but Pudel had other ideas. Since I didn\u2019t have an electric guitar, my voice would have to be my instrument. The other guys were surprisingly well equipped, given the difficulty of importing anything into Poland at the time. I remember Pudel had a pretty nice Les Paul, and the other Andrzej (Potoczek) had a Gibson SG, if I recall correctly. Pawel, the bass player, probably wasn\u2019t more than 17 at the time (Pudel dubbed him \u201cBaby, \u201d but when he grew up he was hired as the bassist for the German heavy metal\u00a0band Scorpions).<\/strong> Maciej kept the time on the drums, and various others came and went\u2014a foretaste of the spirit of the crazy, unruly collective that the band would ultimately become.<\/p>\n

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Photo \u00a9ourtesy of David Rocks.<\/span><\/h6>\n

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Pudel had the kind of tightly curled hair that was cool back then, hence his nickname. But the joke was that the music he wanted to play was more Doberman, Rottweiler, or German Shepherd\u2014gritty, dark, and moody, but with a playful, Dadaesque veneer of absurdity\u2014much like Poland at the time. The two Andrzejs would come up with a riff and play it over and over while I sang whatever popped into my head. Eventually, the songs came together as the band worked out parts and my various lyrical ideas started to stick. The two I can remember today are\u00a0Wyro Pudla<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Adios Adidas<\/em>, which P\u00fcdelsi went on to record with other singers and different lyrics. Most of what I sang was in English, but occasionally I\u2019d write things in Polish, which the guys would correct for me. That\u2019s how we wrote music: Organically, magically, and chaotically. But it worked. Within a few months we had a dozen or so songs.<\/p>\n

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Wyro Pudla<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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Adios Adidas<\/strong><\/h4>\n

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Pudel founded the band after the death of his close friend Piotr Marek. The two had put together\u00a0D\u00fcp\u0105,\u00a0a psychedelic, goofball reggae band, and that was the inspiration for P\u00fcdelsi. But after Piotr killed himself, Pudel wanted the lyrics to reflect the loss he was feeling deep in his soul. Darker. Darker, he always told me. As I look back on my notebooks from the time, the lyrics in them are about as dark as any I\u2019ve ever written.<\/p>\n

[\/nk_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][nk_plain_video video=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rgfwWpGEvKc”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1612176174374{padding-top: 35px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1275″ img_size=”large”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][nk_text]<\/p>\n

We spent many hours arguing over what to call the new band. I can\u2019t remember any of my suggestions, but among the names that were floated were Ludzie z \u0179u\u017alowych Ha\u0142dy (People From the Slag Heap) and Karton \u017buk\u00f3w (Box of Bugs, but also a riff on the name of the WWII-era Soviet general\u2014ejected because that connection would probably have triggered a reprimand from the Party censors, who were a real threat to our existence). In the end, we settled on P\u00fcdelsi, because it was Pudel\u2019s band and always would be.<\/p>\n

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Krak\u00f3w had almost nothing that could be called nightlife beyond Pod Baranami back then, so our first gigs were in youth clubs. They were crowded, loud, dirty, smoky. And they started around 5 pm and ended before 8, with little more than tea and Pepsi on the drinks menu.<\/em><\/h4>\n

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Krak\u00f3w had almost nothing that could be called nightlife beyond Pod Baranami back then, so our first gigs were in youth clubs. They were crowded, loud, dirty, smoky. And they started around 5 pm and ended before 8, with little more than tea and Pepsi on the drinks menu. That\u2019s the way things worked in Poland at the time. Our best gig was somewhere in the center, where we got probably the largest crowd I\u2019ve ever played for. The stage was wide, the crowd was eager, the band was wasted, and I was scared. Pudel said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry\u00a0Amerykanin<\/em>\u2026 you\u2019ll do great.\u201d And we did.<\/p>\n

[\/nk_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″ awb_type=”color” awb_stretch=”1″ awb_color=”#491e1e”][nk_block_quote icon_color=”#ffffff”]<\/p>\n

The stage was wide, the crowd was eager, the band was wasted, and I was scared. Pudel said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry Amerykanin\u2026 you\u2019ll do great.\u201d <\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

[\/nk_block_quote][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”1225″ img_size=”large” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/the-recent-archeology-of-the-krakow-music-scene-call-for-entries-blog\/”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][nk_text]But anyone could see that I was just an American kid passing through on a journey from nowhere to somewhere. Poland was a chapter, a curiosity to be explored before I continued on to whatever my real life had in store. After Chernobyl blew its top and I was jailed for simply attending a rally on May 3, I knew the clock was ticking down on my stay in the country. In the summer of 1986, I packed my bags and hopped a train to Berlin, then a plane to Helsinki, New York, and finally Denver.[\/nk_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”1265″ img_size=”large” add_caption=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][nk_block_quote]<\/p>\n

Pudel and his band made their mark in that new Poland, first with Kora on vocals, then Maciej Male\u0144czuk, Szymon Goldberg, and others. I was just a footnote in their history, something like the\u00a0Pete Best\u00a0of Poland. <\/em><\/h4>\n

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The rest of P\u00fcdelsi, by contrast, didn\u2019t have the luxury of leaving, at least not yet. So they did what they knew how to do best\u2014write and play frenzied, oddball songs. It was a sound and a mood that fit a country that just three years later would finally give the Communist bums the boot. Pudel and his band made their mark in that new Poland, first with Kora on vocals, then Maciej Male\u0144czuk, Szymon Goldberg, and others. I was just a footnote in their history, something like the\u00a0Pete Best\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>of Poland. I didn\u2019t have a lot of contact with Pudel after I left; just a quick return visit or two, and a few phone calls over the years. But I\u2019ll never forget the time I spent with Pudel and the guys\u2014the guidance they gave me, the grit they showed, the kindness and patience they had with this\u00a0Amerykanin<\/em>.\u00a0Dzi\u0119ki, Pudel, za dobre czasy.<\/em><\/p>\n

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David Rocks, the first vocalist of P\u00fcdelsi, reminisces on his time spent in Krak\u00f3w in 1985 when he met and played with the late Andrzej P\u00fcdel Bieniasz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":1489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"My Life as a Poodle: P\u00fcdelsi's First Vocalist: An Appreciation of the Band's Founder, Andrzej Bieniasz - Krak\u00f3w Music Blog","_seopress_titles_desc":"David Rocks, the first vocalist of P\u00fcdelsi, reminisces on his time spent in Krak\u00f3w in 1985 when he met and played with the late Andrzej P\u00fcdel Bieniasz.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[121],"tags":[140,139,145,142,143,4,144,146,137,105,107,141,138,94],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-recent-archeology-of-the-krakow-music-scene","tag-andrzej-bieniasz","tag-andrzej-pudel-bieniasz","tag-david-rocks","tag-dupa","tag-kora","tag-krakow","tag-maciej-malenczuk","tag-pete-best","tag-piwnica-pod-baranami","tag-poland","tag-polish-music","tag-polish-rock","tag-pudelsi","tag-rock"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 13:38:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krakowmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}