FPB (band)

FPB
Uz jsme doma and Romek Hanzlik play FPB songs live in Brooklyn in 2010
Background information
Also known as	Fourth Price Band, Čtvrtá cenová skupina, Čtverecjeď
Origin	Teplice, Czechoslovakia
Genres	punk rock
Years active	1980–1987, 1990, 2008–present
Associated acts	Už Jsme Doma
Members	Miroslav Wanek Romek Hanzlík Pepa Červinka Jaroslav Noga Adam Tomášek
Past members	Milan Nový Kamil Krůta Radek Uhlíř Pavel Keřka Petr Růžička Ivo Dolanský Petr Kuranda

FPB, short for Fourth Price Band, is an influential Czech punk rock band formed in 1980 in Teplice, a Czech town bordering Germany, by bassist, singer and poet Miroslav Wanek and his friend, Petr Růžička, who was considered the band's manager. These two were soon joined by drummer Milan Nový and, later, guitarist Romek Hanzlík. The group moved through several different lineups before splitting in 1987. In 2008 Wanek and Hanzlík let Uz jsme doma play 21 songs from FPB repertoire on occasional concerts.

The act of playing punk rock in the early '80s in a Communist nation drew much attention to the band, but the group was also notable for integrating musical complexity and poetry into the traditional punk fold. Cited influences include The Damned and The Clash. Wanek had also soon discovered Pere Ubu and The Residents, his favorites, through illegal tape trading in Czechoslovakia; these influences became more noticeable when, in 1986, Wanek joined Nový's group Už Jsme Doma, a highly influential and still-existing avant garde punk rock band that has featured nearly every other member of FPB for a time.

A 'fourth price group' was a term used in Socialist Czechoslovakia for the fourth (lowest) of four pub levels. Wanek tried to display his feeling, where his new band belongs, where it feels natural. Not in such a fancy places in "First or second price level", but in culture on the bottom - or underground. Actually the band used to use several different names due to police "supervising" - to confuse them. They used names such as FPB, Fourth Price Band, Ctvrta cenova skupina, Ctverecjed etc.

The band began when Wanek, an ambitious young composer and musician, chatted with his neighbor Růžička, an organizer of illegal concerts who'd done minor jail time for his involvement in the underground music scene. The communist Czech government at the time was very strict about which musical artists it would legally sanction and which it would deem 'anti-social' and prevent from performing. Starting a group outside of government sanctions was a complicated procedure, so the two decided to go at it together.