A day or so later, I was crate-digging in my local record store, the splendid Néma Papagáj Lemezbolt, when I came across a recently released, garishly-covered vinyl album called, rather wonderfully, “Riot! Vol.1. (Women from the Hungarian Wasteland).”
I started to wonder how and why the punk attitude continues to reverberate in Hungary, and why it appears that the spirit of punk is being kept alive by young women. I got in touch with Tamás Rupaszov, of Trottel Records, who put out “Riot!” volumes one and two.
The first wave of punks in Hungary appeared in the late 1970s. These were, like their British counterparts, somewhat artistically and intellectually inclined. However, as Rupaszov says, “In Hungary, because the aesthetic of punk was not really suitable for the socialist system, the authorities kept an eye on the phenomenon and reacted because it was different.”
Hungarian punks discovered bands by copying each other’s cassettes of original British and American albums. They learned about punk style, Rupaszov explains, “from Ifjúsági Magazin (Youth Magazine), which sometimes wrote about the punk movement in England and focused on the most flamboyant-looking bands such as The Exploited, GBH, and even the Sex Pistols.” This is why so many Hungarian punks sported extravagant Mohicans.
The Exploited, GBH, and the Anti-Nowhere League play Budapest’s Barba Negra Club on May 24. I saw the Anti-Nowhere League 43 years ago and am sorely tempted to see if they’ve got any better.
“Because of the Mohicans and style of dress, punks were very visible,” Rupaszov says. Hungarian punks also enjoyed a degree of freedom that didn’t exist in other countries in the Soviet Bloc, such as East Germany, for instance.
CPg Pays a Price
Despite this seeming tolerance, being punk in Hungary still came with a hard price if you crossed the authorities. CPg was among the first wave of punk bands. Formed in Szeged by guitarist Zoltán Benkő and bassist Antal Kis in 1979, the band soon became known for its controversial stage show, anti-establishment songs and lyrics that condemned the Hungarian socialist state.
After one CPg song attacked Péter Erdős, the head of the official state label, Pepita, he allegedly spread the rumor that the band advocated hatred of Hungary’s Roma community. According to the band, Erdős claimed that CPg stood for Cigány Pusztító Gárda (Gypsy Extermination Guards). In reality, it stood for Come on Punk group.
Regardless, all four CPg members were arrested and, after a six-month trial, convicted of being anti-communist and sentenced to two years in jail. One of the earliest releases of Trottel Records was a live CPg CD, “Mindent Megeszünk” (“We Eat it All”). The band reformed in the late 1990s and continues to play live.
Rupaszov got into punk aged 13 or 14, at the end of the 1970s. He found out about it by reading about British bands and seeing the tremendously evocative photos of Hungarian punks in Ifjúsági by Tamás Urbán. Together with some friends, Rupaszov formed a band called Trottel. He played bass.
“It was about getting a guitar and screaming and playing whatever music we could. The lyrics were very simple and politically direct. We were so young, we didn’t care about anything,” he says.
Early on, Rupaszov had “the vision that an underground band must release its own records, but, because there was only the state record company, that wasn’t going to happen.”
At first, his label distributed the music of Trottel and other bands illegally on cassette. After the 1989 regime change in Hungary, Rupaszov’s band began touring abroad. Its first album was “Borderline Sydroma” on French label Gougnaf Movement. The first legal Trottel label release was in 1992.
Full Trottel
After 12 albums and many different personnel playing all kinds of instruments, the Trottel band is still going. As Rupaszov says, “Trottel is in a permanent [state] of change and transformation.”
Over the years, Rupaszov drifted away from the Hungarian punk scene, although he continued releasing the music of punk bands he thought were interesting and had something to say. Then, not so long ago, he went to a gig and was surprised to discover young punk bands that are either all female or a mix of men and women.
“What’s really extraordinary is that Hungarian punk was always, with a few exceptions, very macho,” he says. “Occasionally, there were bands with female singers, but I don’t remember there being female bands in Hungary in the ’80s. An entirely female band has a strong female energy. It’s the first time there’s such a scene in this country.”
Very quickly, Rupaszov found enough bands for “Riot! Vol.1. (Women from the Hungarian Wasteland),” the compilation I spotted in the racks in Szeged.
Listening to the album, I’m surprised by the power of the bands and the quality of the recording. My favorite cuts are by Holnaplányok, whose track “Exeim a Csicskáim” (“My Exes are my Bitches”) has, for some reason, 28,237 plays; Plüssnapalm, who inexplicably sing in Spanish (their “Como te va?” (“How You Doing?”) is a melodic Ramones-influenced song but a more complex, varied number), and “Desző” by Palánta. This last is impressively fast, driven by a ferocious drummer with varied time changes.
When I reached out to Palánta for an interview, they turned me down because it didn’t fit with their punk ethos. I liked them for doing this.
The female Hungarian punk scene is small and deeply underground. For a taste of it, head down to Gólya Presszó, Kripta, and the Aurora in Budapest. Volumes one and two of “Riot!” are available from trottel.hu, as are two excellent books about the Hungarian punk scene, “Nem az a Punk, Aki…” Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of May 16, 2025.