The Plastic People of the Universe

Feel like bitching about the music industry? You won’t after hearing the story of the Plastic People of the Universe, a Czech band that formed in 1968 during the Soviet takeover. The avant-garde rockers spent the next decade as exiles persecuted by a communist government that sought to destroy their very existence. Influenced by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, they cultivated an underground following inspired by their cacophonous sound and poetic lyrics of dissent. The group reunited in 1997 and has since spread its intricate proto-punk to a bigger, overground audience.