"Then two guys from Budějovice came to see me in Prague. So we agreed with the Prague guys that we would buy a farm, that it would be better. We found a farm near Písek, and we got together. Eight people. We bought it. We worked on it there. We played, I had drums. We played guitars there every night. We started a band called the Ocult Experts Orchestra at the time and we had parties. When we started there, we didn't have a place to sleep, and the cops were already there. We had mattresses in one room. We came out of the pub, we hadn't even locked up, and suddenly the cops were in. That happened more often there, they were always there when there were events."
"I went to Prague because it was useless in South Bohemia. Then I came to Budějovice on Saturday to see the boys. There was a Štrougal or something on the square, some kind of glory. We were at Soudek. We were coming back, we went to someone across the square and there the cops caught me. The policeman was from Vodňany and he said: 'What are you doing here?' I said: 'Well, I've arrived.' He said: 'Go to Prague, we don't want you here.'"
"The next day we went to In America, we were there from 11 or 12 o'clock. It ended there. The Adepts started playing. It was completely packed and suddenly the cops came. Some of the locals there said they called the cops. First they watched, they were at the entrance, and they were good. I had the records at the pub, at Kobylka´s. I hid them at his place so I wouldn't lose them. That was the end of it [after the first three songs by Adept]. Then the arguments started. Nothing happened for a long time. So I said, ‘Let’s just forget it and leave.’ We left with the Adepts and headed to the bus stop by the church. I was sitting on the bus when I suddenly said, ‘I left my folders with the bartender!’ So I went back, but by then, everything had already been cleared out. The only thing happening was Knížák arguing with the police across the street—nothing else. I went inside the pub, found Kobylka, grabbed my folders, and went back to catch the bus. I had already agreed with the Adepts that we’d meet at Slavia. I got there, and we spent the evening sitting in the pub. It wasn’t until we were leaving that the police stopped us. The Adept guys said, ‘We’re musicians.’ So they let them go—but they detained me. That’s how I ended up at Mariánské Square, where I was interrogated."
Vlastimil Vincenec was born on 3 August 1949 as the third of four sons to Vlasta and Josef Vincenec in Vodňany. Both of his parents worked in the working professions. In 1967, he obtained a teaching certificate at the surveying apprenticeship in České Budějovice. From his youth he was very much drawn to bigbeat and independent music. He attended his first so-called teas - listening afternoons and evenings with music - at the age of 15 in Vodňany. In České Budějovice he went to teas at Beseda, a pub called Na Americe. At this time, he started to wear his hair longer and became close to the České Budějovice „máničky“ (man with long hair). He attended the Na Americe concert on 29 and 30 March 1974, which ended in a brutal crackdown by the security forces. Members of the Public Security (VB) arrested and interrogated him after the Saturday concert and released him only on Monday morning. Since then, he has been in the crosshairs of the local VB. Several months after the Na Americe concert, it was clear that he could not stay in České Budějovice with his appearance and anti-regime stance. So he went to Prague, where he quickly fell in with the community of people from the dissent and underground. In 1975 he and his like-minded friends bought a dilapidated farmhouse in Krašovice near Písek, which they turned into one of the famous „houses“ of the underground. Krašovice became for several years his island of freedom in unfree Czechoslovakia. From the mid-1970s onwards, he participated in many events of unofficial culture, making friends with people undesirable to the regime. From the 1970s onwards, he faced repression and harassment from the communist regime. He participated in the Velvet Revolution in Prague. After 1990 he started a business in the construction industry. In 2024 he lived in Prague with his wife Jiřina Vincenecová.
Vlastimil Vincenec (sitting on a chair) with the group Adept and other participants of the concert Na Americe, March 29, 1974, Rudolfov u Českých Budějovic
Vlastimil Vincenec (sitting on a chair) with the group Adept and other participants of the concert Na Americe, March 29, 1974, Rudolfov u Českých Budějovic
zdroj: Kudrna Ladislav, Stárek Čuňas František. The intervention that changed the underground. Memory and History. Prague: Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, 2015, No. 1. p. 31.
Stáhnout obrázek
Vlastimil Vincenec (right) with short hair, shortly after the concert Na Americe, where he was cut by the Czechoslovak government, 1974
Vlastimil Vincenec (right) with short hair, shortly after the concert Na Americe, where he was cut by the Czechoslovak government, 1974
zdroj: Vlastimil Vincenec (playing the flute) with short hair, after a concert in Na Americe, where the Czechoslovakia cut his hair, 1974
Stáhnout obrázek
Vlastimil Vincenec (centre) with his wife Jiřina Vincenecová in the U Betlémská kaple pub, 2nd half of the 1970s, Prague
Vlastimil Vincenec (centre) with his wife Jiřina Vincenecová in the U Betlémská kaple pub, 2nd half of the 1970s, Prague
Vlastimil Vincenec (second from left), celebrating a friend's birthday, during which they are legitimized by a member of the Czechoslovak Military Service, Čechtice, 1977
Vlastimil Vincenec (second from left), celebrating a friend's birthday, during which they are legitimized by a member of the Czechoslovak Military Service, Čechtice, 1977
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