Useful Contacts

Editor-in-Chief of Fakker magazine

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Booking agent and production manager of music club Fléda

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A graduate of a high school in Ostrava with a focus on electro, he has been interested in music since he was twelve, initially listening to Polish radio stations, which in times of totalitarianism were more accommodating than domestic media to heavy metal, about which he is an active fan of the Ostrava Stock Exchange. the reader of Magazyn muzyczny made a good overview; he also got to know the Czech metal scene marginally - the groups Citron, Arakain, Vitacit. In 1991, Karel Balčirák, together with Lukáš Pavliňák and Jiří Hrubý, co-founded Spark magazine, which he now heads as editor-in-chief and co-publisher. The face of this Ostrava metal newsletter has changed several times and become significantly more professional. The initial inspiration was Pavliňák's fanzine Metal Symphony, which Spark followed at first as an irregular periodical and only in 1995 took the form of a monthly magazine with nationwide distribution. The first group that Balčirák devoted to in-depth work in Spark was Metallica. Over time, he tried all forms of editorial work, and as he went to negotiate with the nascent large publishing houses, he realized that the future of the magazine depended on the transfer of the editorial office to Prague. Petr Hanzlík's radio program Gung Ho, who often referred to Spark, greatly contributed to its popularization, and Balčirák himself acquired moderating practice in his own program Spark Report on Radio Orion, then on Radio Ekol - S, Radio Attack in Opava and Radio Helax in Ostrava.
In the mid-1990s, Karel Balčirák became close to the rock concert promoter Pavel Schuster and together they founded the publishing house One & One Company, which took over the publishing of Spark and launched it in November 1996 from the Prague address. This was a successful period for Spark, when its load and prestige increased significantly. Readers also appreciated his international connections, whether they were reflected in contributions that came from abroad or in contacts with independent companies, which remain a fruitful mushroom for the metal trend.
The editor-in-chief's authorial activities mainly include reviews, stories, and interviews. Also in Prague, Balčirák established contact with radio, specifically with Radio Beat in his cult show Hard & Heavy. The range of artists he has worked on remains wide, ranging from hair-rock bands Motley Crue and Poison through interviews with Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica to an inspiring meeting with Metallica producer Flemming Rasmussen at a recording studio in Copenhagen, whose sound (especially on the album Master Of Puppets) is still considered inimitable by Balčirák. The commercial rise of Spark encouraged Karel Balčirák and Pavel Schuster to expand the portfolio of the One & One Company publishing house with another important monthly, the already established Rock & Pop, starting in March 2005.

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Ondřej Bezr is a journalist. He has been writing articles since 1989 for magazines Rock Revue, Rock&Pop and Lidovky. He is a editor in chief of UNI Magazine.

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Promoter and creator of dramaturgy at cultural centre MeetFactory, co-founder of Shape platform

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Dramaturge of Fléda Club in Brno

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Michal Bystrov is a Czech journalist, songwriter, writer, poet and translator. You can find his articles on the pages of Reflex, Rock & All, Reporter and Headliner magazines. Since 1999, he has published hundreds of reviews, portraits, interviews and reports in Lidový and Hospodářské noviny, Deník, Respekt, Czech Radio, etc. He translates biographies of musicians, searches for the creation of old popular songs - see the UNI magazine In UNI magazine, in the Stars in the Half-Shadow section, he focuses on lesser-known singers and music history.

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Promoter at Roxy (Prague) and Heartnoize Promotion, journalist of Full Moon Magazine

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Marie Čtveráčková aka Mary C is a moderator at Radio Wave, journalist and coordinator of many projects - Kreaton, Czeching and others.

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Founder, booker and fundraiser of the Karlovy Vary music festival Top RoofTop fest, founder of Wild Delfino Booking, booking agent of The Wild Roots and Seventh Passion, editor of Frontman.cz, Muzikantiakapely.cz and Plzenskekapely.cz, moderator of the Zkušebny program on MVTV.cz. PR and social media manager AMPromotions.

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