The Nightmares

"The Nightmares" is a post-punk/gothic rock bank from Jihlava in the Czech Republic. The band became a publicly known group shortly after the Velvet Revolution in 1989, whose original members were Roman Prochazka, Martin Turek, Petra Komarkova and Michal Neuhoffer. Their then mission was to formulate the post-communist expression of reminiscent darkness and liberal forward-looking optimism into a musical message. The Nightmares toured the Czech Republic, Germany, UK and other countries formerly inaccessible to them, played to radio audiences and released a compilation of tracks on CD.

However it is the pre-1989 period of this band that is of great interest to historians studying the build up to the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia. The Nightmares were originally affiliated with anti-communist resistance underground actions, and are said to have played key roles in the facilitation of Charter 77 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_77), playing a behind the scenes role in supporting Vaclav Havel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Havel) against soviet funded propaganda and influence. There has been disagreement amongst experts that some of the members had links to the CIA, who were presumably funding and supporting Charter77 activists.

The Nightmares came to an abrupt end, even after the revolution during democracy and capitalism, when it is reported that key members became the subject of harassment by former members of the socialist establishment and intelligence services. It was reported that difficulties in travelling because of unexpected visa restrictions, police investigations and other intimidating manoeuvres made it impossible for the band to continue. One recording studio was ransacked and DAT tapes were discovered missing. Roman Prochazka, the lead guitarist, continued despite the threat and is still heard today as DigitalDivision (http://www.myspace.com/digitaldivision). It is not known if Roman Prochazka remains in the Czech Republic, though his productions are always labelled as hailing from Jihlava. Other members are said to still re-surface occasionally in the musical scene, but this is difficult to verify and it is not known if they remain in the now Czech or Slovak republics.

Nightmares productions are highly prized and it is a subject of national debate if the missing DAT tapes will ever be found.