Made to Mate: All good things…

Last year of college in Texas before going on to become one of millions of numbers in corporate America (honestly, no sarcasm or Ill will in that). One night back in the May 1998, I was listening to an Al Green CD with headphones on and was flipping channels on the tube. I stopped at DW (German TV). After finishing up some news story and band appeared in a bland studio and started playing. I watched on (not hearing at all what was coming out of the TV) but at some point they seemed like they all were grooving really hard and the female front singer was wearing all black, sunglasses and leather jeans. The Al Green song I remember was "Full of Fire" and this band seemed to be moving along with it. I took the headphones off, turned up the TV and it was true! They were grooving and the music sounded GREAT! It was obvious they were lip-syncing but it didn’t matter and seconds later I kicked myself for not giving these funky Germans my full attention. Then the video faded to black all of a sudden then DW went into another story. I remember feeling bad that I'll never know who that German group was because I'd like to hear more of their stuff, they were gone. I returned to the Al Green CD and stayed on DW hoping to catch the end credits for the name of the band. A story ended then there they were again in that same bland studio and a tag at the bottom read Made to Mate and they went into their next number which again mesmerized me into a trance. As soon as the video went off I got on the web and punched the group's name in and got a bunch of pages with some Russian like sounding words (or at least seemed like Russian)...in either case most of which I could not read. All I found was Part 1 and some downloads. I downloaded the songs hoping to hear what I just saw on DWTV. But to my surprise or disappointment none of it sounded anything like that! But there was something catchy about the songs on Part 1. These songs echoed sincerity, love, religious conviction, rock funk and choruses that were quickly catchy and sing a longable. As days passed I discovered they weren’t from Germany but from The Czech Republic (not quite the end of the story there...read on). I added Part 1 to my collection and wore the cassette tape of it out. Months later I discovered a site in the Czech Rep. with Carousel Life for sale. Immediately I emailed the store and was told that I needed to send X amount of dollars (very reasonable price) in the mail to the CZ. I put my bill in the mail and sent it off. In exactly a month a package from the former Czechoslovakia arrived at my door. This was it! These were the songs I heard that wonderful night I first heard of Made to Mate.

Carousel Life sounded different compared to Part 1’s live in studio feel. This was more in the tradition of soul and funk with some touches of disco. (And no matter how much you may diss disco it will live forever. 30 years later disco jams are still in rotation and have outlived so much modern and post disco music. Remember this fact, the mark of great music is its LONGEVITY. In another 30 years disco will still be on the air but I guarantee you won’t hear the top 10 billboard hit for this week… I digress back to the subject). Everyone that I’ve turned on to this album remember Father and Son’s as some guy with a heavy accent trying to rap like 2-Pac (which was also my first impression of it too). A couple of friends liked the album and a couple of friends didn’t like it and called stuff like In the Fire elevator music (which I almost stopped the car to argue about! How dare they accuse Martin Gaspar’s bass playing as muzak!) The album ends with this Fonky Nalada jam which is almost like a Slovakian tribute to James Brown! No matter how many times I hear it, it starts off awkward but then it gets going and it goes!! In reflecting, the songs I saw on DWTV were Live it Up and the second was Sexy Lady. And I can only make out the members of the band as Kat (obviously the woman and looking like she’s not have a great time or better yet not agreeing to the themes of some of the other members) and Martin Gaspar on the left with the checkered coat. I want to take a guess that the guy in the red jacket with the crazy hair is Radovan Orth (or it could be the guy in the fur coat, I saw a small pic of Orth on a website years ago, that’s where my guess comes from. Sorry if I’m wrong). It’s not the greatest album picture but it’s the energetic outrageousness of the image and what’s inside that counts.

Music download sites were no longer available at or around this time and I was never able to get Part 1 again (the copies I downloaded on disk were accidentally left at a home in Los Angeles with some people I sorta fell out with). A former co-worker had an opportunity to go the Czech Republic on business, and I immediately hit her up to bring me Part1 if she happened to run into it in a music store. Upon her return she handed me another copy of Carousel Life. (Not quite what I needed but still I was happy to at least have two copies, this was long before everyone had the means of making back up CD’s. God forbid something happen to the only copy I had at the time). The music store person cleared up the confusion as they were not a Czech band but from Slovakia. He also told her that everyone in the band was from Slovakia but that Katrina Korcek was from the States. Besides seeing some internet clips of the band at a music awards type ceremony in Slovakia or the CZ, this was the most information I had ever known about Made to Mate at that time.

I’ve since tried to keep up with Made to Mate but have not have much success. There are too many different combinations when trying to run it through search engines, for example: Made to Mate, Made 2 Mate, Made II Mate, M2M (which will give you results of a different group). And most results are in Czech or Slovak and I cannot read. Back in 1999 I inquired by email to someone somewhere that were associated somehow with the group's business side about how I could get their music in the EEUU. I was informed that a distribution deal was in negotiations with Priority Records for release here in the States... but that obviously didn’t happen.

As time passed, Made to Mate put out a few more albums (two more I believe) and then a best of called Made to Best. The band broke up sometime near the beginning of the millennium for uneasy tensions. The singer Katrina Korcek now goes by Lady Kazoo and has even been on tour with Alan Gorrie’s so-called Average White Band. Martin Gaspar (the Great Martin Gaspar) still makes his round in the music scene, playing, producing and arranging. Ivan Veres, sax, keys, vocals, flute (oh my you’ve not heard a flute until you hear that beautiful solo on By the Way) may or may not have dabbled in acting. His name comes up in IMDB but it may or may not be the same (how many Ivan Veras are there?!) I imagine the others are still involved in music scene in Eastern Europe.

This will always be one of my favorite bands of all time. The world never knew them, but should have. I still don’t know all about them nor have I heard any of their albums after Carousel. What is Fonky Nalada? "What is this groshvritaniya" (sounded like German for England’s island!). I feel they could’ve been somewhat popularin the States especially with all this retro sound that’s been going on for the last 10 years. Groups like Jamarqui and Lenny Kravitz’s careers are based on this format. And if they weren’t a hit or even mildly popular they would always have one fan. But Made to Mate was capable of more than just retro as evidenced with Part 1. Take what Gaspar and Korcek are doing these days and you can imagine what Made to Mate might sound like today.  An hit honest hit or miss,

I’ve been dying for years do write this and post it somewhere. And I’ll just leave it as this:

All good things must…

BM / Aug. 2008