Today's post comes from the cold country of Estonia circa their forced annexation as a Soviet Socialist Republic. I think J.M.K.E. is one of the few punk bands to ever sing pro-democracy songs, but historically makes a lot of sense being that Estonia was forcefully annexed within the USSR and Estonians at large never necessarily wanted to be apart of Soviet communism. Amazing that they were able to sing outright anti-soviet songs throughout their early career and prior to Estonia getting its independence. J.M.K.E. formed in Tallinn in 1986 and were able to play concerts within Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia. Eventually there was a Finnish label created for the express purpose of releasing Estonian bands with J.M.K.E.'s first LP and few EPs being among the first. Musically I think they have a lot in common with their brethren in the north, Finland, but I think they have a catchier, more poppy approach to their punk rather than fitting into the raw Finnish approach. They're definitely more in the vein of APPENDIX or LAMA. Which makes you wonder how much access they had to the established Finnish punk scene throughout the 80s. Estonian and Finnish are linguistically very similar, so it would make sense that there was some cross communication between the two countries. In the future I'll have to post their 12" "Savist Saar" from 1991 and the EPs released around their LP here and that 12". Tere Perestroika is a very popular song in Estonia and there's even a video of them performing it on Estonian MTV or something with a choir, plus acoustic versions and old 80s videos.
1Valge Liblika Suvi 2Tere Perestroika 3Mun Vanaisa Oli Desertöör 4Tsensor 5Käed Üles, Virumaa 6Elab Veel Beria 7Internatsid 8Külmale Maale 9Tbilisi Tänavad 10Nad Ei Tea Mu Nime 11Meid Aitab Psühhiaatria 12Lõputu Laupäev dl link: J.M.K.E.!
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