Karel Fialka

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Karel Francis Fialka (born before 1960 in Bengal , India) is a British singer and songwriter.

Life

He was born in Bengal, India, to a Czech father and a Scottish mother. He worked as a poet and street artist in Great Britain before turning to music in the late 1970s. With The Eyes Have It he had a notable success in 1980, which made it into the British charts and can be attributed to early New Wave music. His debut album Still Life produced two more singles, but he could not repeat the success and so it was quiet around him again.

Apart from a single in 1983, nothing happened for years until it came out in 1987 with the second album Human Animal . It contained his biggest hit, Hey Matthew , which was internationally successful and in addition to number 9 in Great Britain also reached the top 20 in Germany and Switzerland.

The song is a critical questioning of the influence that television has on children. It's about little Matthew, who tells his father what he sees on TV and includes numerous prominent series from the 1980s such as Dallas , The Denver Clan , Tom and Jerry , Daffy Duck , Rambo and The A- Team . And the worried father then asks what his son wants to be. The boy answers, among other things, a soldier, police officer, doctor and pilot. And the last sentence is: "It's all a game - I hope." (It's all just a game - I hope). In addition to Karel Fialka's quiet singing and the spoken answers from Matthew, who is around six years old, a short synthesizer melody is particularly striking.

After the second album and other single releases did not bring him any lasting success, he withdrew to northern Scotland. He began working with Paul Roberts of Sniff 'n' the Tears . Together they recorded a folk album, which, however, attracted little attention after its release in 1997. In addition, he was also active as a songwriter, including in 2001 as a co-author of Roberts' new edition of Sniff 'n' The Tears. Later, in turn, was involved in new song recordings by Fialka Paul Roberts as a guest singer.

In 2009 Fialka released his third album, Film Noir , which is limited to 500 copies and is sold on his website for a price of 100 British pounds. At the same time there is also the option of purchasing the album in MP3 format for £ 10 .

Discography

Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
The eyes have it
  UK 52 05/17/1980 (4 weeks)
Hey matthew
  UK 9 09/05/1987 (8 weeks)
  DE 15th 11/30/1987 (14 weeks)
  CH 13 01/24/1988 (8 weeks)

Albums

  • 1980: Still Life
  • 1988: Human Animal
  • 2009: Film Noir
  • 2016: Peace v War

Singles

  • 1980: bracelet (The Mystery Song)
  • 1980: The Eyes Have It
  • 1980: File In Forget
  • 1983: Eat, Drink, Dance, Relax
  • 1987: Hey, Matthew
  • 1987: Eat, Drink, Dance, Relax (Re-release)
  • 1988: You Be The Judge
  • 2006: In Gay And That's Ok

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ br-online.de ( Memento from May 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Charts DE Charts CH Charts UK
  3. ↑ a b discogs.h17.ru ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / discogs.h17.ru
personal data
SURNAME Fialka, Karel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fialka, Karel Francis (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British singer and songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH before 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Bengal , India