Budapest: The Podcast

As the public face of Kozpont, the chilled and popular Budapest hang-out, Jonas Togay is well-known to the city’s Madách tér warriors. A distillation of Hungarian, Finnish, and Turkish ancestry, Jonas also promotes for the NVC crew, known for the expanding Electronic Beats festival in addition to a variety of other bookings. Recently we sat down at the podcastle to discuss his melting pot background and associated visit to Turkey, a bit of sport, a typical day in the life of Jonas, some refugee crisis (what conversation can’t touch on that these days?) and, most importantly, our shared appreciation of turn of the century so-bad-yet-so-good pop music. It was a pleasure to talk and hope you enjoy!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/nvcbudapest/

https://www.facebook.com/kozpontbudapest

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

After a too long hiatus, Bp da P is back in action! This time around we chat with Craig Hull, an English-born and long-time Budapest resident who has observed his fair share of Hungarian reality over the past decade-ish. At first (and still) he did this through the photographer’s lens in the fashion, artistic, and documentarian arenas. Of late he is re-constituting his myriad interests through an upstart record label called People Say, which is hoped to develop into a fully-fledged artistic clearing house centered around the Budapest experience from loads of perspectives. Our talk was fun -- it was interesting to have “bitch session” of sorts with another foreigner about Hungarian politics and policies -- later we had a more creatively minded discussion, diving a little into Craig’s background, as well as photography theory.

Links:

http://craighullphotography.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/People-Say-Records/798758536859506

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Bence is an interior designer and one of the founders of the Position Collective (aka Pos1t1on). From its origins in design, architecture and installations, Position has evolved into a company offering a full suite of services around the applied arts. Most recently, they have focused on interior and furniture design, with production and sales of the latter. In our chat last month, Bence and I covered topics such as the odd nature of the Hungarian holiday, Position’s office space, their focus on furniture accessory production (lamps and vases of late), good Hungarian manufacturing quality, and dealing with bitchy clients. Viva Position!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/POSITION.Collective

http://www.position-collective.com/

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Ildi Amon is an Australian of Hungarian origin and a journalist, for the past year working as lead editor of the increasingly popular We Love Budapest website. The English language version of WLB has become a goto Internet site for both newcomers to Budapest as well as long term residents. Ildi and I had a thorough chat about the expat scene in the city, the evolution of WLB, how they balance the English versus Hungarian versions of the website, journalism vs. travel information, where to go to brunch in Budapest, the proliferation of temporary markets in every city square, and WLB hot wine recommendations! Enjoy her soft Australian accent in opposition to my nasally American timbre :)

Links:

http://welovebudapest.com/

https://www.facebook.com/welovebudapest.en

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Tom Select is a fixture in Budapest if quality house-oriented music parties is your thing. His Girls and Mathematics party series first started in mid-2000s, around the time he moved back to Hungary from London. In addition to one-off dates and awesome summer gigs (like at Aliga) Tom now has regular sessions at Toldi and Larm. We covered a range of fun topics in our chat, including how best to transport tons of sand to a venue, what to do when you have to pee during a long DJ set, the importance of actively theme-ing your parties, the origins of the Girls and Maths party, and what it means to have artistic parents.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/girlsandmaths

https://www.facebook.com/tomselect

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Andrea is a long-time Budapest resident, gay activist, photographer, and DJ who I had the pleasure to meet a year ago when we both hosted a Halloween party at Vittula. He also happens to the second Italian i’ve now had as guest of the pod (first being Paulo). Andrea and I sat down to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of being a guy with a name most associate with a girl, all the letters of the alphabet associated with modern gay activism, the Westboro Baptist church, naked people in ancient art versus modern art, his photography and the sexuality(?) of the cock, and anti-gay protests in France done by bare-chested men. Finally, if his drag queen name is the same as his real name :)

Links:

http://afegiuliano.bigcartel.com/

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

It’s a pleasure to have two back-to-back guests in this episode, both related to the upstart Budapest International Documentary Festival (BIDF). I first spoke with festival organizer, Rita Balogh, who together with a friend in London, turned this idea into reality in a mere eight months time. Her hard work has finally put Budapest on the map of the documentarian festival circuit. I next spoke to a producer of one of the films accepted to the festival, Johnny Burke. Hailing from the UK but currently residing in Budapest, Johnny and his partner created the fascinating “Tashi and the Monk”, detailing a community in the Himalayan foothills brought together to support abandoned children, and led by a Buddhist monk whose life story is fascinating from start to finish. I encourage all those interested in quality factual film to check out the debut of BDIF, taking place September 24-28 in Corvin Mozi. Budapest now has its own Sundance. :)

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/BIDF-Budapest-International-Documentary-Festival/1478603189037876

http://bidf.hu/index.php?page=&id=&lang=en

www.pilgrimfilms.com

www.tashiandthemonk.com

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Tamas, known by his DJ moniker TMX for almost a decade, has been making parties and music since his teenage years. These days in addition to DJing solo, he organizes several party brands, most notably Kollektiva (with Fullstereo) as well as Sticky Beats with your dear host, Brandon. :) We sat down in the grass at Erzsebet ter to talk about his early days in Székesfehérvár, working in the IT sector and the amusement of early technology including the Commodore 64. Later, onto the vagaries of the party life including the confidence of youth, meatheads and drugs, recreating analog sounds with digital devices, and the frustrations of “getting famous” in Budapest versus other cities.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/tmxband

https://www.facebook.com/kollektivaofficial

https://www.facebook.com/stickybeats

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Tibor is a trained lawyer who had a change of heart after finishing university and transformed his life into one devoted to coffee. His is now the owner of one of downtown Budapest’s favorite coffee haunts, Espresso Embassy. The shop is among the “third wave” of coffee purveyors, paying special attention to quality and avoiding the mass-produced and massively-sized cups as so often seen these days. Tibor and I spoke about the history of coffee popularity, the worldwide hotspots for consumption (including recent kings, Australia), his successful participation in barista championships, the life cycle of a coffee bean, the technicalities of roasting, what makes a flat white, and much more!

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/EspressoEmbassy

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic

Gergo is a sound engineer by day, musician contributor extraordinaire to many bands by night. I’ve known him as part of some half-dozen bands/projects over the years, but his most notable role to date is probably as drummer of the Moog, while he’s currently strumming chords for a power trio turned power quad called Gustave Tiger. We sat down in the podcastle to cover a variety of topics, including Hungary’s obsession with wine spritzer variation (aka, froccs), his recent remix of English remix of Boggie’s Nouveau Parfum, how to train a Hungarian to reduce their accent, how Hungarian indie artists make money (or at least try to make money), to finally the setting up of his current Gustave Tiger tour in Czech, Germany and Poland.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/gustavetiger

https://www.facebook.com/moogband

http://vimeo.com/81795730

Intro music: “BMX” by Xinobi https://www.facebook.com/xinobimusic