This is intended as a treat to those who still remember Omega, the old Hungarian band that overstepped language barriers and became known as a constellation of real rock'n'roll talents.

Omega Story

Omega started off in 1962 as a high school band with Laux Jozsef on drums, Presser "Pici" Gabor on organ, Benko Laszlo on piano, Molnar "Elephant" Gyorgy on guitar, Mihaly Tamas on bass, and Kobor "Mecky" Janos doing vocals. Koncz Zsuzsa and Somlo Tamas periodically appeared in the lineup as well. The first album Trombitas Fredi es a Rettenetes Emberek (Trumpet-player Fred and the Dreadful Men) came out on Hungaroton in 67 while the band was still called Red Star. Next album was released the following year. It defined the sound of Omega with Gyongyhaju Lany and Tizezer Lepes. While these two cuts are by far ahead of their time with hard-rock sound, energy, and lyricism, the album as whole does not sound as a mature work yet. After recording Ejszakai Orszagut (Night Highway) in 1970 and staying with the band for one more year, Presser and Laux went on to establish legendary Locomtiv GT where Barta Tamas from Hungaria and Frenreisz Karoly from Metro joined them. Debreceni Ferenc replaced Laux Jozsef to form the final lineup. By that time Omega had a reputation of a progressive band and became one of the most influential bands in Hungary and Europe. The legend has it that as albums were released in other countries it became necessary to brake the language barrier. Besides naming albums, guys started… number them for simple Hungarian words are too hard to pronounce. Omega VIII (Csillagok Utjan) opens with a symphonic peace that transforms into a beautiful guitar solo. Omega IX (Gammapolis) became the most known album (there are murmurs, it was re-recorded in English!). Gammapolis is a fantasy of a dreamed up city of Gammapolis. The cover is futuristic and harmonizes with the spirit of the music. It seems that Omega reached its highest point with Gammapolis and said the last word with nicely shaped Omega XI. Despite concerts and occasional gigs, there were no other albums.

Short discography

Sounds

Omega Personal

For me it started in Moscow in mid 80's when a friend of mine showed me an LP with a strange orange label. The label was Pepita. It was difficult to say whether the album was called Omega or that was the band's name… We decided it was Omega by Gammapolis. At first we got really confused. The album was too good not to chart, BUT it was not in English! The two questions we could not solve were how come such fine stuff did not come from UK/USA/Australia/any other English-speaking country and where it came from. Six months later I came across Idorablo and we realized that Omega was something huge. We started to search for more albums and finally met the right people. Rock fans with experience told us that Omega was very well known and appreciated in Russia by older generation of rock fans, in fact Omega was huge at that time.

Acknowledgements: Lezli Perjes without whom this page would not be possible, Ádám Kard, who helped me out with facts, Arjun Sabharwal who introduced me to Ádám Kard, and Batono who helped me with RealAudio.

Email: pgurevich@aol.com

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