Seattle-based KEXP, America’s and probably one of the world’s most popular alternative radio stations, has invited The Qualitons for a live performance on March 22nd as the first Hungarian performers since the stations’ start in 1972. A video of the performance was published on Youtube.
On March 22nd, for the first time ever in the history of the legendary radio station, editor Kevin Cole invited Hungarian artists, or as he said “his favourite Hungarian act,” The Qualitons, to the famous radio station. Cole discovered them on a previous SXSW performance and he gave them the opportunity to perform live in the KEXP studio in Seattle.
The full footage can be found on Youtube, showing the band’s performance of four of their songs, including Hungarian folk song covers. They started off the show with ‘Zöld Sárga’. The band talked with Cole about the Hungarian band “Kex” who first produced the song, as well as the Hungarian word “keksz” (biscuit) which has a similar pronunciation as the radio’s name, KEXP. They also mentioned how the new vinyl revolution affects their albums’ structure, the band’s roots in jazz, and how their music has changed over the years. At the end of the session, they even talked about the name of the band, briefly discussing the Hungarian Qualiton producer, and the state of Hungarian funk music in the past decades.
The Qualitons are not only Cole’s favorite Hungarian performers, but they are often referred to as ‘Red Hot Chili Pepper’ frontman Anthony Kiedis’ “favourite Hungarian band.” As The Qualitons write on their website, as we have previously reported, in 2016, a few days before their Budapest gig, members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers were in their hotel room when they heard The Qualitons from an open-air venue near their hotel. To the band’s greatest surprise, frontman Anthony Kiedis decided to drop by and even asked for a CD after the show: