Ivan Král is one of the most famous Czech and Czechoslovak rockers. After emigrating to the USA, he was active on the New York scene, where he played for example with the band Blondie. But he made his biggest name in the second half of the 1970s, when he played in the band of singer Patti Smith. Ivan Kral also composed the music for one of her most famous hits, Dancing Barefoot. When Patti Smith disbanded the band, Ivan Kral played with Iggy Pop. For personal reasons, he left New York for Seattle in the late 1980s. There, a new style of grunge music was emerging, but Ivan Král did not play and devoted himself to selling pancakes. He and his colleague Zbyněk Pavlíček formed the band Native and toured Europe. However, Král’s career was restarted when he returned to Prague and toured with Ivo Pospíšil’s Garage. Ivan Král became one of the most important producers of albums by Czech bands in the 1990s. Šimon Šafránek’s documentary film is compiled from recordings of telephone conversations with Ivan Král made by music publicist Honza Vedrala and from previously unseen archival footage, often shot by Král himself.
