Kollaa Kestää

Outstanding ultrainfluential Punk and New Wave band from Tampere, Finland. Kollaa Kestää was founded by Kai Kivi, Jyrki Siukonen and Juha Helminen in 1977. Mikko Nevalainen joined them after their first single in spring 1978. They released their only album in 1979 and split up in the early 1980s. Popular enough to be revered still to this day by critics and fans alike for writing catchy punk anthems with a distinctive wistfulness; their melancholy air and interest in other sounds eg music concrete and jazz alluring the talents of jazz punk pundits like Laura Logic from the UK and local punk renaissance giants like Mikko Saarela in Finland to be subsumed for a while in their ranks. The classic lineup comprises those four personalities cited above- Kivi, Helminen, Siukonen and Nevalainen; however, sometimes viewed as an avant-garde collective, with fringe members flitting in and out, as well as a new wave pop group, the broad appeal of their influence was immense and thereby laid the groundwork for bands like Likkuuvat Lapset and Sielun Veljet to flourish. In this way they constituted the minimalist answer to the epic sounds that their expansive jazzpunk rivals Jari and his own collective/group, the mighty Se, were churning out about the same time in 1979 and thereafter.