Leszek Gnoiński (born 1966) is a music journalist, screenwriter, and a director. He is also an author and co-author of numerous books and documentaries on Polish rock music. Gnoiński is the co-author of the narrative of the permanent exhibition at the Polish Rock Granary. He lives in Cracow.
Gnoiński was born in Warsaw. In the 1990s he worked in Super Express daily, where he wrote the column on rock music. He was also a collaborator of Tylko Rock (Rock Only) and Machina magazines. In 2000s he became the vice editor-in-chief of Muza magazine and the editor-in-chief of the cgm.pl webportal. He also worked for Discovery Historia TVN channel, and wrote for Dziennik and Dziennik Polski, as well as for t-mobile-music.pl. He edited over a hundred albums of 1980s and 1990s Polish rock bands, including 30 albums for the series titled Polish Music Stars of the 1980s (Gwiazdy polskiej muzyki lat 80.) added to the Dziennik daily. He hosted radio shows in Warsaw Radio 94 and Cracow Ex FM. He serves as a member of the ZPAV (Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry) Phonographic Academy, and used to be a juror of the rock festival in Jarocin and the festival of Polish videoclips Yach Film.
Gnoiński’s most important books include Raport o Acid Drinkers (1996), Encyklopedia polskiego rocka (1996) – jointly with Jan Skaradziński, and the best-selling Kult Kazika (2000), Myslovitz. Życie to surfing (2009). Together with Wojciech Słota he created the film Chasing the Acids – w pogoni za Acid Drinkers (2006), the Historia polskiego rocka TV series (2008), Beats of Freedom – Zew wolności (2009) and Nieważne jak wysoko jesteśmy (2011), as well as series of documentaries on Jarocin produced especially for the Polish Rock Granary (2013). In 2016, together with Marek Gajczak, he shot a documentary titled Jarocin, po co wolność, and on his own film Fugazi. Centrum wszechświata dedicated to the famous transformation-era Warsaw club.
Gnoiński’s attitude was shaped by the nonconformist message of the early 1980s rock music. He is attached to the idea of rock being a vehicle for dissent against the state and social system. Nevertheless, the peak of his professional activities took place in the 1990s and 2000s, when rock suffered from commercialisation, becoming one of many options available in the music market.
