The earliest incarnations of Dzeltenie Pastnieki were formed in the mid 1970s around Baušķenieks, and it is said that the band's early days were spent performing at dance events, playing covers of songs by Gary Numan, Bob Marley, Blondie, and The Police, among others. In the spring of 1981, while under an early name, Jaunais Sarkanais Karalis ("The New Red King", in reference to King Crimson), the band recorded a half-hour-long demo album entitled "Madonas galerts" ("The Meat-Jelly of Madona"). Photographs from the recording session show the band at this point consisting of Baušķenieks, Slava, Andris Kalniņš (keyboards, saxophone), and Mārtiņš Rutkis (guitar). Songs from "Madonas galerts" were re-recorded later the same year for the proper Dzeltenie Pastnieki debut album, "Bolderājas dzelzceļš" ("The Railroad of Bolderāja"; usually misspelt as "Bolderājas dzelzsceļš", even on the 2003 CD release). A majority of songs on it were written or co-written by NSRD core members Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko, and date back to material recorded earlier by Seque - a pre-electronic version of NSRD and also the name of their record label. Additionally, it was Lediņs who named the band, after an early song, "Dzeltenais viltus pastnieks" ("The Sham Yellow Postman"). For their second album, "Man ļoti patīk jaunais vilnis" (1982, "I Really Like New Wave"), Dzeltenie Pastnieki added Roberts Gobziņš (vocals, lyrics), whom Streiķis had met at a choir rehearsal, and partially gave up the guitar/bass/drums setup for a more synthetic sound. The album boasts the first-ever Latvian-language rap performance (by Gobziņš) in the song "Bezcerīgā dziesma" ("The Hopeless Song"). Following a period of inactivity, the band were asked to compose the music for an amateur stage adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass", directed by Andris Zeibots.