Despite only releasing songs via various compilations RAF Punk were a key part of the Bologna scene in Italy, with members also going on to play in CCCP and Nabat. As a result of Bologna's proximity to Ljubljana there were numerous links between the two, with RAF Punk playing in Ljubljana as well as releasing the UBR 'Corpus Delicti' 7" via their label Attack Punk Records and hosting the band in Bologna in 1983. I'm writing a bit about these links at the moment and have been finding old pictures of the band as a result. Here's a cool picture featuring John John Jesse of Nausea, Tim from Sacrilege and Laura De Lauris of RAF Punk at CBGB's in 1985.
Just scanned in this flyer for when Nabat played in Ljubljana in 1987. Thought i'd stick it up here as I've not updated for a long time (currently writing up my thesis) and I've not seen this online before.
The Novi Rock festival was held every year throughout the 1980s and 1990s in Križanke, Ljubljana, and was the biggest 'alternative' cultural event in Slovenia at the time, attended by thousands of people. Despite this, I had never actually seen the flyer for the 1986 'hardcore' edition before I got hold of Igor Bašin's history of the festival. The amazing poster was designed by NSK, the politically incendiary art collective associated with Laibach, but seems to fail in terms of the key function of a festival poster- clearly communicating what's actually happening...
Many local punk, alternative and new wave bands had played the festival in previous years, including Quod Massacre (1985) and Niet (1984 & 1985), but the hardcore collective was less than enthusiastic about it as a whole. Robert from QM told me he viewed it as a good way to present the band to thousands of people using good equipment and also highlighted how playing the festival meant bands were given the chance to record in a proper studio as another attraction. Niet, who replaced UBR on the lineup in 1985 after UBR's singer Gigi was called up to the JNA, came in for special criticism as a result of their enthusiastic involvement in the festival which was taken as an indication of their 'rockstar' ambitions. As Igor from Niet remembers...
I think the biggest conflict (with the hardcore collective) was that we
applied for Novi Rock. Now and then I think it was a very good festival. We applied for this, and they put out propaganda about how we sold our souls to the devil!
Novi Rock '84 flyer, by Jane Štravs
Novi Rock '85 flyer (still advertising UBR on the first night), by Kostja Gatnik
However, 1986 was designated as the 'hardcore' year with many previously critical bands now performing. The story goes that in 1986 the organiser of the festival, Igor Vidmar, asked Tožibabe to perform, to which they refused unless the rest of the local hardcore scene was featured. David of 2227 told me that the 1986 festival essentially ended up being the 'farewell' gig for Hardcore Ljubljana, with many of the bands breaking up shortly after. The apparent U-turn in regards to the festival is described as 'a difficult decision', with the general argument amongst the collective focusing upon whether the studio time and the chance to share their music with thousands of young people was worth compromising their stance on resisting established means of exposure, and what they viewed as an institutionalisation process that Vidmar and Novi Rock represented, that they felt much of the previously alternative and punk scenes before them had already engaged with. Indeed Irena of the Hardcore Collective remembers some bands on the Novi Rock stage making deliberate gestures to demonstrate their discomfort with the festival, such as turning their backs to the audience...
How many people were actually at
that gig?
David- Novi Rock was sold out, always. Whether it was hardcore or anything else.
At that time you really only had one show with foreign bands a month,
so a lot of people who weren't into punk still went to Novi Rock to
see the new hardcore bands, or English bands that really took the
darker side at that time like Amebix. What was also important, with
Novi Rock, was that it was in connection with National Radio, so it
got a really good response. I think most of the time it was live on
air, or if it wasn't, it was played later.
So was it seen as a chance to get
the music heard by people who would never encounter it otherwise?
David- Yeah, but it took Igor
Vidmar some time to convince us to do it. We all had regrets later...
Did you discuss it all together?
David- Yeah of course, we
were discussing it, all bands together, like 20 or 30 of us, sitting
at Figovec with Igor Vidmar discussing what to do.
So he wanted to represent the whole scene?
David- Yeah, he wanted
it, of course. Novi Rock had it's strange trips into unknown musical
lands that were not really 'Novi' or 'Rock' or 'Punk'. So Igor Vidmar
wanted us to do that show. It was also good for bands because playing Novi
Rock meant National Radio paid for the first studio recordings.
Alongside Tožibabe, Ljubljana hardcore was represented by III. Kategorija, GUZ and 2227(who had formed the year before, comprising of members of UBR, KPJ, Epidemija and Odpadki Civilizacije). SOR from Idrija (just outside Ljubljana) and CZD from Trate also played, with Amebix headlining.
Amebix, Novi Rock '86
Punk as Fuck... Božo, 2227 at Novi Rock '86
David, 2227 at Novi Rock '86
I've previously mentioned the tape FV Založba produced of Amebix set on this blog, which you can read here. I've also spoken to Stig from Amebix about his memories of the festival as part of my research, and the other gig Amebix played in Yugoslavia when they travelled over, in Sarajevo...
I'm
interested to hear your memories of the gig and travelling to
Yugoslavia. Do you remember the bands you played with? Were there any
noticeable differences between the Yugoslavia/Slovene hardcore punk
scene and other European scenes at that time?
Stig- We
arrived in a small plane. It was a strange kind of atmosphere , very
very tense on the streets, we went to a bar with this guy called Gigi (UBR) who was looking after us, and got in some weird fight with guys from
another area, as we didn’t speak the language we didn’t know what
it was about, it just exploded in nasty violence for no reason,
glasses flying all that shit, we left rather quickly. I remember the
town being a very beautiful looking place, but people were tense and you
could feel bad things were coming.
I
can’t remember all the bands we played with, but i think there was
a female band called Tozibabe. A guy dressed as Dracula came on and
started introducing us... he took too long and the crowd pelted him
with coins. By the time we came onstage it was pretty dark out there
in the crowd and not everyone was there to see a band, so we just
played as hard as we could and hoped for the best. I looked down and
could see a lot of blood and broken faces, people getting either
beaten up or crushed against the barriers, but no one seemed to mind
a bit of blood, so we gave it fuck. I would say it was a very
charged atmosphere, political and social tension, that always makes
things really kick off. Just the right side of dangerous i reckon …..er
“just’ this side.
Did
you have any preconceptions of what it would be like to play in
Yugoslavia before you went over? By that time a few UK bands had
played in Slovenia but it wasn't that common for bands to travel that way. Why do
you think that was, and what set Amebix apart in that sense?
Stig- To
be honest I have no idea what set us apart , but i think you are
right i don’t think many UK bands had played there before Amebix.
We did not have any preconceptions, that I can think of, we were just
looking forward to playing a decent sized show!
Can you remember anything else about the gigs?
Stig- In
Sarajevo me and Spider stayed up all night drinking, in the morning
we wandered over to get our ride out of town, the sky was grey and
you could feel something bad was coming, something very bad. I guess
I was feeling War approaching. Not long after this Sarajevo was a war
zone and terrible things happened there and all over the country. It
was almost palpable really that feeling. I will never forget that, an
approaching looming evil feeling.... We had a good time,
but i felt bad for the people and country that we left behind. I am
glad things are better now.
It's interesting to hear Stig mention feeling the tension on the streets in 1986 and link it to later wars. I've mentioned this to a couple of people from Ljubljana, they said they think it's more likely that whilst the feeling of tension he experienced might have been genuine, it probably didn't have that much to do with the wars that followed 4/5 years later. Stig has always struck me as a pretty perceptive person though so who knows!
Gigi remembers a similar scene and describes how he worked with Igor to get Amebix to Ljubljana...
Gigi- 'Arise' was a popular record here and Igor agreed it would be fantastic to have a band like this as a guest, so I brought my
favourite band to Ljubljana! We met them at the airport, brought them
to the city and had four days partying. The fight might have been with some local skinheads, I don't remember. The day after Ljubljana we
went to Sarajevo for a concert, that was fucking crazy, really crazy. Actually, the fight Stig mentioned was maybe there! I was at that time being their tour manager but I was too young and stupid to be one... but at least I brought them to Ljubljana!
A photo of SOR playing the fest was recently used on the cover of their 'Sistem Oragnizirane Regresije' LP, released by Ne! Records, which you can find here.
I'm back in Ljubljana for possibly the last time whilst I'm working on my thesis, although I hope it's not the last time in general. I've been pretty busy so far meeting with various people, including Aldo from FV/Borghesia, Suzana, who was involved in the punk, lesbian and feminist movements (all of which essentially existed within the umbrella of the countercultural alternative scene of Ljubljana in the 1980s), Dario Cortese, who wrote several Yugoslav scene reports for MRR and Marsa of Tožibabe, with this last meeting ending with us dancing in Metelkova to ska covers of Cock Sparrer. I have a lot of work ahead of me in terms of continuing to write everything up, but right now I'm feeling very lucky that I've been able to spend the last few years of my life immersed in this truly subversive culture and moment in history, and had so many great people share their memories and lives with me. The trust and warmth I've been shown has made me especially determined to represent these great people and this very cool scene as genuinely as possible.
I spent yesterday afternoon with Irena (Povśe) of Buba Booking, who (as i think i've mentioned here already) was originally part of the Hardcore Collective that booked shows in the mid to late 1980s. She has a load of albums filled with photos from Ljubljana and let me scan pretty much half of them. I'll be sharing them all later, but for now here's one of some punks on the street that I'm staying on right now, and where I lived for 3/4 months the first time I came out here. The building behind them on the right hand side is now an 'England Pub', run by a Slovene Manchester United fan who loves English football and culture for some reason.
Thursday, 18 August 2016
When I last in Ljubljana I met with Gigi from UBR for a second time and he gave me a handful of old photos he had found in his apartment. I've scanned them in and tried to restore them a bit. I'm not sure who actually took these or where and when they were taken, but I've tried to identify a few of the subjects. If you can help me out with that please get in touch.
Gigi/UBR
Not sure with the rest of these...
Gigi also gave me an original hand drawn advert for the UBR 'Corpus Delicti' 7" on Attack Punk Records, which is now obviously one of the coolest things I own and is framed on my wall. I scanned that in too for the purposes of this blog, and also so I could send it to Iffi from Static Shock Musik in Berlin (highly reccommended record shop). It's on his wall now too.
I'm trying to avoid updating this blog only when someone I like dies, but a lot of cool people are dying recently. Like everyone I was sad to hear that John Stabb passed away recently, especially as all the tributes in the wake of his death made him seem like a truly great guy.
Anyway, here's a live recording of Government Issue from when they played Ljubljana in 1988. This was released as an unofficial/bootleg tape by FV Založba and as you can see from the tape sleeve, they released similar tapes for UK Subs, Poison Girls, Nick Cave, Swans, Misty in Roots and a lot more, including Amebix (which I have posted here before), Rollins Band, Social Unrest, Sonic Youth, Nomeansno, Pere Ubu, Diamanda Galas... pretty much anyone that played in Ljubljana in the late 80s.
Here's the flyer for a Government Issue show in Ljubljana...
Courtesy of Irena Povše, Buba Booking/Hardcore Collective
I realised the other day that I haven't posted any music downloads on this blog for over a year. So to rectify this, here's some darkwave I've been listening to over the past few days. Recorded in Belgrade in 1988, this cassette, titled 'Album Mentalnih Fotograpfija' (which translates roughly to 'Mental Pictures'), was the only release from Psihokratija. I don't know much about the band beyond the above and that it was essentially the project of Goran Krstić (synth, lyrics, arrangements), accompanied by Zoran Petrović (vocals) and later Weselly Karel (keyboards).
The tape starts with 'Who Is Alive, Who Is Dead', the only song in English. The rest is in Serbo-Croat, and these unique sounding vocals/language helps Psihokratija stand apart from a lot of more familiar stuff from elsewhere. I was recommended this tape as another example of gloomy Yugoslav music by a friend of mine, Mihael who is from Zagreb and one half of Doomtown Records, after I bought the recent Dobri Isak reissue from the label. More on that band another time.
If you know more about this band/tape feel free to get in touch, and I can share it on here.
I've just seen that PMK Records, based in Serbia, have released a CD and download of the bands full discography between 1988 and 1991, featuring the above cassette, some extra tracks and an unreleased second album 'U Teatru Misterije' which was recorded in 1990-91 in Belgrade by Goran and some other musicians. I've not given all the other songs a listen yet but what I've heard sounds like the soundtrack to a horror film set in a circus. It also seems as though the project is once again active, having been stopped by the outbreak of war in former Yugoslavia. You can listen and buy the compilation from their bandcamp- https://pmkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/diskografija-1988-1991
Like a lot of people I woke up this weekend to the news that Vi Subversa has died aged 80. In the course of finding some of my favourite Poison Girls songs to share on facebook, as part of what now seems to be 'the done thing' when musicians we like pass away, I found this video of Poison Girls performing in Ljubljana in 1988, with a short interview with Vi too so I'm sharing it here rather than attempt a pale imitation of the many tributes that have been popping up over the past few days. As an aside, I really love the Škuc graphics at the start.
RIP
Monday, 8 February 2016
I've been reading about punk in other socialist states in the 1980's and beyond, including a recently published overview of Punk In Russia, which focuses mainly on contemporary scenes in St. Petersburg, Vorkuta and Krasnodar.
I came across this image from the front cover of a 'zine from the mid 1990's entitled 'Avtonom' and it amused me as I can't think of another time where I've seen Marx as a punk.
I also ended up listening to some songs by a band from Siberia called Orgazm Nostradamusa, including the video below. I've absolutely no idea how this song is 5 minutes long.
I was able to scan a copy of the 8th issue of 'Dvadeset 4 Časa' today, courtesy of Paco from the consistently excellent La Vida Es Un Mus, here's the front cover.
I've not had a chance to have a proper read through so far, but from what I can tell it was a relatively regular hardcore fanzine which continued at least into the 90s (the latest I've found so far is Issue 14), and I'll be trying to track down everyone involved. The address given is for Belgrade, under the name 'Fallout Productions' although it appears David from the Hardcore Collective in Ljubljana was an active contributor at this point. It featured local scene news alongside their own interviews and scene reports sent in from the UK, Scotland, Finland, the US and more... some of this in English, with the remainder in Serbo-Croat. If you have any more details on this or other copies, please get in touch as this could potentially be so important to my thesis.
I'm in Ljubljana at the moment, trying to meet up with as many people as possible to do some more interviews. I spent this afternoon chatting to David, who was part of the Hardcore Collective and mostly involved in booking shows. He also played in the band KPJ (which in English stood for Communist Party of Yugoslavia). One of the things we ended up talking about was how a lot of the hardcore punks in Ljubljana ended up having to be creative with regards to their clothes, as it was difficult and expensive to get hold of certain items, like bullet belts and leather jackets, which by this time had become pretty much standard fare across most of European and worldwide hardcore scenes.
The expense and difficult associated with buying DM boots led them to have to improvise, usually replacing Dr Martens with Yugoslav army boots for example, whilst others travelled to places like Trieste to buy the clothes and records they could afford. David said he actually ended up ordering bullet belts, studs etc from the UK and distributed them in Ljubljana, in the same sort of way he distributed Maximum RocknRoll.
This all led me on to say how I always thought that Boris, the bass player in Odpadki Civilizacije had one of the coolest looks in the hardcore scene, based on the photos and videos I have seen.
You can see it on show in the video below as well, which incidentally is probably my favourite hardcore song to come out of the Ljubljana scene. I've no idea how he managed to play anything at all with those gloves on.
These are just some thoughts off the top of my head based on today's conversation, but it's something I'm gonna think more about, ask some more people about, and maybe include in my thesis.
Friday, 4 September 2015
Only a short post here, but just wanted to share a new jumper I recently received as a birthday present, which was made by the excellent knitpunx. Not sure how anyone in UBR will react to seeing this, but I suppose it's a step down from showing the members of Tožibabe my Dežuje tattoo at least.
I've briefly mentioned Jože Suhadolnik and his photography on this blog in the past, having picked up a copy of his book last year. I've also spoken to him on the phone at some point earlier this year (I forget when) to ask him some more about his experiences as part of my research, but I've not yet got round to writing anything up for this blog about that. Today however, I came across this article on the Dangerous Minds website, which features a lot of his photography alongside a few comments about his photos and the environment in which he worked, which is taken from a slightly longer article on the Dazed and Confused website. It's a nice little introduction to his work, and there's also mention of a 400 page police file that he found in 1992. I'll need to ask him a bit more about this as I'm hoping to find some more evidence of police/regime responses to punk, and how they talked about it, when I head back over to Slovenia later in the year.
Monday, 27 July 2015
One of my more recent posts on here was about the new Dva Minuta Mrznje reissues on No Plan records. Maximum RocknRoll just made one of them their 'reissue of the week' so if my endorsement wasn't enough, you have no excuse now.
One of the things I'll be writing about in relation to Slovene hardcore for my PhD is where the Hardcore Collective fits in with regards to youth reactions to communist states. A lot of academic work has been done on this, particularly in relation to Soviet Russia and I'm still working how applicable and transferable these frameworks are for the reality of life in Yugoslavia in the 1980s.
Anyway, the reason I'm mentioning all this is because a friend of mine recently recommended a podcast which is a product of the first collaboration between Radiolab and Radio Ambulante. For some reason I decided to listen to it on my journey back home after a weekend of little sleep and lots of beer at K-Town in Copenhagen and it wiped (an already tired and emotional) me out entirely.
It focuses on Los Frikis in Cuba in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I won't spoil the story as it's only a 30 minute listen and there are a couple of other video documentaries on the subject, but it's so so fascinating and amazing. The example Los Frikis pose is a completely heartbreaking, ultimate manifestation of what it is to 'opt out' of society, but also represents some of the the abstract opportunities and freedom, but also the literal shelter, that punk can provide. Whilst the ultimate conclusion to the story is incredibly tragic, the ripping back of symbolic, if not concrete, power through punk and political opposition is an inspiring and energising force.
Ultimately though, this short podcast and my summary of it can never be enough to do the issues it throws up justice. I'm still working out how I feel about it several days later.
I've previously written about Dva Minuta Mržnje on this blog (look back to the previous post to find downloads for all of their 1980s recordings) and as a result of that Dario from No Plan Records got in touch with me to say that they were planning to release all the bands material in the near future. I finally got hold of copies of the two 7's they released this morning. On the left of the picture above is a 7" made up of the tracks from the Izgubljena Alternativa compilation tape, with really great artwork by Chris Weston, who is best known for illustrating comics. I'm not sure how that link came about (and when I asked him on twitter he wasn't sure himself), but the Big Brother inspired art fits the general theme of the band. On the right is the Došao Je Kraj 7", featuring alternative artwork to the No Time to Be Wasted version, this time designed by Dario himself. Both releases are pretty limited (350, of which 50 are on colour vinyl) but it's good to have physical versions of both, as the 90s No Time... pressing i mentioned is still selling for £200 upwards on discogs and I've not seen a copy of the Izgubljena... tape available anywhere. Both releases come with single sheet inlays with some artwork from original releases, flyers and photos (see the very on trend drummer below), and most importantly for me at least, a lyrics sheet. All the lyrics are in Serbian, but are relatively simple which means i can piece together some general meanings from them.
The title track of 'Došao Je Kraj' roughly means 'Coming to an End' and talks about how people have had enough of deception and lies and have turned into a wild mob. I'm assuming it's about Yugoslav communism. That might be a simplistic/obvious conclusion to make but it would make sense given what I previously talked about as far as the song 'Crni Mercedes' goes and what I know of the bands general outlook. 'Zašto?' translates as 'Why?' and actually has a resemblance lyrically to another Discharge song, 'Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing'. 'Terorizam' is about hearing about and seeing terrorism on the news and in the street, and ends with 'Terorizam protiv dosade!', or 'Terorrism against Boredom'. I'm not entirely sure what conclusions can be drawn from that.
On the other 7", 'Sudije' or 'Judges' discusses the empty words of judges and executioners which are only followed by obedient sheep and loyal dogs, 'Moderna Omladina' describes the entertainment modern youth find in breaking someones jaw, and 'Maske', like several of the other songs, seems to be a cryptic message to Yugoslav communists, with the singer urging them to take off the mask and show what they really are, and to spit in his face.
I highly recommend buying both records from- http://noplanrecords.blogspot.co.uk as they've done a really decent job with the releases and the songs are great. It would've been great if they had gone down the Ne! Records route of including a biography of the band etc. but half of my motivation for reading that kind of stuff is down to me being a nerd, the other half because it would be useful for my studies.
Thursday, 23 April 2015
I flew out to Slovenia around a month ago for the Tozibabe gig, and whilst I was there got a chance to do a couple more interviews, one with Robert from Quod Massacre. It was interesting to hear from someone that, despite being active in a punk band at the same time as the rest of the Ljubljana hardcore scene, wasn't really a part of the 'Hardcore Collective' as such. I'll be writing more about this, and about Quod Massacre in the future, but for now, here is are a photo I took after the interview. Robert now works as a sound engineer, and has worked on several of the Ne! Records releases, including the release of Quod Massacre's 'Kje Je Odgovor'.
As I mentioned however, the main reason for my trip was the chance to see Tožibabe. They were reforming for a one off gig (which took some persuading to make happen) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their only 7" EP, 'Dežuje'. The rumour I had heard before the gig was that they were only going to play one song, but in actual fact they ended up playing 5 (if i recall correctly, I had drunk a few Laškos by this point) and returned to play Dežuje again at the insistence of the crowd. They switched instruments for a couple of songs and whilst you could tell they hadn't played together for several decades, it just wouldn't have made sense if they were super tight. The general atmosphere was enough to carry them along and the fact that they were playing songs from a complete classic obviously helped too.
The other bands were all local and were picked via some sort of contest. Inevitably they were of varying quality. I ended up talking to my friend Jaka about the current scene, and he said he found it strange how a city which was able to produce several great bands in the 1980s, would have so few legitimate current hardcore bands. From what I've seen myself, it seems Zagreb has a thriving DIY hardcore/punk scene, and whilst Metelkova has gigs happening every night almost, a lot of tours end up skipping Ljubljana.
After the gig I managed to speak to Mojca again, having previously sent her some questions via e-mail, and introduced myself to the other members. I also showed them my Dežuje tattoo, which seemed to confuse, intrigue and maybe scare them in equal measure. I didn't manage to get too many photos from the gig that I am happy with, as it was difficult to find a good place to stand, but here are a few of the best ones that I took...
I should also mention that FV Music and Ne! Records reissued the 7" and it's available to buy now, on black, clear or yellow vinyl, or a picture disk featuring the cover art. It also comes with a reproduction of the original lyrics sheet, in both English and Slovene, and a chunky booklet with photos, stories, press cuttings and other great stuff. I'll be doing a separate post dedicated purely to this record, so I'll save a full dissection until then. For now, I highly recommend getting a copy of this as Ne! Records have done the great job I expected. http://www.nerecords.se
Monday, 16 February 2015
I just booked my flights to go back Ljubljana in March, so I can see Tozibabe in Ljubljana. The gig is being organised by FV Music, to celebrate the release of the 'Dezuje' 7" 30 years ago. It's being held at Metelkova and from what I have seen so far, all the other bands are current local bands.
The facebook event is here- https://www.facebook.com/events/924603697557596/?fref=ts
Tuesday, 3 February 2015
Like the last time I wrote on here, I'm having to start with an admission/apology of sorts given that I've not posted much up here recently. I swear I've had good reasons though... I was recently in Vancouver giving a paper based on my research so far, which is the first time I've attempted anything of the sort, so I've had to concentrate on that. I'm hoping to update this a bit more in the next few months, especially as I've recently been talking about ex-Yugo/ Slovene punk to people I met on my travels in Canada and the US, and I realised that a lot of the stuff I've been recommending isn't actually up here to download/read about, including a lot of the stuff I would define as 'the classics'.
For now, here is Ženevski Dekret, from Mostar, covering Anarchy in the UK in a rehearsal (I'm not sure when this was). I love stuff like this. I'm fairly sure this is Habbi from Ne! Records band from the 1980s (he's now based in Sweden) but I'll look into stuff some more and do a longer post on them in the future.
I haven't updated this for ages for a few reasons, mostly deadlines related as I've had to concentrate on finishing the first chapter of my thesis and preparing for my PhD upgrade panel, which was last week. Luckily it's all gone well so I can get on with a few other things, one of which is organising the interviews that I conducted whilst I was in Ljubljana earlier this year. These interviews should hopefully be appearing in some form in a future issue of Maximum RocknRoll, as part of the second installment of their ex-Yugo specials. The first one was published in the November issue and from what I've seen so far, it is unsurprisingly great.
Anyway, moving on to the reason for this post. In my interview with Gigi from UBR, he mentions a song by the band 'Dva Minuta Mržnje (Two Minutes of Hate) from Novi Sad, now part of Serbia. The song in question, 'Crni Mercedes' is about black Mercedes cars, which were at the time considered a status symbol for Yugoslav officials. Gigi said that more than anything, the level of hypocrisy and political opportunism associated with these figures was a popular topic amongst Yugoslav punk bands and songs like this help to explain where a lot of the political anger expressed through hardcore punk was coming from, and at who it was directed.
The song comes from the bands EP/demo 'Došao Je Kraj', which features 4 songs, recorded in 1984 at the Top Ten studio in Ljubljana, by Borut Činč, who was a member of Buldozer, a great prog/rock/pysch group formed in the mid 70s. 100 copies of the recording were pressed to a 7" in 1995 by 'No Time To Be Wasted Records' and it goes for silly money if discogs is anything to go by. From what I can see they also ended up featuring on a load of other compilations in the 80s, although the songs on most of these seem to just be from this recording. However, the Izgubljena Alternativa cassette from 1984, which also featured songs from UBR, QUOD MASSACRE, SOLUNSKI FRONT and DISTRESS, has three other songs. I don't know for sure when or where they were recorded, but they're in a similar vein to the 7" and I've included them to download at the bottom of this post as well. Here's the artwork from that tape...
If you can understand what is written in their section please let me know. My Slovene probably isn't good enough to attempt to understand, but I think it says that the recordings on the compilation are from their second demo?
The band resurfaced in 2008 and have released a couple of records since, of fairly typical, well produced plodding oi/rock with singalongs and solos and stuff... which is alright if you like that sort of thing but altogether less remarkable to me. I can sort of imagine those songs being used as a soundtrack for a video compilation of some ultras.
The 7" and their 80's tracks are all bangers though, really catchy oi influenced punk stompers with gruff vocals. This gruffness is only exaggerated by the sound of the language, which contrasts with the melodic elements of the songs really well. I think theres a load of chorus or something similar on the guitar, either way it sounds great. I probably don't know enough about the intricacies of Oi bands to really come up with a good comparison, but it reminds me a bit of NABAT from Italy or THE 4-SKINS at their most melodic. The production is really clean, which considering it is supposed to be a demo is pretty noticeable, especially when you compare it to other Yugoslav punk/hardcore recordings from the same time.
I love the artwork on this, especially the back of the 7" which features the demand/slogan 'Oi Power! Unite & Fight!' and what I assume is a picture of the singer, who is wearing both braces and a bullet belt. I know what people will say about anyone wearing both a belt and braces at the same time, but I think this is a genuine case where the sum is greater than the (already great) individual parts.
I also found this picture of them from the mid 80s. They're now my favourite band in the world. Not sure if anyone has ever looked cooler than that bass player does there.
Their current look isn't quite so good...
I think they're into Clockwork Orange. Makes a change eh.
Download-
Došao Je Kraj- Download
Izgubljena Alternativa Compilation Tracks- Download
