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 

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

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.

Two Minutes of Hate

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

Amebix - Live in Ljubljana

I've recently been getting in touch with some UK/US bands that made it out to Ljubljana/Yugoslavia on tour in the 1980's. One of the bands I've emailed is Amebix, as they played in Ljubljana in 1986, with the recording of the gig released on tape by FV Music. The (short) video below is of the band performing at this gig, which was part of the 'Novi Rock' festival, which ran between 1981 and 2000. Igor Vidmar was responsible for booking the festival and it featured local punk and hardcore bands, as well as international bands like Amebix, Swans, DOA, Christian Death, Killing Joke, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Sisters of Mercy, Youth Brigade, UK Subs, Discharge and loads more...

I've included a link to download the full tape below. It's a really decent recording and as far as I know the only official live Amebix release. The recording captures the band in between Arise! and Monolith, although all but one of the songs played come from the former, and 'Fallen from Grace' from Monolith is listed on the tape as 'Fallen from Grave'. The 'hardcore contingent' get a shout out at 13 minutes too. Interestingly, Amebix's original final tour (before they reformed in 2008) actually ended in Yugoslavia in 1987, in Sarajevo.

Download

Vidmar Je Pizda- Punk Graffiti

Photo by Jože Suhadolnik, from 'Balkan Pank', published 2014 by Akina Books

Over the last few weeks I've been reading and making notes a lot, with the aim of getting the first chapter of my PhD drafted by the start of September. One of the books I've been looking through is Punk Pod Slovenci (Punk Under the Slovenes), an anthology of articles, lyrics, debates and reflections on punk in Slovenia, published in 1985- perhaps the height of the 1980's Ljubljana hardcore scene. Whilst the book's main focus is on the punk scene rather than hardcore and the vast majority is in Slovene- my language skills aren't quite there yet in terms of being able to understand and translate much- there is a chapter dedicated to reproducing the text from punk graffiti found around Ljubljana, something a bit easier to understand.

Graffiti, according to Petja Grafenauer Krnc, first appeared in Ljubljana at the end of the 1970's, and as the picture below suggests, consisted primarily of slogans, names of punk bands and symbols. Actions were taken against graffiti artists shortly after it's appearance, and the authorities would also attempt to remove it from walls, which led to many artists moving quite literally underground, with the walls of Disco FV serving as a replacement for the walls of the city. Jože Suhadolnik's fantastic 'Balkan Punk' captures the recognisable aesthetic this provided, dedicating several pages to photographs of the graffiti itself, whilst many of his portraits of punks feature a backdrop of graffitied walls. I'm hoping to speak to Jože in more detail before the end of the month about his photography and memories of the Ljubljana punk scene as part of my studies, but will also be writing about his work in greater detail for this blog.

A lot of the graffiti reproduced for Punk pod Slovenci is self explanatory, especially the listing of band names, including Slovene hardcore/punk/alternative bands such as UBR, Stres DA, Otroci Socializma, O'Pizda, Čao Pičke, O!Kult, Laibach, Pankrti, Lublanski Psi... and international bands, Indigesti, Dead Kennedys, Crass, Subhumans, Cockney Rejects... but there are a few notable phrases that stood out to me and my rudimentary understanding of Slovene. 'FV KRETENI' AND 'FV IDIOTI' appears to be criticism of FV Music- which in many ways was the home and organising point for much of the alternative scene in Ljubljana, including elements of the Hardcore Collective. Hardcore shows were often held at Šiška (a venue operating as the home of FV between 1983-84) and later at K4 (FV's home between 1984-85), whilst FV Založba, the publishing arm of the organisation, released a number of hardcore records. Like everything else though, FV was not beyond criticism from, and conflict with, hardcore punks in Ljubljana.

Punk Graffiti, scanned from Punk Pod Slovenci 

The book also shows the presence of some universal classics such as 'All Cops Are Bastards', 'Anarchy' or 'Anarhija', 'Fuck Teachers' 'Fasistična Država' (Fascist State), as well as references to Tito, and the more specific 'Policaj Ljubim te v rit' which I think translates to 'I love police in the arse/ass'. The phrase 'Ne grem v vojsko' translates as 'I'm not going into the army' and seems to refer to military service which had extra resonance in Yugoslavia at the time, beyond the general pacifism you could find across worldwide hardcore. To use a phrase from an interview I conducted with Gigi from UBR, the army was 'the graveyard' of hardcore punk in Slovenia, as many bands were forced to split up as a result of a member being called up to the JNA.

There are plenty of references to punk still being alive and healthy and unsurprisingly the Sex Pistols seem to have been a popular subject, with references to them directly, 'Destroy', 'No Future' and various tributes to Sid Vicious, including 'Mi Smo Sidovi' which roughly translates as 'We Are Sid'. There are also references to 'Sex Pistols Avenue' and 'Johnny Rotten Square', the latter of which was a congregation point for punks in Ljubljana.

I'm not quite sure what '1968 is over, 1984 is over, future is between your legs' really means but it's interesting enough and seems to be and update of a poster produced by Ljubljana based artist Dušan Mandić (the poster apparently said 1983 instead, which was the year it produced). A lot of the other stuff at the moment to me just seems to be jibberish or swearing and I'm not sure whether that's down to my understanding of the language being insufficient, or the distinct possibility that it is in fact just jibberish and swearing.

Perhaps my favourite piece of graffiti reproduced is 'Vidmar Je Pizda'. It references Igor Vidmar, journalist, manager of Pankrti, and DJ on Radio Študent, the independent student radio based in Ljubljana. Vidmar was perhaps best known for compiling the Novi Punk Val record, which represented the first wave of Yugoslav punk bands, establishing the Novi Rock (New Rock) festival in Ljubljana, which featured a number of well known international bands (including Discharge, Rollins Band, DOA, Amebix, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Ramones, The Sisters of Mercy, Nick Cave and lots more) alongside bands from Yugoslavia, and also for being arrested in 1983 for wearing a 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off' badge- at perhaps the height of Yugoslav Communist repression of punk. The latter half of the sentence is uncomplimentary in perhaps the most notable way (it calls him a cunt), and seems to have been a relatively common opinion amongst some of the hardcore scene at the time, for numerous reasons. Generally the anger and ire he generated referred to his aforementioned prominent position within the dominant, more commercialised alternative culture and as a figurehead and 'spokesperson' for the original punk movement, all of which the hardcore scene actively rejected and frequently criticised, stressing instead the importance of the 'collective'.