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.
