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Thread: The traditions of non-punk infused experimentalism in former Yugoslavia

  1. #1
    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    The traditions of non-punk infused experimentalism in former Yugoslavia

    http://ahogonsindustrialguide.blogsp...raditions.html

    "For a variety of reasons, rock music in former Yugoslavia never achieved the status of a subversive underground movement it had in other communist states 1970s like Czechoslovakia. Instead, this status became the almost exclusive property of punk and its derivatives, since only with the arrival of punk did Yugoslavian pop culture managed to fully catch up with the West and jump onto the train of modernity. This added another dimension to the already messianic advent of punk in Yugoslavia and had a practical effect of defining all true diversity of the alternative music exclusively through punk. Such status of punk music is an obvious truism in the case of 1980s cassette experimentalism in Yugoslavia, where punk’s monolithicness was virtually unprecedented compared to its equivalent scenes in the West."

  2. #2
    Ho-Hooo'h! That's some article; I'll have to put it on hold and read the whole thing when I get home from work tonight.

    The entire Novi Sad pheonomenon has been well covered already, but rarely from this angle. Great to be able to read the artistic origins of names like Tickmayer, Bada and the Begnagrad boys as well.

    And those cassettes...
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    from the text

    One of the individuals responsible for developing and fostering such a reputation for Radio Študent was Stane Sušnik, one of its veteran music editors (from 1971 to 1976). In 1972, Stane Sušnik paid a visit to London in order to arrange deals with various record labels to promote their releases on Radio Študent. Among others, he met up with Richard Branson – the owner of the, at the time, newly formed Virgin label and a future business magnate – and agreed for Virgin to send a free copy of each release they put out to Radio Študent[13]. Thus, with the constant influx of new releases from Western Europe, the programme of Radio Študent got significantly ahead of its peers in Yugoslavia and labels like Virgin had, in return, got its releases popularized in Yugoslavia, an Eastern European country starving for Western pop-culture
    Belgrade's major record label PGP RTB had a contract with Virgin that PGP RTB got the licence to print Virgin's LPs in Yugoslavia, and yet to sell them on very reasonable price that (almost) everyone in Yugoslavia was able to buy them. Above mentioned Stane Sušnik have nothing to do with that
    Actually, Belgrade's PGP RTB got many of those licences by the Western record companies to print their LPs under licence in Yugoslavia in the 70s, including even ECM what was rarely that ECM gave the licence to a record company from "ausland".
    Of course, there were the record companies from the other Yugoslav republics too, like Zagreb's Suzy and Ljubljana's Helidon, that released under licence a lot of the albums from the West.
    Also, the import of the original LPs was free in Yugoslavia.
    Re popularizing rock music in Yugoslavia, it was started officially in 1966 on Radio Belgrade; it was a collaboration with British Council who created a show of "sound letters from London" that in the Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian language was reading by Englishman Mark Harleston (aka "Mark Eastern") and played the hit singles by The Beatles, The Hollies, The Who, The Kinks, The Stones and such. Mr Harleston (RIP) was graduated on Slavic languages at Cambridge. He was a star here. Also John Peel who was contributed in the show very often (in English, of course) in the late 60s.
    When the bands from Slovenia - including Buldožer - were started to sing in Slovenian language (after death of pro-Yugoslav Slovenian politician Edvard Kardelj), the kids in Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia stopped to listen to them, because that singing in Slovenian sounds extremely "un-rock'n'roll" to us, and then that separated Slovenian scene actually started.
    The text is cool but contains a number of illogical and historically inaccurate things, especially political what I won't to comment on this forum.
    Last edited by Svetonio; 12-13-2016 at 09:58 AM.

  4. #4
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zeuhlmate View Post
    http://ahogonsindustrialguide.blogsp...raditions.html

    "For a variety of reasons, rock music in former Yugoslavia never achieved the status of a subversive underground movement it had in other communist states 1970s like Czechoslovakia. Instead, this status became the almost exclusive property of punk and its derivatives, since only with the arrival of punk did Yugoslavian pop culture managed to fully catch up with the West and jump onto the train of modernity. This added another dimension to the already messianic advent of punk in Yugoslavia and had a practical effect of defining all true diversity of the alternative music exclusively through punk. Such status of punk music is an obvious truism in the case of 1980s cassette experimentalism in Yugoslavia, where punk’s monolithicness was virtually unprecedented compared to its equivalent scenes in the West."
    What total nonsense. Apparently he's missed the fact that Yugoslavia was the epicenter of the Prog-Rock world. Well, Belgrade to be more specific. Even the Big шест hail from there.

    Silly git.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by moecurlythanu View Post
    What total nonsense. Apparently he's missed the fact that Yugoslavia was the epicenter of the Prog-Rock world. Well, Belgrade to be more specific.
    Perhaps not exactly the epicenter of the world (), but definitely the only Eastern bloc country to pose a rock fauna sporting "market logistics" similar to some of the Western lands. Obviously, seeing how Yug weren't a Warszawa Pact country and uncle Tito allowed for private enterprise on a lower scale in accordance with the particular brand of socialist economic model they practiced there (with regionally autonomous centralization of state-controlled finances). This set Yugoslavia apart and also secured a mainstream platform for rock culture and the developments of different environments at that. So, basically, at least the ground thesis of the writer in question here is correct; whilst rock at large was essentially an oppositional "underground" phenomenon in Eastern bloc lands (except for state-sanctioned artists like the Puhdys in the GDR and Olympic in Czech), it didn't really adopt that role in Yugoslavia until punk came along.

    Hell, I dig all of it (almost); Heavy rock, progressive, experimental, folk-rock - you name it. Yug had a prolific scene to show and with some mavellous names active.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    Btw, geographically speaking, Yugoslavia was mostly Western-Balkans country, partly in Central Europe, not in East Europe.




    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social..._of_Yugoslavia



    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#Western_Balkans
    Last edited by Svetonio; 12-13-2016 at 02:55 PM.

  7. #7
    Yes, well, you know, the term "west" or "western" in this context kinda implies something else than geography. As it tends to do in academic writing on the Cold war complex of historical objectives. Same goes for Albania, even more geographically "western" and even less politically so.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    Member thedunno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Svetonio View Post
    Btw, geographically speaking, Yugoslavia was mostly Western-Balkans country, partly in Central Europe, not in East Europe.




    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social..._of_Yugoslavia



    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkans#Western_Balkans
    That last map is weird since it includes Albania and excludes Slovenia.

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    Quote Originally Posted by thedunno View Post
    That last map is weird since it includes Albania and excludes Slovenia.
    Slovenia is "Mitteleuropa"


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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    Yes, well, you know, the term "west" or "western" in this context kinda implies something else than geography. As it tends to do in academic writing on the Cold war complex of historical objectives. Same goes for Albania, even more geographically "western" and even less politically so.
    Exactly.
    East Europe is, let's say, "more Europe" than the Western-Balkans, as we, historically and culturally, were / are closer to the Asia Minor and the Middle East than to, for example, the Benelux countries.
    Last edited by Svetonio; 12-13-2016 at 03:58 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    (...) folk-rock (...)
    1972


    Last edited by Svetonio; 12-19-2016 at 05:12 AM.

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    Slightly off-topic, I'd like to mentionan important - for Yugoslavia - an avantgarde 1980 TV show of singer-songwiter Oliver Mandić, who played keys in his jazz-rock band "Oliver" (sadly they released just one single) before he switched to his unique & 'non-punk infused' art-pop in the early 80s.









    In 1980, Madić released his debut album, entitled Probaj me (Try Me), produced by Peter MacTaggart.[1] All the songs were composed by Mandić, and the lyrics were written by Marina Tucaković.[1] The album brought hits "Nije za nju" ("Not for Her"), "Samo nebo zna (Poludeću)" ("Sky Only Knows (I'll Go Crazy)") and rerecorded "Osloni se na mene". The album was promoted with a TV show Beograd noću (Belgrade at Night), directed by Stanko Crnobrnja. The ambitiously avantgarde programme even won Rose d'Or award at the 1981 Montreux TV festival. Mandić's controversial image on the show, created by conceptual artist Kosta Bunuševac, raised quite a public furor due to the singer's cross-dressing and aggressive makeup.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Mandi%C4%87
    Last edited by Svetonio; 12-20-2016 at 06:11 AM.

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