Overview

A look at the vibrant punk scene that exploded in Yugoslavia during Marshal Josip Broz Tito’s final years.   In 1981, Demob, a young multiracial punk rock band from a stagnating provincial English city, recorded “No Room For You,” a song that sold a few thousand copies before fading into history. The bass player was eighteen-year-old Barry Phillips, and in 2011, he received a Facebook message letting him know that the song was famous throughout the Balkans and had been covered by notable Yugoslavian punk bands. Hoping to understand how Demob’s song had taken root in the communist-era Balkans, Phillips traveled to the former Yugoslavia to learn about the punk scene that emerged in the waning years of Josip Broz Tito’s rule. From Ljubljana to Rijeka to Novi Sad, Yugoslavia boasted one of the most dynamic punk rock and new wave scenes in the world. Rooted not only in western punk rock but also local Balkan folk music, its regional varieties each had a discernible DNA fused with Slavonian Tamburitza, Bosnian Sevdah, or the Dalmatian a cappella, Klapa.   In Search of Tito’s Punks includes interviews with Pankrti (Bastards), Darko Rundek, KUD Idijoti (Cultural Idiots), KBO!, Atheist Rap, and other heroes of Yugoslavian punk and post-punk music, as well as cultural commentators, journalists, filmmakers, authors, and punks. Phillips learns of border “walls” and Brutalism, discovers the world’s first fascist micro-state, sees the legacy of the NATO bombings and the impact of “turbo-capitalism,” and hears the recurrent echoes of genocides and the Holocaust. He also describes a gig where the entire village, including the mayor, came out to party with punks, and uncovers an unlikely relationship between Yugoslav music fans and an independent record shop in Wales. The first English-language book devoted to the punk and post-punk scene in the former Yugoslavia, In Search of Tito’s Punks is an accessible, humane, honest, and rigorous look at a cultural movement that flourished during a period of political upheaval.

Full Product Details

Author:   Barry Phillips (Independent researcher)
Publisher:   Intellect Books
Imprint:   Intellect Books
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9781789387315

ISBN 10:   1789387310
Pages:   260
Publication Date:   16 June 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock  
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Table of Contents

Foreword Acknowledgements Notes on Pronunciation Prologue: The Play-on Track: Teenage Kicks One: Scheveningen: Paint It Black Two: The Hague to Gruška 4 ALEKSANDAR DRAGAŠ: Club Limb, Zagreb Three: Zagreb: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon ZDENKO FRANJIĆ: Club 22, Prečko, Zagreb Four: To Ljubljana: On the Brotherhood and Unity Highway Five: A Day in Court: Vermeer in Bosnia ANTE ČIKARA: The Haven, Scheveningen and De Pijp, Amsterdam Six: Music Is the Art of Time PERO LOVŠIN: The Fish Market, Ljubljana Seven: The Ljubljana Punk Rock Taxi Tour MARIN ROSIĆ: On the Road in Ljubljana Eight: Return to Zagreb MATIJA VUICA AND JURE POPOVIĆ: The Bulldog, Central Zagreb Nine: Zagreb (1977) ... and Tito’s Coming to Town DARKO RUNDEK: Caffe Bar Albatros, Ljubljanica 4, Zagreb Ten: The Hague Hilton Eleven: Istria: Pirates and Punk Rock Heartlands RUJANA JEGER: Zagreb Twelve: Pula: Uljanik Calling SALE VERUDA: Forum Square, Pula  Thirteen: England: Back to the Forest ROBERT ‘MIFF’ SMITH: Coleford, Gloucestershire, England Fourteen: To Belgrade: On the Brotherhood and Unity Highway Again  Fifteen: Internacionalnih Brigada PETAR JANJATOVIĆ: Radost Fina Kuhinjica, Belgrade Sixteen: Lost in Belgrade Central BRANKO ROSIĆ: Belgrade café terrace Seventeen: Kafana Mornar: Belgrade Is Drowning POGONBGD, TRNJE AND FRIENDS: Kafana Mornar and Studio Mašina 23 Eighteen: Novi Sad, Vojvodina: Words and Bullets Nineteen: Novi Sad: NATO Bombs and Jew Street Ghosts STEVAN GOJKOV, VLADIMIR ‘RADULE’ RADUSINOVIĆ AND SAVA SAVIĆ: Central Novi Sad Twenty: To Kragujevac: On the Brotherhood and Unity Highway Once More VUJA (SAŠA VUJIĆ): Kragujevac  Twenty One: Return to Belgrade: The House of Flowers Sleeve Notes: Standing at the Gates of the West: Hitsville Yugo Timeline: Yugoslavian Punk from 1975 Until Break-Up (VINKO BARIĆ) Selected Discography Index

Reviews

'Barry Phillips has written a very important book here. It is important for understanding Yugo Punk, and has clear relevance [...] to the study of punk generally. More than that, by focusing on lived punk lives rather than on the politics, geopolitics, and the imagined primordial ancient hatreds that are held to define the Balkans, Phillips has made a significant contribution to Yugoslav and Balkan studies. This is an excellent book, an eye-opener both for those interested in the Balkans, and those interested in punk. And beautifully realised in print, paper, and card by the Punk Scholars Network, who clearly take book production as craft very seriously. Very punky. A must-read.' -- Mike Diboll, Toxic Grafity

Author Information

Barry Phillips is a historian. He is also a former musician and singer-songwriter, former speech writer and policymaker, former ID parade suspect, shelf-stacker and barman.

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