Belgrade 2.0 - Blog

Sun Is Shining In Banatski Sokolac [1]

2008-07-16T23:40:40Z

This just in: Avram brings the news of Bob Marley monument to be put up in Banatski Sokolac, a town in north east Serbia. The monument will be uncovered on August 23rd during the music festival Rock Village.

The monument, which is supposed to be the first monument to this musician on European soil, is not the first tribute of this kind to be uncovered in the region – careful reader of this blog would notice the mysterious trend of putting up statues of people with little or none whatsoever relation to the place the statue is in – Rocky Balboa in Zitiste, Johnny Weissmuller in Medja (still in production), and probably the most famous of all, Bruce Lee in Bosnian town of Mostar.

in these hot Belgrade days, reggae and all its variations come naturally, so why not mention the rather strong scene in Serbia – here’s this blogger’s selection for the heat:

Del Arno Band – Preko

Eyesburn – Foundation

Kanda, Kodza i Nebojsa – Righteous

MistakeMistake – Spiritual

Coyote, Vukashin & MC Milovan – Liberation Serbia

Beauty will save the world [6]

2008-06-12T14:40:28Z

Jonathan mentioned it at the end of his post here but it was only later I found out what really happened with the suicider-wannabe. Much to his luck, a model Katarina Vuckovic accidentaly left her bus at a wrong station so she had to walk back to the right one. At her way back on foot, she saw this guy at the Branko’s bridge wanting to end his own life.

But who could resist the offer to have a cup of coffee with a good looking girl like that? So that’s exactly what Katarina offered to the guy if he gives up on his intent to jump from Branko’s Bridge, favorite suicide spot in Belgrade.

Following this logic, isn’t it obvious that instead of all the highly skilled and proffesionally trained negotiators who deal with such cases all over the world, we should get pretty girls and guys to do the talking wih those who lost all faith in life in the future? I bet the suicide rate would go down.

Saban Bajramovic – a legend leaves us [4]

2008-06-09T21:47:47Z

post by Bganon

Saban Bajramovic was perhaps the greatest living musical legend in the Balkans. Those that knew their music compared him to traditional great Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He himself liked to be known as the Serbian Nat King Cole. Of this man and his life nothing is simple and frankly, his life very much confirms the (positive) stereotype that fills the western mind concerning the Roma.
He lived from day to day, his favourite car was the Mercedes, Saban liked to tell stories about his past, he liked to bet and so on. One of the better known stories was how he ended up on Goli Otok, the island more famous for housing political prisoners in SFRJ. He ran away from compulsory army service after falling in love with a girl and ended up being sentenced to a five year stint.
Conditions in the prison were much worse for ordinary prisoners than political ones and Saban suffered. However, it was there that he discovered his talent for music.

So, why is it that Bajramovic’s passing is not honoured in the way it should be? Why haven’t many musicians in the world heard of the great one? There are many reasons, but primarily it’s to do with the fact that Serbia did not value Bajramovic, perhaps because of the ethnic prism that people of the region have a tendency to look through. This is a man who should have been employed (and paid well) to promote Serbia in the cultural sphere. (I have no doubt that having this ambassador would do no harm to Serbia politically either). There are other reasons too, Kusturica / No smoking and Goran Bregovic have monopolised the genre and in some cases plaigarised his music, as other artists did. In a nutshell without strong support either from rich individuals or from the Serbian government, Bajramovic would never be celebrated as Bregovic / Kusturica are.

His musical career spanned 40 years and he made 20 albums. He also wrote the famous gypsy song Djelem Djelem, performed here with Josipa Lisac and Cubismo:

He is also credited with being a Blues or Jazz musician, by critics who know him. His music does stray into those genres upon occasion but the overriding sentiment is of the world gypsy genre.
If you listen carefully in some songs you can hear that some of the music has roots in more of a traditionally Hispanic sense – the use of a samba style beat or the Spanish guitar. Sometimes you can almost imagine that Saban has borrowed from the spaghetti western style. More likely that they borrowed from him! Bajramovic is famous for not paying much attention to any music other than his own.
As somewhere to start I recommend his album Saban Bajramovic – a gypsy legend. Regardless of whether you like the global, gypsy or ‘local’ genre you will not be disappointed. Listening to his music, for me at least, conjures up images of childhood when I first heard such passionate music. There isn’t a weak song on the album but Sajbija provokes the strongest emotions. This was the theme to the film Andjeo Cuvar starring Ljubisa Samardzic, Neda Arneric and Bajramovic. The film, by the way, is also well worth watching, despite its rather naive premise, as we follow Samardzic trying to rescue a gypsy boy who has run away to Italy to join a gang.

Towards the end Bajramovic was experiencing financial problems, mostly caused by the cost of paying for his ill health. By some accounts he felt abandoned and let down. A particular problem was that he was receiving no pension and (as usual) the government stepped in with too little and too late.

As far as concerts are concerned I have a few regrets, but one of the greatest is not going to watch Bajramovic sing. The reason? My rather pitiful lack of knowledge of Balkan music at the time.
The evening I heard the news, I sat in front of my computer, drank my remaining vintage rakija, toasted Saban and listened to his beautiful music, I’m not too proud to admit it, tears welled in my eyes. If any musician deserves our tears it is Bajramovic.
Rest in peace Saban.

Panchevo city - the zone of the dead

2008-06-09T16:58:22Z

“In the industrial town of Pančevo a dangerous biochemical toxine becomes airborne in the middle of the night, poisoning the inhabitants. The infection spreads all over the town and it seems like the Armageddon is happening.

Meanwhile, a police-escorted prisoner transport supervised by Interpol sets off to Belgrade. A seemingly routine assignment escalates into a hellish fight for survival. The route leads the transport through Pančevo, where they encounter an ecological disaster and infected people who are trying to kill them. Interpol agent Mortimer Reyes soon realizes that their only chance for escape from the zombie hordes lies in allying with the dangerous, mysterious prisoner…”

This synopsis of the upcoming movie The Zone of the Dead is from Ken Foree’s website and is a good intro in the first Serbian zombie movie ever. You can find some photos from the set and still from the movie on the offical site, as well as on some other blogs following zombie movies, Zombie reporting center and Arrow in the head. The film is to be released at the end of this year.

At the same time, it’s much more frightening than the movie itself that the Pancevo situation (earlier discussed here on the blog is not getting any better, it’s almost as if they can add “based on a true story” to the movie tagline.

A tourist's observations about Eurosong [1]

2008-05-26T23:51:52Z

B92 made an interview with a passer-by and he summed up the ESC pretty good. So let’s hear what this fellow Sir Terry Wogan has to say:

via Srdjan Mitrovic

Also, what do you think about this year’s oppening by Ms Serifovic? Our TV presenters didn’t dare say much about it in great detail, except for that it was “interesting”...