Just as in the lists with the best guitar players of all time the real battle begins at the second position, so it is the case with Yugoslav punk albums if I am to judge.
The roots of the group lie in Limunovo drvo (Lemon Tree), a hard-rock band going nowhere, whose members were guitarists Milan Mladenović and Dragomir Mihajlović »Gagi«. Some new blood was infused into it with the arrival of new bassist Koja (Dušan Kojić), a punk devotee who brought with him a new sound. The line-up was completed by VD (Ivica Vdović), a jazz-inspired drummer who previously played in the art-rock band Anoda ruž (Anode Rouge). They changed their name to Šarlo akrobata (Charlot the Acrobat[1]) in April, 1980, the evening when they played as the opening act for the Slovenian band Pankrti (Bastards). Gagi soon left and the rest continued as a trio.
Initially they played a version of white reggae with Milan’s guitar keeping the rhythm and Koja’s bass playing melodious lines. On stage they presented a set of contrasts: short-haired Milan and VD vs. curly, longer-haired Koja, white T-shirted Milan and VD vs. black-clad Koja, permanently frowning Milan and Koja vs. the enigmatically smiling VD…
Their first four recordings were made for the legendary 1980 compilation Beograd ‒ paket aranžman (Belgrade ‒ Package Tour). Two of the songs, representing perfectly the band’s two moving forces ‒ Milan’s reggae Ona se budi (She Is Waking), about a young girl growing up into a young woman, and Koja’s minimalist Niko kao ja (Nobody like Me) ‒ became popular almost instantaneously. So popular, in fact, that the band soon dropped them from their stage shows not wanting to become their hostages.
Ona se budi was issued as a single with Mali čovek (Little Man), a study in life frustrations, as the B side. The fourth recorded song was the nightmarish Oko moje glave (Around My Head), with lyrics bringing to mind German expressionist cinema.
Those songs represented one stage in their development, but the blokes did not stop there. Their gigs demonstrated a steadily growth into an extremely energetic and at moment anarchic playing unit, sometimes on the verge of utter self-destruction. They would start playing a song and then in the middle they would build it up into three radical, almost (but not quite) chaotic, mutually independent solos. When it seemed that they have been looking at the point of no return in the rear-view mirror a long time ago, they managed to catch up with each other and finish the song. This was the point in their history when they shared the stage with Gang of Four in Zagreb. Allegedly, during Šarlo’s gig one of the Four boys (if I remember correctly, it was Andy Gill, not Jon King) turned toward a local rock-journalist, clenched his fist and said: “Powerful, isn’t it?”[2]
Koja and VD appeared as the guitarist and drummer respectively of the band Dobri dečaci (Good Boys) in the 1981 movie Dečko koji obećava (A Promising Boy), whose soundtrack album would be a great hit if someone had the idea of publishing it in those days. Several of the bands of the era could be heard in it: Azra, Haustor (House Gate), VIS Idoli (Vocal and Instrumental Group The Idols), Igra staklenih perli (The Glass Bead Game), Paraf (Paraph), Pekinška patka (Peking Duck), Prljavo kazalište (Dirty Theatre) and Šarlo akrobata themselves.
Dobri dečaci played three songs in the movie: Slobodan (Free, but also the name of the leading character in the movie, bassist of Dobri dečaci), Balada o tvrdim grudima (The Ballad of Hard Breasts) and Depresija (Depression). Alas, none of these songs seem to exist in its pure form, only as part of the film, cut by dialogue. With the earnings from the movie Koja bought a Rickenbacker bass.
In 1981 the group finally published their only LP, Bistriji ili tuplji čovek biva kad… (Brighter or Dumber a Man Becomes When…). I admit I was afraid how they would convey all the energy of their live act onto vinyl. Well, they managed it somehow. The producer was misspelled as Aktiđoto. In fact it should have been Akpiđoto: Šarlo AKrobata, Mile Miletić »PIle«, ĐOrđe Petrović, TOni Jurij. Guest musicians were saxophonist Jurij Novoselić from the Zagreb band Film, guitarist Dejan Kostić from the Belgrade Grupa I (Group I) and Gagi. The music represented a creative and idiosyncratic mix of punk and post-punk riffs with Jamaican sounds (dub!) and conscious experimentation. The band co-authored the cover of the album as well, making it a unified piece of art, both visual and aural.
They recorded the LP for the Belgrade-based PGP RTB, but the company’s bigwigs were so baffled by what they heard that they gave up printing it and sold the tapes to the Zagreb company Jugoton that eventually published the album.
The first track, Šarlo je nežan (Charlot Is Gentle), is an instrumental waltz with which they used to start their gigs, characterised by the rhythm guitar and solo bass typical for the band’s beginnings.
The rest of the album is sandwiched between two songs both bearing the title Pazite na decu (Keep an eye on children) I and II. The first one is a sound collage with band-members playing each other instruments + guests and the second a structured song, an energetic outro that represents a conclusion deign of the best punk album published in Yugoslavia. The former drew the lyrics (as well as was the case with the title of the LP itself) from Vasa Pelagić’s enlightenment-era book Narodni učitelj (Peoples’ Teacher).
Some of the songs are delivered at a breakneck speed that would make some hardcore punks and speed metals pretty envious. However, the songs (Čovek (Man) is a good example) can be classified as neither, reflecting the complex sensibility mix of the authors. Within this group of songs some can be clearly identified as Milan’s contemplative, reflective depictions of claustrophobic anxiety ‒ Fenomen (Phenomenon), and others as Koja’s laconic anthemic outbursts ‒ Sad se jasno vidi (It Can Be Seen Clearly Now) and Ja želim jako (I Want Very Much).
The peak moment of the LP comes near the end of side one. Both Rano izjutra (Early in the Morning) and Ljubavna priča (Love Story) faithfully transmit the sheer madness of Šarlo akrobata’s live appearances into a limited studio surrounding. Rano izjutra runs into a three-part solo as its coda. However, it is Ljubavna priča that can be pronounced the band’s key composition. It describes a banal situation, the ritualistic Sunday washing of the family car, the most popular model produced in Yugoslavia, a Zastava 101 (also known as Stojadin[3]). The song was part of their live gigs from the very beginning and was the first to be deconstructed in the middle on stage.
That does not mean that from this point everything spirals downwards!
Bes (Anger) is probably the most enigmatic song on the album. With its start-stop structure, mechanical rhythm (not Motorik!) and Milan and Koja each singing different verses simultaneously, it is hard to say what the song is actually about. Not allowing it to shape itself into a conventional song (although there is a false start into one somewhere in the middle), it still does depict something restrained. It could be anger as well.
O, o, o… and Problem (Problem) are reminiscent (only reminiscent!) of Šarlo’s early white reggae phase. Both songs include a dub part with Jurij Novoselić’s sax in the former and Toni Jurij’s experience in such productions. Dub was a popular production technique among some of the bands of the era, not infrequently those who did not play reggae.
Šarlo akrobata was, together with Haustor, one of the rare bands whose lyrics could stand on their own, even without the music, as poetry. The other parallel with Haustor is that both bands had two strong authorial personalities in their ranks, Šarlo had Milan and Koja, and Haustor had Darko Rundek and Srđan Sacher.
Thus, it was no surprise that soon after publishing the LP the group disbanded. Rock history has taught us that it is very hard (albeit not quite impossible!) to keep two leaders in a band, Haustor perished on the same cliff, Velvet Underground and Roxy Music as well. It seems that Milan wanted to add a synthesiser to the band, specifically Margita Stefanović »Magi«, who co-wrote the song Fenomen and who would collaborate with Milan in the future. Koja, a punk to the core, was vehemently opposed and that was the end.
Šarlo akrobata is one of those names that instead of causing us to lament “how much more could they offer us if they stayed together longer” might inspire us to praise “thank your-deity-of-choice that they stayed together long enough to deliver as much as they did.” Several unpublished songs from Šarlo’s repertoire can be found on the debuts of both Milan’s and Koja’s new bands.
After the break-up all three members announced the formation of a new band. Unfortunately, VD’s plans to lead a band named Da li volite džez? (Do You Like Jazz?) were not brought to fruition. So he played in several other bands, including Milan’s.
Milan reunited with Magi and Gagi to form Katarina II (Catherine the 2nd). They were joined by bassist Bojan Pečar and a list of drummers. One of them, on their first LP of the same name, was VD. However, after that album disagreements arose between Milan and Gagi and the latter left taking the rights to the band name with him. The quartet (with a new drummer) changed their name to Ekatarina Velika (Catherine the Great) and became one of the most popular bands in Yugoslavia. Unfortunately (and ironically too), the only surviving member from that first LP is Gagi. In a documentary dedicated to the band someone said that two things destroyed the Belgrade rock scene: heroin and HIV. VD and Magi both died of those, he in 1992, she in 2002, Bojan left the band in 1989 and died in 1998 of a heart attack, Milan died of pancreatic cancer in 1994.
On the other hand, Koja formed Disciplina kičme (Backbone Discipline) with drummer Nenad Krasavac »Kele«. Far from being what is usually subsumed under bass-and-drum, Koja played the bass as an electric guitar, his ideal being Jimi Hendrix (Koja once stated that Jimi would be a punk if he were born some twenty years later), with a lot of effect pedals and a wah-wah. Later Koja added a second drummer and some horns (trumpet and sax) and, when leading the band in London under the name Disciplin A Kitschme, even a singer. Koja, the only survivor among the Šarlo akrobata members, and his band are still playing and recording. They have published at least 11 albums up to this date (not counting the compilations) and show no intention of stopping soon.
Listening to the Šarlo/Ekatarina/Disciplina opus it is not easy to discern who the main influences on the band members were. They were so obviously different from each other that the individual preferences must have covered a rather large area of rock (and not only rock) music.
Dissecting this album song by song does not seem fair because it is obvious that Milan, Koja and VD have invested a lot into arranging, producing and sequencing the record as it is, so the only just approach to it is listening to it from its beginning to its end as a whole.
This was the story of the best album of that era in Yugoslavia.
The rest of the “list” will be in no particular order but according to my inspiration.
[1] Probably named after a Charlie Chaplin film. Chaplin’s tramp character was known as Charlot in France.
[2] In an interview, Koja was asked about heavy metal as powerful music. He answered that heavy metal is not powerful, just loud.
[3] 101 is pronounced as sto jedan in BCMS, which is close enough to the Serbian first name Stojadin.
Linguist's eye on things 