Heat, Walking, Happenstance

On Friday I was able to sit for a long talk over coffee about both the contemporary and past music scenes across the Balkans with the designer who is akin to the Balkan equivalent of the recently departed and insanely prolific 4AD graphic designer Vaughn Oliver. Darko Kujundžić also oversees the deluxe reissues of the whole Croatia Records back-catalog, which was the inheritor of all the foundational Jugoton releases. I have notes I need to ingest to reflect on that, and I’ve done too much in the two days since to reproduce it here, but it was a very productive conversation. He recommended I come to the Močvara Cultural Center / Pogon Performing Arts Center anniversary celebration last night, where I was befriended by two young people who were enjoying the opportunity to try every craft brew in the club. Oh, to be young and insane. Not someone who has two drinks and has to walk his hangover in the morning like a master walks his dog.

The sound was fantastic in this municipally-supported venue. Three bands, the first some kids, the second an up-and-coming young band that was very good called Zippo, and the third an established Big-Business style noise rock duo with drums so loud I thought they would kick my heart through the back of my torso called Pogon. Then, outside in their garden there was a fourth headliner, LHD, a surf-rock band with members formerly in the Bambi Molesters. Stellar evening. Stellar lineup.

But the most unexpected and most once-in-a-lifetime experience was the guided open house of conceptual musicians and performance artists Indoš and Vrvilo of the Parainstitut Indoš House of Extreme Music Theater. Damir Bartol Indoš’s studio. Indoš began building noise-generating musical instruments and orchestrating avant-garde plays and concerts in the 1970s. When he began getting international acclaim, the city found him a space at the unused factory where his studio is to this day. Following on the establishment of his studio and his plays, people inspired by him opened the legendary Močvara club, a municipally supported and independently managed club for young musicians to play for free. Following on that, in the same factory, Pogon was opened to fulfill the same need for performing arts in 2009. I had a great conversation, got to play with the instruments he had set up, and got their contact to try to set something up for the school year at the University. I was ignorant of them, but I was in the presence of giants of that avant-garde ‘70s generation still working today.

What a gift. The openness of the people in the arts here has been astounding. Every person I talk to leads me to three more. Darko told me he was only doing what he does today because people opened doors for him, and because of that he will never be a gatekeeper. He only wants to widen connections.