A Velvet patron recently recommended to me the No Smoking Orchestra led by musician and filmmaker, Emir Kusturica. Interesting! But I was more enthralled with a sort of predecessor of that band (for whom Kusturica briefly played bass and wrote a couple songs), Zabranenjo Pusenje, from Sarajavo, who played together from '81 - '91. As Wiki tells it, they were a formative force of the New Primitivism cultural movement.
"The discourse of New Primitivism was primarily humorous, based on the spirit of Bosnian ordinary people from the cultural underground. They introduced the jargon, rich in Turcisms, of Sarajevomahalas (suburban neighborhoods) into the official musical and TV scene. Most of their songs and sketches involve stories about small people - coalmine workers, petty criminals, provincial girls etc. - put in unusual or even absurd situations. There are comparisons between Monty Python's Flying Circus show and New Primitives methods, as they share the short sketch form and utilize absurdity..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Primitives
What could be bad about that?
Wiki says, "Contrary to the then-prevalent punk rock and new wave, Zabranjeno Pusenje created a distinctive garage rock sound with folk influences..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zabranjeno_Pu%C5%A1enje . But they are punky in the purest sense - vital and socio-politically obstreperous.
If you can understand Serbo-Croatian, all the better. But I can't, and I'm still charmed.
