ThreeTuneTuesday: ExYU Rock 1 (Starter)

Hello music lovers! 🎵

My 13th post for #threetunetuesday, started by @ablaze, and thank you very much in advance for giving me once again a reason to write something about music, my favorite topic.

I've been thinking about this for a long time, to present music that developed in parallel with Western rock music, in the country I grew up in, which later broke up in a bloody war that wasn't necessary (as usual, no WAR is necessary).
Yugoslavia, a socialist federal republic made up of six republics and two autonomous provinces, had a seventh, supranational republic called Music.
At a time when national republican elites were beginning to stir up nationalism and hatred, who was who, whether Serb, Croat, Slovene, Macedonian, or Albanian, was completely irrelevant to the members of this seventh republic, and a mere statistical detail. The driving force was rock music in particular, which unfortunately could not prevent the massacre that followed.

I would start even before that, some twenty years ago, in the 1960s, when honey and milk were being spilled across the land, non-aligned Yugoslavia, a country between the West (the EU) and the Eastern Bloc. Everyone was happy, money was plentiful, and American loans were generous, even though it was the Cold War era. And rock music was spreading nicely in the urban centers, especially in the clubs.
For example, people much older than me told me that they used to listen to Radio Luxemburg, which is 1964-1974 broadcast only music, the UK Top Singles and Albums charts, and records were brought in by sailors from the ships coming into the ports of Koper, Rijeka, and Split.

From this period I have chosen, according to my personal subjective assessment of course (from the period 1960-1968 I counted over 300 Yu bands on YT alone), a few bands that had a very big influence on the future musicians who later made their mark on the Yugoslavian rock.
Of course, we can discuss this in the comments, music is a subjective category.

Indexi - Svijet u kome živim

Indexi was formed in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1962. Their songs were covered by many other YU bands and used in many YU movies. They stopped in 2001 when the singer Davorin Popovič died. This song is A side of a single "The world where I live" (in English), released in 1971, this song is written in 1968. They were the fathers of progressive rock in this area.

Grupa 220 - Osmijeh

Grupa 220, was founded in 1966 in Zagreb, Croatia. "Osmijeh", the name of the song in English means "Smile". This is their first single from 1967 and it still sounds good, especially on a summer night.
Drago Mlinarec, guitarist, singer, and songwriter is still active today and, at 80, writes music for theatres.

Kameleoni - Blesk izgubljene ljubezni

Kameleoni (Chameleons in English) was a band formed in Koper, Slovenia in 1965, they were active until 1968 and after that half of the band goes to Faraoni, another band from Koper, and other members continue with solo careers as musicians. The group play a lot in Italy and France, their influence was mostly The Birds and The Beatles. They have a lot of influence on younger Slovenian musicians. This song in English means "The flash of lost love".

I thought I would finish, but I have to mention another band, about 10 years younger, but playing psychedelic music I like, a mix of Hawkwind and early Pink Floyd. It is still more or less unknown but, at least as a "bonus", I have to mention it because I have seen it live twice.

Igra Staklenih Perli - Putovanje u plavo

Named after Herman Hesse's book, The Glass Beads Game, this band was formed in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1976 (although all the songs are older and written earlier). They played unique and original psychedelic music, complete with powerful visual effects. They released two albums, this song is from the first one and means "Journey to the blue" in English.

This is the first post of the ExYU rock series, thanks again to #threetunetuesday led by @ablade. I hope what I'm sharing is interesting for others too because then it makes sense.

If you're interested in the latest music news, follow me on #newtunes, or take a look at my rare recordings at Music podcast or 3speak channel.

The cover image is mine, created in NightCafe Creator and edited with Photoshop.

Music4life!

That's all for today, thank you for your attention.

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