In Search of Tito’s Punks: On the Road in a Country That No Longer Exists

by Barry Phillips

The book traces the story of how a song recorded in 1981 by a young punk rock band from a cultural backwater on the English-Welsh border, and released on a tiny independent record label, became famous in a Yugoslavia formed in the image of Marshall Tito? Why was it 30 years before the members of the band found out? How did this ‘socialist’ country have one of the most vibrant punk scenes in the world?



Gloucester, England, 1981; multi-racial, teenage street-punk band, Demob, recorded and released what would become their best known and most enduring song, No Room For You. A rasping vocal told the story of the 1979 closure of a short-lived, punk rock venue at a disused motel on the edge of the provincial city. Depending on your mind-set, the lyrics were either a howl of rage at the injustice, a wail at the loss, or a love-song to an era.



More than three decades later, the author – and Demob’s bass player in 1981 – set out to follow the song across a country that no longer exists. On the road he heard the life stories of the heroes of Yugoslavian punk and the punks themselves; from the Tito era, through the disintegration and wars, forced displacements and permanent exiles, to today’s turbulent ‘reconstruction. Who were ’Tito’s punks’ and who are they now?



An unvarnished but also affectionate portrait of Yugoslavia in the years before its demise through to the present, seen through the unlikely lens of punk and punk rockers. Part travelogue, part history the book is both, and neither, of those things. Rather, it is a mural and soundtrack of a journey through a time and place which no longer exists.



The latest addition to the Global Punk series from Intellect.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2023

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reference to Tito in the title of this book is used solely as a means of identifying the era. The punk and post-punk music scene of the region is front and centre. The music and the scene surrounding it was reactionary to society and the political climate at the time. Glimpses of Balkan politics emerge solely through the recollections of interviewees. This book was enlightening for me. My parents immigrated from Croatia to New Zealand and partially raised me and my sister on a soundtrack of Yugo/Croatian pop music (which I have soft spot for). Until reading this book, I had no knowledge of Yugo punk or post-punk music from the late 1970s onward. This book paired history of the nation my ancestors hail from with the history of local music scenes of genres I'm a fan of. I loved it!

[Srđan Strajnić · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find the whole review in serbian language here:
http://stereoart.me/2014-11-05-03-46-...

[David Heredero]

"It's important to underline that punk rock and new wave in Yugoslavia was a predominately middle-class thing: you have to be absolutely certain about that. Working-class people didn't have the money to waste on imported records and those kind of things. The thing about Tito's Yugoslavia was that the Communists succeeded in creating a relatively viable, vital, middle-class. I don't think that I knew more than two or three real punks who were working-class"

"Having travelled by bus across three of the ex-Yugoslavian nations, I totally understood why this film is so much part of the national psyche(s). Regimes and ideologies may come and go, nations may collapse and be reborn, and neighbour turn against neighbour, but in former Yugoslavia, the irascibility of bus company staff is immutable"

[trevor wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Having read a hell of a lot of books regarding punk music this has to rate amongst the best. Taking in the history of a scene and a time in history. It is written with real attention to detail but more importantly a real connection to the scene and the people who were a part of it. A fascinating book on both the music and the social history of the old Yugoslavia written by someone who feels a real affinity to what went on. I’ve given this book five stars only because that was the maximum I could give. Just read the book.

[Petra Janeš · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept, too much political talk in my opinion.

[Bara · Rating 5 out of 5]

4/5*

Protocno, atmosfericno, nostalgicno glazbeno/kulturno/politicko/putopisno stivo, podsjetnik na neka druga vremena...