INTRO
Hey Yo!
Here's my end of the
year post, about how I spent the 2019 and some personal stuff. While 2018 was
pretty intense and filled with some personal dramas (but also filled with lots
of great moments) 2019 was more laid back for me but it seems that this year
passed faster than the first D. R. I. EP! And while nothing much extraordinary
happened, some cool stuff still happened so let's talk about that.
Mirror selfie at wagen platz, Hamburg, July 2019
RULES
Let's begin with
RULES. This October it was four years how the band started and all I can say
that we are not done yet and we still want to accomplish some things so we are
ready for more new shows, tours and songs. The beginning of the year, actually
whole past Winter was quiet and nothing much was happening with the band. Well,
we managed to do a few new songs that we are very satisfied with and often when
we play local shows after some time, we usually change our set a bit, so we
don't play the same set for years. At the moment we play only one song from our
first tape because as I've said we don't want to play the same set for five
years and that first material we did, we really played a bunch that set for the
first two years of the band.
Anyway, in March and
April we played two shows in Zagreb, first in Attack and the other in Surogat,
both clubs inside of the Medika complex. The show in March was a promotion of a
re-release of our first tape again on a tape, haha and that confused a lot of
people because some of them thought that's our new material which we released
few months later on a 7˝ EP. So, after a long time we finally released new
material. The before mentioned tape is a much better quality tape with our
first recording from 2016 that we released that same year by ourselves on a
tape. This re-release was released by Destroy It Yourself Records and Mad
Schnauzer Records. DIY Records is run by our good friend Boris from Lisbon,
Portugal and behind Mad Schnauzer are Rules guitarist and two guys from The
Truth. Our seven inch EP on vinyl was finally done this Summer, it's called Was
It Six Or Five Shots? It has 6 rocking hardcore punk songs and it's released by
four DIY hc/punk labels: Mad Schnauzer Records (Serbia/Croatia), Hardcore For
The Losers (Vienna, Austria), DHP&AK47 (Zagreb, Croatia) and No Spirit
Fanzine (Hamburg, Germany). All the people behind these label are our friends
and if you can, please support their hard working DIY labels and distros. We
are quite satisfied with the EP and the reviews for both tape and the 7˝ EP in
various fanzines and online portals were all nothing but positive.
In Summer we did a
two weeks long tour with my other band THE TRUTH and this time from 13th to
25th July we played 12 shows in Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland,
Lithuania and Germany. Overall it was a cool tour and we played in some cities
and places that we never played before including Vilnius, Lithuania which was
our farthest destination on this tour and that was also a great show. This time
we didn't have any day offs but we managed to show up late and not play one
show in Uherský Brod, Czech Republic which never happened before to us. At
least our friend Honza fed us, gave us place to sleep and even gave us the
money from the show which he wasn't obliged to do because it wasn't his fault
that we were late, but that's just the guy Honza is, a true friend and a great
host. It was nice to hang out at his place and catch up about stuff. While most
of the shows were pretty cool on this tour, we talked a lot on this tour about
how it's getting harder to book the tour during Summer especially in central
part of the Europe and especially in July. Lots of bands tour Europe at that
time of a year and it's getting harder and harder to catch the most hype
places, dates and cities to play a
fucking DIY hc/punk show. We came to conclusion that maybe we could skip Summer
tour the next year, but that's something we still need to talk about more as
bands and see what we'll do next year. But this topic is definitely something
that I think we need to address more between the bands and show organizers because I
personally don't want to be a part of some popularity hype competition and
that's not why I play in hc/punk bands and tour. I almost forgot one bad thing
that happened to me during this tour. During The Truth set in Warsaw, somehow I
hit myself in the right eye with a drum stick and it was pretty bad. For the
rest of the tour my eye was quite fucked up and I could't see properly on the
right eye. After the tour my eye recovered so you won't get rid of me for quite
some time, haha! By the way, thanks again to everyone who helped us with the
Summer 2019 tour, we truly appreciate it.
In front of Café na půl cesty, Prague, Czech Republic
RULES & THE TRUTH w/Karsten from No Spirit Fanzine/Records in Hamburg, Germany
Hanging out in Vilnius, Lithuania, before the show
Somewhere in Poland
RULES boys in Vilnius, Lithuania
RULES show at Café na půl cesty, Prague, Czech Republic
After the Summer
tour, Rules had a few quiet months until October when we played a weekend at
Podrum in Rijeka and at Nigdjezemska in Zadar (both in Croatia), two DIY places
that are still going strong and that you should definitely check 'em out if you
are playing or just visiting Croatia. Those both shows were great and it was
nice to see some friends and familiar people after long time. In November Rules
and The Truth played two festivals, first was Anti Fa Festival at Monte
Paradiso Club in Pula, Croatia and the other was Making Punk A Threat Again at
Venster 99 Club in Vienna, Austria. Playing at both of those fests was great,
we played with some awesome bands and of course, got to see some friends and
hang out. At the end of December, Rules will play a show at Mala Scena in
Karlovac, Croatia with bunch of bands, so this will be a nice ending of this
year from our part.
All in all, not a bad
year concerning records we released and shows, festivals and one tour.
We plan to record soon new songs, probably in January 2020 which are so far only bands concrete plans for the near future. See ya next year at some show or
somewhere...
THE TRUTH
It was no less
interesting year for THE TRUTH. While the winter was quiet for the band, in
Spring we did a Balkan tour with our friends from Barcelona, Spain and their
band Addenda which is a great hardcore punk band mixing styles from fastcore to
catchy hc/punk. Addenda guys flew direct to Skopje, Macedonia where was our
first show of the tour. Dominik and I drove with his car, the day before our
first show from Zagreb (Croatia) to Kraljevo (Serbia) where we met with the
rest of the The Truth crew. We had rehearsal that evening and the next day we
headed to Skopje with a rented van and later in Skopje we met with Addenda
guys. From April 27th to May 5th, we played 7 shows in Skoplje - Macedonia,
Thessaloniki - Greece, Ankara - Turkey, Istanbul – Turkey, Sofia – Bulgaria,
Kraljevo – Serbia and Belgrade – Serbia. We had two days off, the first day off
we chose for crossing the Turkish border and travelling to Ankara from
Thessaloniki because that was a really long distance, about 850 kilometers. On our second day off we hanged out in Istanbul.
THE TRUTH in Kraljevo, Serbia, before taking the road
THE TRUTH in Skopje, Macedonia
THE TRUTH & ADDENDA on Balkan tour, April 2019
As for choosing going
all the way to Turkey especially because all of the political situation that is
going on there lately, it was something that we wanted to do for a long time.
We (The Truth) already played once in Istanbul in 2015 and it was a positive
experience for us, it was great to meet punx from that part of the world and
see that there's also a small but dedicated DIY hardcore punk scene concentrated
mostly around Wargasm Collective who are a record label and DIY punk booking
from Istanbul. So, just to be clear, we don't support Turkish government (like
pretty much any other government) and we went to Turkey to meet and connect
with other punx, that's it.
Resting in Ankara, Turkey after a whole night drive
THE TRUTH in Istanbul, Turkey
Anyway, this was
quiet an interesting tour altogether. It was kind of hard to book more shows
in Greece at the time because of the Easter holidays but we managed to
complete a nice and (very long) route. Most of the shows were cool and for me,
personally it was great to watch Addenda guys fooling around on stage and delivering
energetic hc/punk every night. Also, it was cool that we got even more close
with Addenda guys, we share lots of the same ideas about DIY hc/punk and we had
some quite interesting talks during the long drives and between sound checks.
Also, finding out that those three dudes are total movies/series fans was a
great thing and we couldn't stop talking about some silly sitcoms, classic
movies and lots of the trash movies too. This was the first time that we toured
with some band outside of Balkan and it was really great to get to know more
Joseph, Fran and Iñaki who are genuinely nice guys. During the tour we had some
problems with the van and travelling from Istanbul to Sofia was extremely
dreadful but we managed to overcome all the obstacles and play a great show in Sofia. It's still fascinating
to me how we are ready to travel long distances to play 25 minutes of pissed
off hardcore punk and learn about DIY hc/punk in places we've never been
before. Thanks to everyone who helped us in any way with this tour, we
appreciate it from the bottom of our hearts. The proper tour diary of this tour
will appear in IOSC zine and probably on The Truth blog, but written in
Croatian (well, for those who can't understand it, there's always a google
translate, haha!).
In Spring The Truth
released a live tape called Drive, Play, Sleep, Repeat! The tape is released on
Mad Schnauzer Records and it contains our live set from the show we played in
Kraljevo, Serbia in December 2018 with bunch of old hc/punk bands from
Kraljevo. The sound is what you could expect from a live hc/punk recording, a
bit raw in places but still energetic enough to blow your asses off.
Our second tour this
year was the European Summer tour with Rules that I've already wrote about
earlier when I was going through Rules part of the 2019 so, I don't need to
repeat myself about that tour. The last two shows The Truth played in 2019 were
in November, both with Rules that I've already mentioned before: Anti Fa
Festival at Monte Paradiso Club in Pula, Croatia and the other was Making Punk
A Threat Again at Venster 99 Club in Vienna. Those were pretty cool shows to
close this year for The Truth.
I won't say much
about our album that we are working on but it's still in the process and we did
few new songs during November of this year, so more about that when we finish
all songs for the album. The future of The Truth for 2020 is kind of blurred at
the moment because the bands vocalist is going to work in Africa next Spring,
but we are not breaking up or giving up, so stay tuned.
ZINES
Every Zine issue that I put out in the last ten years
Let's talk a bit
about the zines that I'm doing. This year I haven't put out any issue although
I've been doing the International Old School Conspiracy # 20 from the second
half of 2018. That is pretty long time even for me, because I usually put out
at least one issue per year, but I guess I don't write as much as I've used to.
That still doesn't mean that I don't write a lot (because I do), it's just that
my involvement with dogs occupy most of my time and it's not always easy
getting in the mood for the zine work. I planned to put out new zine called
Deadly that is written in English for last Spring but some people didn't
answered to my questions that I've send them which demotivated me about the
said zine and then for the rest of the year I was mostly doing IOSC. I thought
that new IOSC issue would be finished last Fall, but there's still so much more
that I want to put into this issue because after all, it's a # 20 issue and I
want to make it right and not doing a half ass job with this issue. So, I hope,
IOSC # 20 will be finished this Winter, that's all I can say so far about it.
As for the Croatian
tiny zine world, there are few new interesting zines that were put out this
year, so let's hope that those zines will inspire others to put out some cool
new zines. I still think that Croatian hardcore punk community could be so much
more and that if people were more into doing and reading zines and if people
were more interested in digging about hardcore punk in general, everything here would be totally different
and the main concience about DIY hc/punk would be more deep and passionate than
it is now. I stand behind this 100 %, so remember, yes to zines and fuck drugs.
THE SCENE
This time I don't
want to write about negative things concerning Croatian hc/punk because there
are always things I could write about on and on that I think are fucked up
inside the „scene“, but I've done my share of critics for my zine, so I
want to say that there are also some more positive stuff going on then for
example two years ago. There are more younger people involved with some
interesting stuff like squatting and doing other usual but necessary stuff like
playing in bands, doing shows, etc. At the moment Croatia has quite a few DIY
places including some long running squats which wasn't the case before when
rare squats that were going on wouldn't last long. So, if you're touring this
part of the world, you can play a dozen cities in Croatia at the moment that
have pretty cool running places for shows and other subversive gatherings.
There are also lots of active hc/punk bands at the moment that are quite good
and some bands are touring on regular basis which also wasn't a case before or at least
very few Croatian hc/punk bands would tour or even play outside of Balkan.
Again, I refuse to pretend how everything is great here but, let's end this
time about this topic with some positive thoughts.
PERSONAL CRAP and DOGS
Actually not much to
say about myself and my state of mind during 2019. I was alright. Some minor
financial problems here and there, but that's nothing I'm not used to already.
Most of the year I was living alone (well, me and the dogs) and that was cool.
Asja
Rolex aka Roli
Anis aka Larry
Also in 2019 not only
I walked and pet sited bunch of cool dogs, eight dogs who were temporary in my
home during the past year founded permanent homes (and one is currently with me looking for a home) which is pretty awesome. So,
I guess this is something worth mentioning since I already write about myself
but sometimes I feel a little bit awkward mentioning my involvement with foster
dogs because the last thing I wanna do is to brag about it. Dogs are great
beings and I will continue doing my part if I can to help those who needs a
home.
Finn
Hercules aka Herki
Snoopy
So, basically a lot of my time this year was spent with dogs, I wasn't going to too many shows and only travelling that I did was with my bands and we definitely visited some pretty cool places this year.
Koka aka Nera
Nea
Emma
So, I'm cool, dogs are cool, the bands are cool, although the world is falling apart, well that's nothing new.
Every record that my bands released in the last ten years
THE END
As I've said in
previous post (if anyone even read that, haha!), I will try to write more for the
blog in the way like I was in the beginning of the blog so expect lots of my
rant about some of my favorite bands and records. So, read ya in 2020.
Gajo the Snake
