Worrying Instead of Donating: Why Did Breaking The Silence Have to Step Down (Again)?
Smederevo’s DIY punk podcast/booking collective Breaking The Silence breaks silence on why the Serbia’s local punk scene has hit a new low and what does it mean for the Balkan underground.
Radomir Konstantinović’s capital work The Philosophy of Parochialism (first published in 1969 in Serbian as Filosofija palanke) cannot get out of my head.
What is the reason? Quite ordinary—an event, a classic punk gathering. It may seem exaggerated, but it’s not. Through such an event one can see a broader picture of the state of the community, one can see the hypocritical state of mind of a society that is wallowing in the darkness of its disagreements, non-acceptance and loss of civilizational achievements that were normal not so long ago, not necessarily related to state systems and social factors, or precisely because of them.
On Monday, August 14. In 2023, like many times before, the crew from Smederevo gathered around the podcast Breaking The Silence (you can read a more detailed story related to the podcast itself and how it works here) organized a concert of the bands First Flame from Novi Sad and Slutbomb from the United States, among others. As usual, great response from the audience, great atmosphere, all five bands.
Since it is a DIY organization without sponsors, budget or grants, the entry is a donation, and here we come to the reason why I am writing these lines. In addition to the well-attended concert, if you count the money that the organizers put in themselves, we come up with a figure of about 60 Euros. If we take into account that the two bands did not fly to Smederevo like superheroes, but arrived in a car that miraculously runs on gasoline or some other kind of fuel that is bought, that people need something to eat and drink, and that neither the musicians nor the organizers make money at the same time, the question arises how to break even.
Without wanting to point the finger at anyone, without having the last intention of looking into wallets, I have to state that a classic Balkan syndrome has come to the fore, which is a selfish, non-solidary and frivolous attitude of visitors. Immaturity and lack of awareness in every sense. And it’s not the first time, and not only in Smederevo.
Especially in Serbia, a handful of people are pushing this story around hardcore punk happenings, investing their time, their nerves, neglecting their families, to enable people to keep up with the times, to meet, to enjoy themselves, guided by the purest intentions, without material and unfortunately also moral satisfaction.
They try to offer what the local self-organized bodies, which are responsible for the creation of cultural policy and the environment for its implementation, do not even think about. And that’s how it works, somehow, without institutionalized logistics.
Organizing a concert in Smederevo or any other city, taking on the role of those whose job it is, and who live for this very activity, means bringing an unreal freshness to the otherwise anesthetized cultural life of this country. It means educating children, forming their tastes and guiding them in the direction of developing a personal attitude that should not result in the Tašmajdan stadium being filled when someone who would have experienced the peak of his career in 1986 performs under the worst tent at a village fair.
And instead of people recognizing this, drinking three beers instead of five, or thinking and realizing that instead of drinking wine out of a tetrapack on the bench, constantly ducking their local trainers, they can enjoy the performances of sincere and quality bands without security and searches, incidents and all that lame shit.
Part of those 70-80 people realized that the fact that the concert was organized was the most natural thing in the world. That it was something that belonged to them. Maybe in Sweden. And it’s great that it’s becoming normal and it’s great that people are responding, but it would be much better if these people were reminded or learned what the postulates of the subcultures they belong to are.
The concert is not organized by Saudi billionaires and drunken barons as a proof of their eccentricity, but by people who are themselves an audience, who live for music, who want it to be good in their city, as well as their fellow citizens with similar interests, and guests from Niš, Kragujevac, Smederevska Palanka, Požarevac.
Do they still have to bear the costs themselves, animate, swipe their cards and separate them from their mouths? You can’t go to a tobacconist without 800-900 dinars. To fill the refrigerator, you need at least 50 Euro.
Someone will say—why don’t they set a fixed price? Anyone who goes to concerts knows how spoiled, not to say rude, the audience can be, and I’m not talking about guest lists. And maybe a fixed price with half the visit would be a real hit? Maybe that would make people copy the idea? Or it would be even better if Miloš and his friends would stop messing around, because they go to gigs anyway, and you guys take and bring whoever you want.
Instead of offering help to these people, not from the institutions but from the punk/metal/hardcore community, they are retaliated against in a bizarre way. I know that’s not the motive, but it would be nice if the bands and the organizers made money out of all this, and here we have a situation where those who are organizing and making a living from other jobs have to pay the majority of the costs for something that was not made for an elite in a closed society.
Maybe elitism should be promoted so that things are seen a little more clearly and the situation would change. All the fighters for true values in Smederevo, Niš, Kragujevac, Milanovac, Mostar, Sarajevo, Tuzla, etc. It’s our crew, it’s people like us and it will make everything work until they get pissed off and give up everything.
So support, buy merch, sell releases, donate, make sandwiches, carry amplifiers, because there are so few of us and we are such a heavy margin and so on both sides of the Drina we are a black hole of the continent.
Either help or shut up, don’t complain but help, and let the Belgrade or any other arena be full—these people honestly pay for tickets for a pleasure that is debatable, but it’s still theirs and it’s important to them.
And when for the umpteenth time the southernmost hotspot in Europe for the band you’re rooting for on tour is Croatia—you’ll understand why.
Originally published in Serbian by Djordje Ilic on the webzine Izvan Svake Kontrole.
