Belgrade, Serbia

Pekinska Patka: Anarchia all over Serbia

Published: April 3, 2007

(“Pekinska Patka” – Peking Duck, translator’s note)

The title of this post suggests that i am going to talk about the current situation in Serbia at this moment – we ain’t got no prime minister, no government, the assembly is not functioning as it should, so practically we are in the state of Anarchia. As tempting as that may sound, i don’t feel like writing about nothingness, no. I’d rather continue the little session of posts concerning best bands from Serbia that you’ve never heard of, and it occurred to me that it may be interesting to mention the genre that came into Serbia at approx same time as it became popular in the world – punk rock.

While doing some research for this text, i found (luckily) a website that already covers this period very good, so the only thing i have to do is link to it: Yugoslavian R’n’R underground
Be patient and read through the text when you find the time, it’s very good and interesting read.

As a preview, i will give you only a quote from the text and an accompanying video:

In the summer of 1979 or 1980 (can’t remember exactly) I was watching with my mom some entertainment show on telly, when this band Pekinška Patka appeared, kicking their way through a song called “Poderimo Rok” (“Let’s Tear The Rock Apart”). Most of all I can recall the singer jumping and monkeying around, yelling (in translation): “Mum, it’s all over now! Mum, I wanna be a Punk!” The only possible question that I could ask my mother after that was: “What is a Punk?” She gave me some sort of short explanation that “a Punk” is someone who wears old clothes, spiked hair, and whatever the punk iconography was at the time. Needless to say, from that moment on I devoted myself to be one of them.

So here’s the group that started it all, at least when Serbian punk is concerned – Pekinska Patka:

Translation:

They say I’m crazy
They say I’m nuts
They say I’m an imbecile
They say I’m a cretin

I’m a punker in my dad’s old coat
I want a daring girl to take care of me, wow
I’m an old-fashioned guy with a lotta imagination
I’m the one they find new flaws to every day

One more thing i remember hearing from an old punker from Novi Sad once was that the kids in those days were spraying the walls with the word ‘Punk’ all over Novi Sad and that the police were puzzled – each time they tried to question some unlucky fellow that got caught they would ask him not WHAT the punk is, but rather WHO is that guy – Punk?
Maybe someone from NS can confirm this urban legend ?
Beside the Pekinska Patka home page, there is also a Myspace page , and an interview (in Serbian) with the singer, Chonta.

Patka inspired lots of upcoming groups and kids to start their own bands, one of them being Atheist Rap, another group from Novi Sad and i will write about them in one of the following posts.

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