This is the date that I remember. I may be wrong, but not by much. Seeing it was a friday, I guess it should have been a wednesday, perhaps 18th.
There was a festival of pop music in Zagreb. Now these festivals were more or less imitations of the San Remo festival, but this one was different this year - it had an evening with just rock music and nothing else; and they meant rock, not the canzona-like songs played by a rock band. That was as plain a recognition of the importance of rock as was possible. That's when Korni grupa played "Jedna žena" for the first time, full 20:45. It took me until about 2010 to get a good version of this recording. Nikola Nešković played it each day that week, and I pretty much learned the whole thing by heart. And kept it in my mind to play when I need it for most of those 30 years. The middle part, played on just organ and some percussion, plus some vocals in the end, is something I'll probably order to be played at my funeral.
Nikola's emisija, "Muzički reli" (where rally is meaning strictly a car race on rough terrains; on motorbikes it's called motokros, on foot just kros, which was part of PE once a year) ran each day on 2nd, from 12:20 to 13:00. He was pretty independent there, which is how he managed to dedicate half the show to one song for three days in a row that week (the song premiered on tuesday), and a few times afterwards.
It actually became quite popular, which is incredible for such a complicated and rich and long song, and it was played often in the following months - not only on 2nd programme, but also on Belgrade 202, though they never played the full version. The unfortunate compromise - the length of the final show on sunday, broadcast federally on sunday - made Bata Kovač cut out about six minutes from the middle, so exactly that organ part was missing, and it was often played without it. Then it got played towards the end of the hour, so it would be faded out at 12, or 8 minutes, so that the hourly news would start on time.
The other popular radio, Studio B, launched just ten days later, but it would be impossible to hear until about next winter, and even then it was only on middle waves, at 222 meters, which would mix up with all kinds of other stations after sunset. Actually 202 was much worse in that regard, the mixup would begin even before proper sunset, and there was an annoying callsign from some adjacent station, someone torturing a piano into an annoyance. The next twenty-some years were a history of my attempts to hear good rock music via radio, as there was never enough money for all the records I wanted to have (at this point I had no albums at all, just singles) and even if there was, the most important albums of the time weren't published here - the first Beatles album was the red and blue compilation after they already dissolved.
The ultrashort waves had too weak a signal to reach here from Belgrade (except the 1st and 2nd programme, but they had perhaps six hours a week of r'n'r) and at this time I didn't have any such receiver. The struggle will continue.
In real life, I started gathering company at home. First it was Zvojko, Ž. and B, who'd each bring a girl, some records and we'd have fun. Tried to bring Miljka and almost made it, despite her expectations that mom wouldn't let her go, but fumbled it on trying not to explain why I wanted her to come. It was mostly by passing slips during class, so the conversation was choppy. I was supposed to tell her why during the walk out from school gate to the first corner, where our ways split. But it came to nothing, I didn't dare speak my mind. Wrote down two pages of all the things that were crossing my mind, but none of that came out.
Veca and Sneca with their parents are visiting this weekend, and, guess what, Miljka's parents were the same gang once upon a time, so they'd like to see each other too. Now if I could gather my gang at the same time, that would be a happening. But she said that she doesn't go to such parties, on principle.
14-I-2014 - 9-X-2025