Oh, happy Podgorica

"Just stand in the light and the darkness will end." Goran Bare

Last night, in one of Podgorica's most popular clubs, while I was trying, drawing on a decent bar experience, to find a rational justification for the general euphoria despite the unreal bad vocal performances of the local music star, I realized, somewhat horrified, that I had very few things from Vranje, and even fewer people. , is missing.

Escaping from that unpleasant emotional context because, the fact that I spent most of my life in the south of Serbia, cause and effect should make that obvious disparity significantly less painful, I caught myself wandering through music and pub memories from my native region.

And, of course, where the people of Vranje are and music, you should definitely expect dert and Boro. I'm not an exception, but, nevertheless, I avoided that already somewhat cliché thanks, first of all, to the Podgorica jazzer present, who, probably encouraged by the ambience, evoked memories of the gig with Tom Zdravković, nowhere else but in Cetinje. That inspirational speech, with afterparty details, pushed my thoughts in a completely different direction.

I don't know if I told him during my lifetime but, I reckon, it's not too late even now, in the very serious competition of top musicians from Vranje's Gornja čaršija, to mention only Aca Ćelča, Salet, Bekan, Sova, Stole was still a unique phenomenon. Although somewhat underestimated because too often, in those ragged, pub-invited bands, he was assigned the somewhat ungrateful role of the rhythm section with the help of the tarabuka, a type of percussion instrument, not overly appreciated in the south of Serbia even though it originated in Mesopotamia and Sumer, another 1 years BC. This self-taught musician, like all the artists from Gornja čaršija, played, for example, the southern dert anthem "Dimitrijo, sine Mitre", long before Johnny Štulić, and not in r'n'r, but in some kind of Stoletov, ethno to the jazz rhythm. And not on the tarabuk, but on the rhythm guitar. Few people knew about this tendency of his, in Vranje, steeped in the tavern's reduction of Bora Stanković to cheap pathos. Understandable, because up to that stage, and for the then high standards, it was still necessary to fulfill numerous conditions, from society, atmosphere to the limit number of exclusively "ruby" vinjaks drunk.

I was among the privileged few who were privy to Stolet's jazz turn and occasionally enjoyed his jam-session improvisations on given themes. That unrepeatable experience was appreciated and respected by the devotees of the tavern "for the table" music. It was not insisted too much because the atmosphere was top-notch only if at some point, of his own free will, Stole would go on these musical-tavern stunts.

If it is comparable at all, Stolet's musical style was closest to the wonders of Šaban Bajramović or the early phase of Boban Marković, another wizard from the south of Serbia. By "early phase" is meant the period when Boban knew that, for example, in the cult Dulet's "Devetka", near the Bujkovski bridge, in room 5 by 4, he was playing "My way" with his, much later globally famous, "Balkan brass band ".

As it usually happens, I saw for myself one late evening while Stole was rather disinterestedly listening to a discussion about the "Montenegrin roots of all Serbs". I admit, I was among the loudest. Rightfully so, because, unlike those present, my grandfathers, Vučić and Vukota, were directly descended from Lubnice near Beran. Few people at the table had such an argument, and since we, the southerners, when our heroes fail us, and these are not rare occasions because the entire south of Serbia has fewer national heroes than Ljubotinj, we like to argue with the Montenegrins with "It's not dawning yet". That's how it would be this time, and just when the discussion was slowly turning into those boring arguments, Stole just gently pushed me away with his hand.

"Listen."

And he started playing "Oj, vesela, veselice".

The others, in the beginning, did not pay much attention, and then they became completely silent because the maestro put "Veselica" in an arrangement that irresistibly reminded of "Bandiera rossa" performed by Pankrt. "Veselica" turned from that lyrical sentiment into a sharp, not quite punk, but hard, solid version of this timeless song.

Roughly like this:

Oh, happy festivity,

(Forward people, to the rescue)

you have happy eyes

(Red flag, red flag)

whoever you looked at

(Forward people, to the rescue)

you gave everyone a wound

you gave everyone a wound

(Red flag triumphs!)

And, then in the third stanza, when the "embroidered primrose" is given, he suddenly reverted to something that could be quite close to the original version.

Maybe this is my musical description of Stolet's rendition in a sloppy and dilettantish way, but this mix of Branka Šćepanović, Pera Lovšin and Vranje's Gornja čaršija, indescribable anyway, brought me back to Podgorica via Vranje at the very moment when

the agonizing chanting mentioned above ended.

Is it a little?