Beat a Go Go

Thirty years! Wow.

We were the same generation and I was going to high school in the same district where he lived. As a matter of fact I guess he was also going to the same high school for a while, but he changed schools. But that's where we met. We were also members of the same late hippie community. Then members of a bigger gang, or whatever. He was playing harmonica then. I don't remember when we first played together ­ some jam sessions or something. But definitely there was this concert at the high school with a few school friends and a few other people from the same city district. We had this concert ­ it was more like a jam session, with a few themes more than elaborate tunes ­ like a blues theme or whatever. We seldom played pieces written by someone else. We almost never did. So at that very concert, the name Begnagrad was used for the first time. I remember, we put it on the poster ­ a handwritten poster. As a matter of fact, it derived from the name of that district ­ which is Bežigrad. The very name of the district on the other hand, derives from Slovenian words, like "Beg" ­ escape ­ "grad" ­ castle, because from that part of the city, in the past people were supposed to escape to the castle when the Turks came, or whoever. We took it as kind of an abbreviation, and written together BEGNAGRAD (ESCAPETOTHECASTLE) it lost its primal sense, despite those two words being legitimate. And when we later on, much later, discovered that people ­ especially foreigners - break their tongues on the name, it was even more appropriate ­ and somehow, the very melody also describes the music.

In that first concert, Bratko also played harmonica, and soon after we made a first band, which never left the garage, but was rehearsing under the name Begnagrad. We were jamming around, doing house parties or whatever, and after one jam session we were making plans and I said "OK, let's make a band as soon as I get a saxophone, because who would play clarinet?" (laughter) At that time, there were the first jazz-rock groups, so the saxophone was kind of possible ­ it had some legitimacy in rock, where clarinet was only played in Slovenian Alpine music ­ polka bands or whatever ­ and the same for accordion, of course. But then we said, OK, why not play those instruments? And of course the first impulse was the thing so very different from the others.

There was a guitar player and drummer, bass player, and us two. And Bratko's pieces were rehearsed there ­ two among them, as much as I can remember, that were recorded much later with the first "official" Begnagrad. But that didn't last very long, and then we joined another band ­ we were invited to be in the band of a guy who's like an author, singing accompanied by guitar. He's a painter now. This band wasn't called Begnagrad, it was called Six Kilometers per Hour, which was kind of an answer to the name of the leader's ex-band, which was Seven Light Years. It was nice but he was quite an individual, because being an author, he was constantly rearranging and changing the songs and we never knew exactly how to play them because he was always changing them. (laughter) He was a great singer and a poet, most of his songs being wery expressive and intimate, so, in my opinion, the majority sounded best when played solo. Later, he used to introduce some Begnagrad concerts with his solo performance. But we were also doing some of Bratko's pieces. We had a few concerts with that group ­ we even joined a contest for a new rock band with one of Bratko's pieces. The story was kind of ending, but on that occasion, at that contest, a bass player heard us. He was some 10 years older than us (we were like 17) but his sister got him in contact with us and he was very enthusiastic about our music and interrested in making a band with us. He was playing in a classic rock band, playing rock hits, foreign music, doing lots of dances. Like it was in those days in Yugoslavia ­ maybe all over, I guess. Bands would have a piece or two of their own and the rest would be foreign hits.

Well, this guy got very interested, and soon after we began to rehearse. Bratko and me had persuaded the drummer from the ex-band to join us, and that was the first Begnagrad that played publicly under that name. This guy helped us quite a lot because he was much more experienced than we were ­ he had been in several bands before, and he also did stuff with advertising, managing, and so forth. And we had made quite a huge impression on the Slovenian and broader Yugoslav rock-scene of the time and became a kind of a cult band of the alternative and underground part of it. There was no other alternative music-scene at the time, apart from pop-schlager­ like I told you before, the jazz scene was only the orthodox jazz scene. There were people who would go and study in Graz but when they came back, they would join the radio-television Big Band and play the same old stuff all the time. So we were entering the rock scene with these funny instruments [accordion and clarinet].

With the first Begnagrad, the music was simpler, or at least the styles were kind of basic ones. But a common rock pattern sounded unusual and funny played on accordion and clarinet. I remember, all our concerts, they were on rock festivals, rock concerts or whatever. We were pioneers of this new wave which was later followed by bands like SRP. So that's how it began. I don't know the exact years. We played with that first Begnagrad for a few years.

One important thing to say ­ the musical environment we have here in Slovenia. As I told you already, we knew all the rock stuff that was going on. We could buy rock records here, or abroad. On the other hand we had this multicultural environment. What I would like to emphasize is that, for example, the oriental stuff wasn't something far away, it was going on in the very same country and so it was mixed, quite multiethnical. Sunday afternoons you would hear this music from a nearby military complex, Sunday afternoons they would have this music playing, which was all the Yugoslav ethnic and pop music ­ because the majority of the soldiers serving their duties here in Slovenia were from the south end of Yugoslavia. That was the way the government did it, was to shift people around, get them to know their brothers ... so it was quite a multiethnic thing. Slovenian folk music is like with many modern nations a thing of the past in the pure ethnical sense - when music is still a part of everyday life and rituals - but is very developed in folk-pop sense, melodically based on the alpine part of Slovenian heritage. Like all over, this music is especially popular in rural parts. One of the major bands is supposed to be among the pioneers of a style that became popular all over the Alps, especially the German speaking part, which is in fact the biggest impact that Slovenian music has ever made abroad... So what I would like to say is that we lived with all these influences. On the major radio station you could already hear the major international pop-rock hits. On the other hand, we had this independent student radio station, Radio Student, already going on. They had their thirtieth anniversary a few years ago. And they were always playing very up-to-date music, and also lots of less commercial music. The educational role was very big with that radio station, as a matter of fact, if you wanted, you could hear very different music. I remember, I was maybe in first grade, when I first heard stuff like that, these shows with ethnical music from all over the world. They had a huge record collection from a major record company, with ethnic music ­ like you see these CD compilations now - and they were already playing that music then. So it was very interesting. But they still had those jazz hours.

Their situation was kind of paradoxical because they were a noncommercial radio station and they mostly were all the time leaning on support from the state or from some student organization which is the same money coming from the state, but they being so opposed to the state policy and stuff, it was sometimes controversial. So I think in the early days the studios were smashed by police at least once, almost completely. And of course the broadcasting studio was almost like a home studio nowadays, a mixing console and stuff like that. So we made our first Begnagrad recordings there, in the studio which was normally used by the speaker. It was completely small. Like our kitchen. [laughter] Plus having the speaker's table nonremovable, in the middle! [laughter] So we were all arranged around this table there. It was very funny.

The drummer and everything?

The drummer and everything. We were four at that time -­ bass player, drummer, and the two of us. A few recordings from that very session were then included in the Old Ones album ­ a clarinet solo and another short piece. And this clarinet solo, if I can talk about it, it's another curiosity ­ it's like an echo, and the echo was made, not with a special echo machine, but with another tape recorder, a normal one, with the endless tape - you just put a lap of tape which just goes round and round. And what was funny was that this recorder was the one that was normally used to make documentary recordings of everything, that the state required them to have for the archives for a certain amount of time, in case they did something unpopular or politically incorrect. It was in the grey days of socialism ... I remember one of the guys who helped us, he was one of those musical critics or whatever he was ­ once he called President Tito by his first name, and he used the diminutive ­ his name was Josip, and he used "Joško".

Uh-oh.

It was a big affair. He was banned forever ­- his voice was forbidden to be heard in broadcast.

Wow.

That was his sentence. And I remember, the editor of this very radio, when we made our first recordings, and at that time they weren't broadcasting 24 hours, they would broadcasting in the early days from something like 11 am ­- "Good morning, dear students!" -­ until something like 4:00 pm. Then they prolonged it until six, and they went to stereo ­- now they have 24 hours of programming. So then, I remember it was the middle of the night, and we finished recording one of the songs, and the editor came down to us ­- it was in the student district, there were blocks with rooms for students ­- and he came down from a party on whatever floor it was, and in the middle of the night we broadcast this song live - he turned the transmitter on so he could listen to us on the radio on the other floor. [laughter] It would be considered quite a big crime at the time. They were looking for excuses all the time to make trouble with this radio station. So these were our first recordings. We recorded for the National radio later, and even made a half-hour TV show ... The last, and technically and musically best, recordings were made in Novi Sad, which is in Serbia now, northern Serbia near the border with Hungary, where they had an editor of the local branch of the national radio ­- they had better studio technology ­- and they had this idea of making all the Yugoslav like "young" or "new", less commercial bands at that time to record there. So we were invited there for a week or so in December '77 with hotel and everything paid to make the recordings for an LP . After three days they were satisfied. When everything was done, we never entered the studio again. Even for mixing. So they did the mix by themselves, and since it was only a four-channel recording at that time, and the original tapes were lost, that's the mix that was left. They added a sleazy reverb on it all, like coming from a distant bathroom. We would have done it another way, done some additional playing and recording, but we never did.

And also, these tapes never were released as a record, until about 15 years ago, 10 maybe. The bass player financed it because he had some merchant company. These recordings combined with a few earlier takes were released on CD as Tastare ("Theoldwones"). Shortly after these studio sessions, we had a legendary farewell concert in a cinema hall in Ljubljana because this guy had to do his army service, which lasted for a year. Since we had no bass player, we spent this year rehearsing and working on new ideas, trying to do it -­ playing with other people, searching for a bass player, but we couldn't find anyone who was good enough. We tried three or four of them but weren't satisfied. We've been developing our music with a more jazz-oriented approach whith lots of improvisation combined with complex structured compositions -­ a characteristic of so-called RIO [rock in opposition] bands of the time but also a trademark of Bratko's compositions up to the present day. When the original bass player returned from the Yugoslav army we tried to continue with him, but he actually wanted to go on from where we'd stopped a year ago and was full of ideas of making it more commercial and "pop" by superimpacting the bizarreness and the - let's call it "circus" component ... miles away from what we were into. Though he was a good bass player. And we are still good friends.

Another year or so we went on working in our rehearsal room. Meanwhile Boris [Romih] had joined on percussion and guitar. We even did it with a trombone player for a while. It was a nice sound. He's now the director of the Slovenian Big Band. [laughter] We went to this musical high school and made this ad, "We're searching for a bass player and a trombone player". And it lasted until Nino appeared, who was not even eighteen at that time. We had heard there were some young people playing jazz and stuff, and we contacted him and invited him to the band. He was exactly the guy for us ­- he was good, and he had this homemade fretless bass guitar. Fretless bass was very "in" then, had been introduced for the first time by the great Jaco Pastorius. Very important stuff ­- the affirmation of bass guitar which from then on always had this quality. Before, the bass was something in the background which you didn't really hear. But from then on, the bass would come forward, play solo or whatever. And Nino was very into it. We practiced and we made almost all the material, which was then from that record, the only one we'd ever made ­- and then when it looked like, OK, now we are good for a year, and this is kind of serious business, the drummer ­ the very one that was staying with us for all these years -­ well, he left us, because he had already graduated in physics and he was making his PhD. And he said, sorry guys, it's better if I stop now, because I won't be able to go on and do it later. We were all very sad because he was a very nice drummer, and we had played a long time together. And so Nino brought Aleš, because they had been friends from their youth, neighbors ­ Aleš's grandmother, I think, still lived in the house. Which is quite a coincidence ­- one of the best rhythm sections in Slovenia, coming from the same house. They had of course played together before, in teenage groups, and they were interested in jazz. So Nino brought Aleš. And that was the band that recorded the only-ever released record, which was, 15 years later, re-released on CD under the name Konzert for a Broken Dance. The band was Bratko and me, both the teenagers and of course the old friend and companion Boris. He already took part at that ancient high-school session too ... I'm not sure, but I guess he first came up with the idea of the name.

Of Begnagrad?

Yes. He was a kind of guitar player, but he played more percussion, and made all these noises ­ he played guitar on some pieces. And switched to double bass with Nino while playing in a piece when Nino then played mandolin. It was kind of funny. And also the percussion instruments he was playing were mostly homemade ones. There were some cowbells and stuff, pots, and so on. We had this huge pot, like about a 50-liter pot. [laughter] The culmination was not hitting the pot with something, but hitting the pot itself on the stage floor! [laughter]

Was that in any of the recordings?

Yes, it is. If you remember, there is this waltz called "Cosa Nostra" ­ the first part is somehow in an Italian mood, or at least we called it that way, with Nino's solo, and then another lighter waltz derives from that, after I improvised my part ­ when we make all kinds of stuff. So that was the formation , apart from Aleš who was doing his army service also, but we found a substitution in the meantime. First we did a few concerts ­ including the promotion of the LP that was released by a national record label -­ without a drummer, using some rhythm machine, but we had some international concerts ahead ... The guy wasn't a very good drummer, but he was very devoted and worked hard, and it was convenient. He graduated law later and made a doctor's degree in Philosophy. So we were also doing quite a few concerts with him. In the last stage the band was joined by a guitar player Igor Leonardi - he and Nino and Aleš, they all attended the jazz academy in Graz, Austria. He was an inventive and skilful musician plus a very amusing guy. First we had done a few concerts with him as guest, or an introducer, or whatever -­ and in the end he joined the band, so we were six, including the guitar. It was really nice, kind of different again ­- even more improvised. There were quite a lot of pieces which had never been recorded - ­ we had the material for the new record ready and it was planned to make the recordings in a studio in Holland during the quite large scheduled European tour. It was in '83, I guess ...

Did you play around town -­ play in festivals?

We never played a lot in Slovenia-Yugoslavia with the second formation. In the first formation we were quite visible in a still quite coherent - let's say "rock scene" when quite a wide spectrum of musical approaches was addressing almost the same audience ­which appears to be characteristic for the so-called rock music in those years worldwide. In the early '80s it suddenly became more stratified - punk happened to rock, paleontological vocabulary was used in connection to rock legends who were still alive, jazz woke up on the other side with radical free-jazz movement on one hand and "back to the roots" projects on the other. Jazz was in a similar phase then, as rock is now, or better, was for the first time in the '90s: looking back to its own history from a distance. Rock got its first middle-aged protagonists and audience, and the margin between mainstream and alternative got much sharper. The once cohesive audience went through generation-changes and got much more strictly divided among certain styles. And so did the critics and promoters. With the major global mainstream and domestic - and wider Yugoslav - pop covered by state media, being a small community the rest was left on the margin in the developing alternative scene, with all the wannabe critics-opinionmakers-promoters who shared the cake by cutting a very narrow slice.We were somehow different, we didn't fit into any drawer. So we played seldom. We still don't play very much here, like in clubs ­ maybe a concert a year. We played a lot in Europe, on the other hand - some big festivals with big names and we got excellent reviews, it was really going upwards. We were quoted as a reference ­ we entered this record in the Recommended Records catalog, which was a label/distribution company of this Rock in Opposition movement. Despite the unfortunate end before at least recording the new material with, remember, the enhanced band, leaving this one and only record we became a kind of a legend. On the margin, and among a relatively small group of enthusiasts, but still a legend. We have been quoted in different music reviews up to the present day -­ like the music "sounds sometimes a bit like Begnagrad", etc. Which is still nice, when you are a reference for something. And, the record still sounds surprisingly up-to-date! So that's a brief history.

Were you the first band to do this in Slovenia ­ this non-genre music?

We were the first band to do it all over, I guess. No, it's too ambitious to say that ... but in Slovenia, definitely. To use the unconventional instruments, and make unconventional music. We would later on become aware of this, and consciously do it.

The first Begnagrad lineup, in 1977

So there were all these songs that were never recorded?

Yes, there are songs that were never properly recorded, a whole never recorded "new record" of them ... With guitar or even two. I played baritone sax on some pieces. Lots of improvisation but very good playing! Some very jazzy sounding tunes, some experimenting with Afro-Cuban influences on the "ethnic" field ­ Igor's contribution I would say, but also the pulse of the time. There was this duo for accordion and baritone-sax we played with Bratko ­ it was called "Stars on 44" as a parody on then-popular medley adaptations of hits called "Stars on 45" (like a few riffs and the refrain of "Yellow Submarine" slipping into "Eleanor Rigby" on a thick disco drum base). It was an incredible patchwork of some three or four interlaced themes interchanging within never-repeated - and strictly composed - permutations, appearing sometimes just as brief quotations and sometimes taking some time, establishing a drive, letting the main idea get wings in some improvisation and then switching to another theme in the middle of the bar. All that in fearsome tempo. One can foresee a similarity with music that the N.Y. post-new-jazz community with John Zorn etc. was doing, quite a few years later. There are some live recordings but technically the sound is so bad, despite modern digital enhancing methods, they only have an archive value for those who know what was it supposed to sound like. The best ones, from the technical point of view ­ but the playing is good and the audience freaked out as well ­ were recorded in Neuchatel, Switzerland, on a multitrack high speed cassette deck . We were given 2-channel mixes on two ordinary cassettes and they split in the process of splitting the band and one of them got lost ... Quite a while later we tried to find the track of the sound engineer back there in Switzerland or at least the tracks all without success. But recently we got a CD from an Israeli alternative label with the very recordings ­ complete ­ that are supposed to be spread as a bootleg among freaks! They are interested in re-releasing the Begnagrad record and include some pieces as a bonus. We are still considering the options.

Can they be recycled for the Madleys?

Maybe, though we don't play very many. As we play together for some years again -­ at least Bratko and me ­- there was a great opportunity to do Stars on 44 when we were both 44, but we have missed it . . ."Tarotska", a piece from the first Bratko & the Madleys album, is based on a riff and a theme that we were already working on with the late Begnagrad. But we play a piece, as an intro, which dates almost to the very first Begnagrad that never left the garage, one of the first first tunes of Bratko's, early works so to say ­ the one we played in Chicago, it's like a Renaissance tune or something ­ which was played after the improvised intro, with screaming. It was like hot and cold water ­ are you familiar with this Austrian doctor, Kneipp he was called? ­ he's more famous in Europe. He invented, among other things, the first coffee substitute ­ they called it in Europe "Kneipp coffee". Made out of beans, or whatever. But one of his healing methods was bathing people in hot and then cold water.

Shock. [laughter]

Yes, shock. And that's like the way we've been doing it. Because I always remember watching it ­ it begins in a more gentle way, usually, we begin nice, but then we go to this screaming afterwards ­ and it was nice to watch the audience after that. Then this calm tune comes, very organized. Such a contrast. But apart from that, we haven't made any of Begnagrad pieces yet. Maybe we will. I certanly have my favourites.

So is the process now different, in terms of writing songs?

It's different, but it's becoming easier. At that time, we were hanging all the time together. Which was, on the other hand, maybe one of the reasons why we split. ­

Too close to each other?

Because one of the reasons, of course, was that there weren't so many players who could substitute for Nino and Aleš. As a matter of fact, there was nobody. The situation was much worse than it is today. The players who would normally be involved in jazz would be more narrow-minded guys, and we were members of so called alternative art comunity, and it was two worlds. It's only now becoming closer together, I would say. So being such close friends with each other, it was a big emotional shock as well, like we were married. Which is also the way, usually, with rock bands. They hang together. But you asked me about differences in work ­ so of course, then we would hang together, and we would also rehearse, play, almost every day. We took the liberty to discover all the possible ways with one piece, and everybody brought his ideas. It was in a more organic way. When we began with the Madleys, Bratko brought this idea first as a trio - it was all songs that he had written before, and he was playing them as solo pieces. So it was Bratko, me and Matjaž. And then because it was lacking in rhythm and because like I told you, we are all these instruments that produce this perpetual sound [accordion, clarinet/saxophone, violin], it was kind of difficult to play. When Matjaž and I weren't playing the melody we were helping with the rhythm ­- tapping or whatever, playing along with the riff and stuff.

So we first invited Aleš, but then of course the lack of bass was present all the time. Because of the sound and because of the normal amplification problems ­ acoustic instruments being very difficult to amplify, and very often Bratko's bass line wasn't heard when we were listening to the recordings - or even sometimes in the concert when I was listening to what was coming out, it was just drums and those high tones, like cats mewing. (laughter) So the bass was of course necessary. Aleš, being a member of Begnagrad, was aware of the complications with Bratko's music - the songs were new, but the style and the attitude were the same, and we knew he was technically very good and very precise. He did his homework, he wrote the music down with the rhythms ­ which Bratko didn't have - the structure of the song, how it goes ­ the A section, the B section, whatever you call it, so many patterns, and in Bratko's music they never come in the same way again ­- it's the "abbreviated A", or whatever. The same theme, or riff, it never appears in the same form again. It's always completely different. And the task is even more difficult for Nino, because it's not only the rhythmical changes but the music. I remember it was quite hard for him in the first concert because he didn't take enough time and we didn't have enough time to rehearse ­- it's always like a blitzkrieg, you know, before a tour or a series of concerts ­- it always goes like that, a few rehearsals and then you tour. Sometimes it was audible ­- or at least, we could all feel ­- the tension of doing it the right way, not making mistakes, and with this complicated structure, it's only when it enters the subconscious then you can just let go and really play.

So it's only now I feel that we're beginning to make music. Because what happened in Cerkno [jazz festival in May 2003] ­ it was really nice, a relaxed atmosphere, no big tension. This is the new step we've now reached, and then we somehow all agree on the necessity of rehearsing a bit more, or at least rehearsing without this time pressure - rehearsing for a particular gig or a particular series of concerts or whatever ­ not just rehearsing new songs, which is always necessary, but maybe to rearrange the old ones, reconsider stuff. So it's getting to be more and more like a group work.

Bratko just plays the tune -

More and more. We're trying to force him sometimes, trying to get him to stop playing for a while, to stop playing the bass side and just play the solo keyboard, to make it more interesting. Because it's sometimes too dense. Sometimes it's nice for music not to be so very dense.

Is there much new material?

Yeah, there's quite a lot of ideas. We'll see. And we are all asked to bring our songs in, too, which we will eventually of course.

So he's not fixed on it being "his band"?

No, no, he's not. Not at all. At least not any more. We're becoming a band, a group again, which is nice.

Was it hard getting together with Nino and Aleš after all this time ­ had you played with them after the breakup with Begnagrad?

After the breakup I played with them from time to time at some club sessions or one-rehearsal concerts. Mostly jazz standards. But then my path led me out of active involvement with music for quite a few years. We didn't see each other every day, but we saw each other now and then. And I remember Nino sometimes, especially when being a little drunk, saying: "I would like to play in a band with you again some day, Bogo!" They both became real professionals in between, with huge experience. And they're good musicians, so it wasn't hard for us at all, more for them I would say for they had to memorize the complicated patterns of the pieces ­- unnecessary and illogically complicated, they would complain - ... And they had to fight -­ mostly Aleš, who joined first -­ the lack of rhythmical precision. It was a bit the hardest for me I guess, because I hadn't played for at least ten years.

Really!

Not very much. Privately, I never, like, stopped playing, I never said "that's history" and took the instruments to the attic, but since there was no serious project that I had, I would take a whistle into my hand and enjoy it for half an hour, and then I would say, "Oh, I should practice a lot to get everything the way I would like it." Then I would put it aside for the next few months. [laughter] Trying to get the discipline to practice instead of watching TV or whatever ­ there is always enough time which is lost in stupid things that we all do.

So you didn't play much for ten years.

No, no. Almost nothing. No serious projects- there were some workshops, some studio recordings, but nothing very important.

What is the next project?

We want to add another reed player, and we'll have a string section. Nino is supposed to write the arrangements. Mostly older pieces ­ there is a piece by Begnagrad, and stuff like that, plus some new pieces. Because some of the old pieces you find on the first Madleys record, that we play now, like "Jane", we play in a completely different way. Maybe even "Madley", if it comes out good live, with a bigger orchestration ­ because there's an unfortunate story with it - it was originally released on the first record but it was recorded digitally in Switzerland and the digital tracks collapsed somehow and it was shortened.

How many more people will be added to this new Expanded Madleys?

Another percussionist, another reed player, I guess a brass player, a violin and cello.

Are there plans to record that?

Yes. It's planned to be done in a cinema theater, where we did the last Begnagrad concert ­- at least one of the legendary ones. But at that time it was a cinema with porno movies ­- it was easy to hire, because it was cheap. [laughter] It had this connotation of being sleazy. It was very funny then. And it's planned that we would have the hall a day in advance, maybe even two days if possible, so we would rehearse it somewhere else, then make a big rehearsal and the first recording ­- we could record the day before and record the concert. Hopefully the plan will work out.

(This concert took place in Ljubljana in November 2003.)

Four of the Madleys: Matjaž Sekne, Aleš Rendla, Bogo Pečnikar, and Marjan Stanic