I don't know about twang, but many moons ago Belgrade had some
impressively schlocky garage-rock bands (a la Shadows of Knight, early
Stones and Gene Vincent imitators, etc.).
As a teenager I spent a summer in Belgrade with a girlfriend and came back
with some Serbian 45s (long since lost in the mists of personal history)
and a pair of chinese-made Chuck Taylor-style basketball shoes with Mao on
the little round logo place on the outside heel. They were extremely cool
and I wore them all the time till they fell apart about six months later
(not very well made <g>). We're talking late 70s here, under Tito and
before the former Yugoslavia was former.
At that time it was a relatively progressive Iron Curtain country, with
more autonomy than most. Rock and roll and basketball were the two
popular "western" activities that signified modernity and western-style
freedom. There was still what I supposed was a "60s" vibe on the youth
culture, coffee shops that played Dylan and Muddy Waters, etc.
I saw some of these bands perform, invariably on really shitty intruments
but with tremendous enthusiasm and the real spirit of rock and roll in
cyrillic letters <g>. They were fun, even if technically
less-than-competent, and sounded as if they were trying to reinvent early
Stones for those who thought the Ramones were virtuosos <g>.
With all the terrible things going on over there, I've wondered more than
once whatever happened to these folks....
--junior
