Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra

Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra was in Istanbul this weekend and I was there to watch. Because it wasn't just music but the show was great as well... I just searched the net and found some limited stuff about them...

Here is their official web site but I'm afraid it hasn't been updated recently.

Their music is in fact Rock N Roll with a Balkan taste. The band is full of great soloists... On the drums, sits Emir Kusturica's son, he is one of the founders of the band as far as I know. They made the musics for the Kusturica film Black Cat White Cat.

Created in 1980 in Sarajevo by Dr. Nelle Karadjic, the gypsy technorock band Zabranjeno Pusenje causes polemic and censorship of Yugoslav authorities. Needless to say that the texts are rather virulent. Emir Kusturica joins the group in 1986 as a bass player. In 1994, during the conflicts, the group is reconstituted in Belgrade with Stribor Kusturica (Emir's son) at the drums, keeps its leader Dr. Nelle Karajilic, and takes the name of No Smoking Orchestra (English translation of Zabranjeno Pusenje, without the ambiguity on the nature of the smoked product...), while part of the members of the group keep the name of the original band, and continue a parallel career.

And here is what Emir Kusturica says about the band:

The NO SMOKING band is something more than a rock and roll band. They are a real phenomenon, a genuine attraction that in the late '80s changed the musical scene in Sarajevo and the whole of Yugoslavia for ever. Instead of the clever little compilations of stereotyped Western rock played by groups of male models dressed up as musicians clutching perfectly tuned instruments - a favourite of Tito's Yugoslavia, they were living proof that the social climate in that country was quite different from the staid atmosphere prevailing in neighbouring communist countries, such as Bulgaria - the NO SMOKING band brought on stage a mix of rationality and emotion - two key components that art can't do without - plus a lively street jargon and a taste for parody. They were real heroes in a real social drama. (Click to read all)

Take a look at "The unza unza music"...