Emir Kusturica & No Smoking Orchestra

In 1980, the Yugoslavian music scene saw the up-and-coming singer Nenad Yankovic, well-known as dr. Nelle Karajlic, who soon became leader of the New Primitives movement in Yugoslavia. According to dr. Nelle, New Primitivism was originally a nice joke which then developed; the phenomenon of New Primitivism was however quite real. Soon Karajlic formed The No Smoking Orchestra and began to play in the clubs and small venues of Sarajevo.

1984 saw The No Smoking Orchestra record their debut album, Das ist Walter. One of its songs, Zenica Blues, skyrocketed up the Yugoslavian charts. The album caused a stir among the critics because the music of the band was very much different from that officially approved in Yugoslavia. The ruling elite were shocked by the lyrics of No Smoking. The thing is that Zenica is a Bosnian city notorious for its prison, and the song was about prison abuse. First, only 10,000 copies of the album were released and they instantly spread along the country. Then Yugoton record label based in Zagreb met the wants of the No Smoking fans and re-released the album. All in all, more than 100,000 copies of Das ist Walter were sold.

In 1984, during their first tour, one thing happened to make a great influence on their career. At their concert in Rijeka (now it’s on the territory of the Republic of Croatia), an amplifier broke down during the gig and Karajlic, a young man in his early twenties, declared, referring to that amplifier, "Crk'o Marsal. Mislim na pojacalo." ("Marshall croaked. I mean, the amplifier."). Everybody saw that the defiant singer meant the "great son of all nations and peoples", as he was called in the press, President Josip Broz Tito and his death (his military rank was Marshal). It was a time when propaganda insisted on the fact that President was alive, while persistent rumors were circulating that he was dead. It wasn’t safe to speak aloud about it, and the incident landed the band in trouble. They were heavily criticized by the Yugoslavian media – from newspapers, to magazines, to radio and television. Surely, those who stayed with the band were in a minority. The campaign against the band was so strong that a month afterward it resulted in canceling of their concerts and removing of their songs from the air of the national TV channels and radio stations.

In this atmosphere, The No Smoking Orchestra recorded their second album, Waiting For The Sabbath With The Devil. The title contains words borrowed from Muslim Bosnian culture to emphasize the band's strong cultural bonds with Bosnia's capital city, Sarajevo. With the band being boycotted by the country's official press and record labels, the album received no support and sales dropped precipitously. By the way, the case against Karajlic was closed three years after with a ‘not guilty’ verdict but the hard times took a heavy blow on the band: some of the original members left and were replaced by others. In 1986, Emir Kusturica, a young punk from Sarajevo, joined the band on bass…