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KBO! was formed in January 1982 at the Kragujevacka Gimnazija high school, during a break between classes. The founders were all 17 years old and in the same class. The cause for forming the band was a gig which they attended the previous night, where local rock bands played. Being revolted by the catastrophic retardation of the performers at that gig, the blokes decided to form a band which would upset Kragujevac, their city... They did exactly that a month later, at their first live performance in the House Of Youth. It was one among the several festivals where many bands played, but this time there was a difference: it was the very first time in the history of their local rock scene in which a PUNK band played. When they got on the stage, the audience (consisting mainly of the hippies and "agricultural" heavy metallers) were speechless for a while, and then started to throw various objects at the band. The music was almost overpowered by whistles and four letters words, but KBO! succeeded in finishing their first performance, while insulting the audience between the songs. From that time, KBO!, in spite of circumstances, played at the every festival in Kragujevac, with the lineup consisting of Misha on vocals, Aca on rhythm guitar, Vuja on lead guitar, and Rajko on drums, until they joined the compulsory army service in 1984. By the way, the name KBO! is not an acronym, but a frog's onomatopoeia, taken from a cartoon. By that time, a place in the suburbs called Male Pcelice ("Little Bees") became famous in the (former) Yugoslavian scene, because it was not only a local space for practice, but also a gathering center for fans and musicians from all over the state. In that time, KBO! songs appeared on two international compilation tapes from the U.K.: Liberate and International Brigade, also featuring well known bands like Chumbawamba, Detonators, Terveet Kädet, Pandemonium, C.C.M., etc. After finishing their army service, which halted the band for 15 months, KBO! went through lineup changes, and became Vuja on vocals and lead guitar, Aca on rhythm guitar, and Boban on drums, remaining the same up to this day. Boban is Vuja's brother, who grew up on old style R'n'R. As a you may have noticed, KBO! played without bass guitar, thus gaining the sound for which the band is well known. Then, things started to happen like an avalanche: first, they made their own produced official album, Tama ("Dark"), in 1986. The album gained a big response from fans of such sound across the whole Yugoslavia, and some songs became hits at numerous radio stations. Soon after that came calls for gigs outside the Kragujevac area. In 1987, a new tape came out, a joint effort with their pals from Novi Becej: a split tape with the band Incest. One side of the tape was Incest's "Retreat or be Vivid", the other side was KBO!'s Nove Obrade Starih Stvari ("New Covers of the Old Stuff") - old material that was recorded at their improvised home studio Cesnjak ("Garlic"), which later will become legendary. After that, many KBO! concerts took place across the whole Yugoslavia. The craziness became bigger, with three new tapes in 1988/89 (!OBK, Live in Budapest and Moja Sloboda ["My Freedom"]) and with many concerts across the border (Hungary, Austria and Greece), playing with many well-known bands such as Gorilla Biscuits and Emils. In Belgrade they met a Greek student named Makis (Christos Christostomidis), who liked their music so much that he decided to help the band release an LP, an old dream of theirs. So in 1989, their first LP Forever Punk was released on Wipe Out Records from Piraeus (Greece), which contained all the best songs from their beginning until then, but this time recorded in Oliver, the best recording studio in Belgrade at the time. In 1991, their second LP, Pozovi 93 ("Call 93") was released, "93" being the phone number of the Fire Brigade in Yugoslavia. It was recorded in the Matrix studio in Novi Sad, and put out by the Start Today label, owned by Vojislav Zugic, selling out of all the copies in 9 months. In the meantime, KBO! toured Belgium and Holland (June/July 1991), where they played some gigs together with Babes In Toyland and Political Asylum. While they were touring, a big political crisis started in Yugoslavia, with "war" being declared in Slovenia, so their equipment stayed captured in the club France Presern in Ljubljana, and "liberated" only 12 months later. In spite of the war, KBO! were not in a state of apathy - in fact, they played their 100th Concert Jubilee in Kragujevac (which was recorded on video). The also played all over Serbia, and from Banja Luka and Sarajevo (Bosnia) they escaped over the barricades that later on became the front-line. In beginning of 1992 they played 2 gigs in 2 days in Skopje (Macedonia). Soon after that came news from France: Oncra records from Toulouse edited KBO!'s new project, Za Jedan Korak in CD format, and it was the first punk/HC CD in their country. Early in 1993, KBO! "broke" the borderline between Serbia and Slovenia, successfully playing in Ilirska Bistrica and in Koper. Because of the catastrophic economic situation in the country, they didn't record a new album, but they were active at live performances, and almost every year from then onwards, they played in Slovenia and Macedonia. In these dark years, they had an anti-war song on an international compilation CD edited in Holland, The Dignity Of Human Beings Is Vulnerable, also featuring many well known bands such as M.D.C., Nomeansno and the Mr. T. Experience. In spite of the big corruption in the music industry in Serbia, they managed to release a new CD in 1997, Svetlo Ludila ("The Light of Insanity") after two years of working in the Cesnjak studio. Playing many concerts, but not as often as before, they managed to sell many copies of their CD, in spite of media's blockade against them - so many bands which payed large sums of money for advertisements, can only envy KBO! After all, KBO! stayed devoted to own ideas, and is among the few bands in today's (and former) Yugoslavia which is totally independent and out of every political engagement, remaining the oldest and most active punk/HC band in Serbia. |
DISCOGRAPHY Releases TAMA tape (KBO! Records, 1986) NOVE OBRADE STARIH STVARI split tape w/INCEST (KBO! Records, 1987) !OBK tape (KBO! Records, 1988) LIVE IN BUDAPEST tape (KBO! Records, 1988) MOJA SLOBODA tape (KBO! Records, 1989) FOREVER PUNK LP (Wipe Out, 1989) POZOVI 93 LP (Start Today, 1990) ZA JEDAN KORAK CD (Oncra, 1992) SVETLO LUDILA CD/tape (KBO! Records, 1997) (NE) MENJAJTE STANICU CD (KBO! Records, 2001) Reissues FOREVER PUNK/POZOVI 93 CD (KBO! Records, 1998) Compilations THE DIGNITY OF A HUMAN BEING IS VULNERABLE LP/CD (De Konkurrent, 1993) INFO KBO! Website The official website for KBO! who are still around today. This site features a biography (including an English translation), discography, lyrics, pictures, and up-to-date info on the band. |