Final day of trip, meeting local musicians and some reflections on Macedonia.
Today we finally get to do what we had hoped to do on the first day: meet up with some locals and have them show us a few places to hang out.
Prior to our trip, I discovered the Naked Mountain Collective.
Naked what? I hear you cry. Well, in their own words:
Naked Mountain Collective is a project that began in 2021 with a vision to bring together the new-wave scene in North Macedonia and provide young musicians with opportunities to exchange knowledge and to support each other. Our vision is to address the issues of consistency and professionalism within the music industry in North Macedonia, as well as the regional and international placement of the music.
We have created a unique platform that combines education, collaboration, and entrepreneurship to help young artists thrive in the music industry. Our innovative approach to music collective has not been seen before in North Macedonia or anywhere else. We believe that education and knowledge sharing are key to success in the music industry, and we have built our collective around this principle. By providing our members with access to industry tools and resources, we are empowering them to create, produce and distribute their music on their terms. We have also created a community where artists can learn from one another and grow together, fostering a supportive and collaborative environment.
Representative: Leon Shumanski
After reading this I knew I had to meet them. Leon advised me he wasn’t available (turns out he lives in Slovenia). But after an exchange of e-mails, a meeting was arranged with Nadica for Monday.
And then the musical world of Macedonia was turned upside down. Fifty-nine young people went to a gig and didn’t come home. It made international news.
The country officially went into seven days of national mourning, and a protest was planned for Monday. It made sense to put off meeting Nadica until Wednesday.
We had arranged to meet at noon, which would give us our first lie-in of the trip. We finally bit the bullet and grabbed a taxi into town. We are dropped nearby & take a short walk through a pedestrianised area, past the Mother Theresa museum, past a sparkling new church surrounded by fencing (it looks like it might still be under construction).
Then, as we round the corner, we spy a book shop, Bookva. Well, we assume it is Bookva, it has books and a sign that says, well I’m not really sure what it says.
There’s chilled music drifting out of the bookshop, which is also a coffee shop and bar. Three young locals are sat outside and look at us expectantly. We quickly establish this is Nadica, Marco and Borjan. Just three members of the collective – there are many more.
Marco, plays in the band XARAKIRI. Borjan plays in Vagina Corporation. Nadica is not in a band, she loves music and is the main organiser.
They talk of helping the next generation of musicians, but I’m sat there thinking they are the next generation. They are all in their early twenties.
Once we have done the introductions and broken the ice, I start recording our conversation with the intention of editing it into some sort of article for the website.
All three are friendly, down to earth, intelligent and more articulate in English than many Brits I know. It doesn’t take long to find that they are on the same page as us and have extensive knowledge of music from beyond the mainstream – not just local music but music around the world. They are staunchly DIY and show a curious interest in Welsh Language music.
I record an interview but feel it best to stop after thirty five minutes. It’s going to take long enough to transcribe and edit as it is. But we carry on chatting for another hour or so.
We chat about music, the music scene and inevitably talk about the tragedy in Kocani. The fire did not happen in a vacuum, it’s a reflection on the current state of the country. As our tour guide told us yesterday, they have plenty of regulations regarding health and safety, good enough to comply with entry requirements to the EU, but it appears that nobody actually enforces those regulations. It is widely believed that corruption and bribery of officials is rife. I won’t say much more than that here, I’ll leave it for the locals to tell you in their own words (follow Peppermint Iguana Facebook for updates if you want to read the interview)
I feel a little inadequate not being fully up to speed with Macedonian politics, particularly as these guys are all over UK politics. We chat about Corbyn, Johnson and Farage. It’s clear that music is not the only subject that we are on the same page as them.
Megan is relieved to learn that the bookshop only carries books in the Macedonian language. I browse through the shelves and recognise the odd word like ‘punk’ and I get the vibe this shop would be right up my street – if I could read any of the books.
The shop informally acts as HQ for the collective. Marco works here and they have gigs outside the shop when the weather improves. Apparently, it can get very warm here in the summer, although we have seen no evidence of this on our trip.
We eventually part our ways, but agree to meet up later in the day at a bar in the old town.
We are given a recommendation for a vegetarian restaurant (or as our tour guide yesterday described it, vegeterranean food).
It’s a bit of a walk through and we are weary, saddle tired. And it’s raining. And we spot the Caerphilly Massive in a pub. So we go in, to take the piss out of Tank Carson. And drink cocktails.
We sit for ages people watching. Every time we think we are ready to leave the waitress forces us to have another drink.
We are overlooking Macedonia Square and all it’s grand architecture. It looks quite authentic but it loses all credibility when you know it was only built in 2014. What makes it worse is that they used substandard materials and some of it is falling apart already. Giant marble pillars? Amazing. Till you tap them and find out they hollow fibreglass nonsense. Perhaps this is where the Disney Land description we heard earlier in the week comes from. I hasten to add, from a tourist point of view, it’s still nice. Better than a bland UK high street.
Eventually we head up to the old town, which, we are advised, is mostly authentic. The narrow cobbled streets are bustling with locals out socialising. I wish we had spent more time in this part of town.
We have drink in a pub just over the stone bridge, before heading up to Bar La Kaña. It’s located in a narrow alleyway off the narrow streets. If we didn’t know about the place we would have walked straight past. We wouldn’t even have walked down the alley, there didn’t appear to be anything down there.
We think we might have found it, but there’s no sign, and the dimmer switch is doing overtime keeping the room dimmer than a dim thing that just won a dim competition on St Dimmer’s Day.
We have learned our lesson and ask if they take cards before racking up a huge tab. They don’t, so we make a start on using up the last of our cash, because we can’t exchange it when we get home. The barman is friendly and the room is filled with the sound of a mixture of psychedelia and post punk, as loud as the room is dark. We love it already.
Nadica soon arrives with a possee in tow. We spend the next few hours in the company of a group of intelligent, articulate and culturally inquisitive young people. We discuss a wide variety of topics, from the geography of Wales, the world-wide disillusion with main stream politics, Project Macedonia 2014 (when all the statues and shit went up) and the pros and cons of social media, to the global brain drain from poorer countries richer countries. It is clear that whilst these guys are frustrated with how their country is being run, they wouldn’t want to live anywhere other than Macedonia. (Just like yesterday’s tour guide they never add the ‘North’ prefix to the name of the country they very clearly love.)
And their love of Macedonia extends to not creating music excessively influenced by the outside world, and not created for the outside world. They make music with a distinct Macedonian sound, for their peers in Macedonia. And through the Naked Mountain Collective, it’s a team effort with mutual support.
At the end of the night they walk us back down to the square, mocking the faux ancient statues.
Oh, how our trip would have been different if we had managed to meet these guys when we arrived. But we have the connection now, a return trip, and maybe an exchange trip feels likel
*(Please follow Peppermint Iguana Facebook Page to get updates and to read the interview with the Naked Mountain Collective)
To hear some of the bands on the Naked Mountain Collective label, visit their Bandcamp Page
Listen below to a recent label sampler compilation …