Stevan and I have been meeting for more than hundred times to write this report, but it always ended up with empty paper and a lot of empty bottles. Since Stevan is pretty busy these days I’ve decided to do this by myself.

Six months have passed since those furious seven days, which makes it too damn hard to remember everything, but I guess you’ll get the picture. OK, let’s start with formal introduction. “Pepsi Sziget”, the largest festival in Europe occurs every summer at Obuda Island in Budapest, Hungary. Although well known as the music festival, it has literally everything you can think of and you won’t have fun only if you’re a complete loser. Fifteen and more stages for every music style there is, all kinds of sport activities (whether team or individual, everything from paint-ball to bunjee jumping), internet tents, open air cinema, dance tents, swimming pool, restaurants, CD shops, clothes shops, theatre, exhibitions, tattooing, piercing, girls stripping for beer…You name it they’ve got it! Add nearly 500 000 kids (plus one old bastard like me, old DJEDSG) from all over the world (well, mostly Europe) partying like crazy on the top of the whole picture and dare to ask more of yours summer vacation! The tickets were extremely cheap for European standards and bearable for ours. However, Stevan and I were immensely fortunate to get accreditation and to go there as journalists for Radio Television of Serbia, so not just that we didn’t have to pay for the tickets, we also got to talk to some of our favorite artists. In fear of omiting a lot of stuff out, I’ll continue in a chronological order.

DAY 1.
We arrived on the Island early in the morning. Proving how well-versed Islander I am (this was my third “Pepsi Sziget” in a row), I pointed to perfect location to occupy with our tents so we built our little commune 50 meters away from the main stage, 30 meters away from the press then and with drink bars all around! Unique gang with over 50 grams of successfully smuggled goods – who could ask for more? The first press conference we attended was Lou Reed’s. Unpleasant surprise came along when the old bastard asked all photo reporters to leave the tent or else he wouldn’t get started. Arrogant attitude, “yes” and “no” answers, or even “that’s stupid question, I don’t wanna answer that”…just wasn’t worth the batteries for our tape recorder. I never liked his singin’ and now I’m “sick to the teeth” of the guy. (Well, the only thing I remember from this conference was my muddy feet and meeting Darko Glavan, Croatian journalist who wrote the best book on punk-rock in former Yugoslavia, called, you’ve guessed, “PUNK” – DJEDOSG).
After approximately 10 minutes of disappointment, we fled out and spent the next three hours on beerdrinking and sightseeing. We also bought a pair of sunglasses each so that we can hide our level of “highness” (while typing this I’m listening to “International herb” by CULTURE, you know…DJEDOSG) on approaching press conferences which enabled us to start a silly game called “Boob police”. It’s only content was grading the look (not the size, you sexist prick!) of breasts on Hungarian girls. Pretty soon the whole gang joined in, even the female members!? The grading system was 1-5 and, let me tell you, the average grade of the whole festival was a very strong 4! Anyway, 6 p.m. was the time people to go and get their ears terrorized listening to Lou Reed’s burst out performance. Luckily, it was just the right time for us to finally meet up with our anarcho-pop heroes – CHUMBAWAMBA. Firstly, we had to look up for the person in charge of press people to check in for some face to face interviews we were planning to do. It was this men-hating girl with a pair of weak 3’s (very pretty though) who told us that we were out of luck ‘cause we had to do that earlier that morning when we were receiving our press necklaces and that there’s no way she ‘d help us. Since there were no walls around to bang our heads against, we just went with it. Only Alice Nutter, Dunbert Nobacon and the trumpet player we called Rotten (because her face and hair looked exactly like Johnny’s) showed up for the conference and, boy, you should’ve seen those well-prepared journalists. For example – the first question: 
“You have a new album?”
“Yeah…(pause)”
“Something particular or…?”
“…Eh…”
Or,
“What do you think about nationalism?”
(Me, myself and I and I, DJEDOSG, asked how did they felt when heard that Ian Stuart died and they just showed the well-known “thumbs up” sign, then explained to the other journalists who the guy was etc. There was some blabbering about Jerry Springer, W.T.O. riots in Seattle and when they were mentioning some evil multinationals I just showed them the “Pepsi” sign behind their backs to add another one. Haha. Even not scheduled for “face to face” interview we stole all three of them from other pro’s and talked for some 20 minutes about everything…Alice claimed that she met me somewhere before, explained them a shitty political situation in our country /well, at least we tried/, came to the conclusion that THE SIMPSONS’ creators must have been punks in their youth. I asked about Ben from Leeds, ex-author of “Raising Hell” fanzine, gave them the copies of “SCAB” and “TRI DRUGARA”, took some pictures together and that was it. Later on, their show was really brilliant, kind of theatrical with all those costume changing for the purpose of the song, slick sound, cool attitude and set of “greatest hits” not missing almost none of our favorites…I didn’t want to ask what’s behind their contract with EMI and I don’t care, they are a really nice bunch of hard working people, those guys and gals: CHUMBAWAMBA. If you read this – Jah bless you!)

DAY 2.
The mornings were definitely the greatest thing of the festival ‘cause that’s when we’d become beer-dringing, pot-smoking, postcard-writin’, titty-investigatin’, island-roamin’, hangover sufferin’, swollen faced, bad-jokin’ ass bastards from hell. After detailed surfing the program of the day, we found out that only Suzanne Vega and GUANO APES were worth checkin’ out on the main stage, so we decided to spend the rest of the day on sharing peace, love and positive vibe throughout the island, or was it on beer-drinking, I can’t quite remember. What I do know is that it was impossible to grade Suzanne’s perfectly concealed pair, but her gorgeous eyes hit hard as a baseball bat on the nape of the neck and she was aware of that, believe me, ‘cause she acted as she was the queen of the fuckin’ world. Still, we managed to get a quick interview. Here it goes:

Dule: “Would you sign this one, please?”
Suzanne: “What? You wanna mail my signature?”
Dule: “Well…yeah!”

She hesitated for a few moments and then signed my postcard with photo of some guy taking beer bath on it.
GUANO APES’ conference was overcrowded with journalists, the refrigerator with free (non-alcoholic) drinks was empty and that poor, poor girl Sandra Našic, the singer, had no breasts whatsoever, so we went to sing “Luka” with Suzanne. (Speaks DJEDSG: Well shitty day anyway, not worth mentioning so I’ll get back to CHUMBA’s once more. When I told them that we were not really the journalists but low-life, barely literate scum punks they replied with “Well, that’s OK, we’re not real rock stars either”. Now, let’s get back to Dulles.)

DAY 3.
Our friend Milun woke me up at 7:00 a.m. complaining that Hungarians watered down the beer and that he just couldn’t get drunk. My theory was that you couldn’t get drunk if you’re wandering around all the time, so I’ve decided to prove him wrong: I took him by his ear, led him right to the nearest bar where we sat down and after three or four beers got drunk as a couple of school girls. We even made a competition to see who could drink more with some German and Slovenians and, of course, beat the shit out of them. Stevan and the rest woke up and joined in right away. At about the same time THERAPY got started with their sound check so I guess now you see what I meant with what I wrote earlier about the festival mornings. The party went on during the day with occasional showers and fast food breaks, just to show our livers that we cared. If there weren’t for some photos that we took at THERAPY’s press conference I really wouldn’t knew if we’ve been there or not. I remember their concert though. They played all the hits Stevan and I knew by heart. You should’ve seen us sing along with our fists in the air and all. And APOLLO 440’s gig and conference are still a total mystery to me. I remember nothing, zip, zilch, zero, jack, squat, none, nil, nada, nope!
(Rastafarian prophet and poet known in the world as DJEDOSG remembers: THERAPY played a really good set of songs mostly from fantastic “Troublegum” album, which still remains their highlight to the present day but hell knows, it all sounded very slow to me…punks usually speed it up live, what the heck was with these guys? Not punks, probably…or just tired? APOLLO 4…who?)

DAY 4.
One of the main sponsors of the festival was “Arany Aszok” Brewery. They’ve made a small “Arany Aszok Village” within the island, which we found very interesting for several reasons. There we could exchange our empty cups with their logo on it for some merchandise. For example: 20 cups for a deck of cards, 30 for a baseball hat, 40 for a T-shirt, 50 for a towel, 60 for a wrist watch, 70 for a pair of shorts and 100 for a tent. Of course, we’ve already got one tent and a t-shirt each one day earlier, but I’m only writing this as a tip for potential this year’s islanders. Or if some girl wanted a few beers and a t-shirt, she just had to get on the small stage and take her top off (and make our job as “boob policemen” much easier).
We were advancing faster each day towards the perfection, and we’ve reached it right then, on this fourth day, when we discovered BEER IN CANS! It was the solution to the only problem on the festival – getting a beer when you’re in the middle of the crowd, watching your favorite band (I’m talking about getting through somewhere between ten and on hundred thousand people, so, believe me, it’s hopeless). HIM were playing that night and it was the perfect opportunity to test our plan. We filled our rucksack with 10 cans and continued with usual partying while watching for the gig. HIM played truly amazing! However much we hated their singer Valo before the show, we figured out that it was the act of a real frontman, a true rock star, not the boy next door, you know what I mean…He’s also a damn good singer, and all that connected with their hard rockin’ hypnotizing tunes brought us to enchanting experience so we (and I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience)felt that we were watching the hugest band in the universe. Enough about heavy metal, ten cans amount worked just right for those two hours in front of the main stage and lived happily ever after.
(Sitting in his Kingston residence, with sun shining through his lion-like dreadlocks, DJEDOSG recalls: ”Ow mon, that HIM guys were quite good, not what I was expecting while watching their shitty videos…Yes, indeed they are fuckin’ metalheads but there’s whole bunch of riffs right from the book of Steve Jones respectively, the keyboards made them sound a bit like great late FAITH NO MORE at the moments and all in all it was the most pleasant surprise of the festival for sure. And if they’d played “Don’t fear the reaper” by BLUE OYSTER CULT I would probably piss my army shorts, borrowed from Lošmi, unanimous bookmaker from Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Give thanks…” DJEDOSG stops his wise talk and jumps into the sea…a few minutes later he continues his speech while rolling a big reefer: “I don’t know what day of the festival was that night, but we were siting in our camp chanting and praising the name of The Almighty One when we heard familiar sound…and then it clicked – RAMONES MANIA were supposed to play that evening in one of the smaller tents. Yeah, the RAMONES-cover band from Hungary, so what! Me & Schimmu (of TRI DRUGARA and PUNK OFF TV show fame) run straight to the nearby tent to see them and it was a big fun. Tight sounding and with singer more looking like Andy Eldritch from SISTERS OF MERCY then Joey Ramone, they played a full hour of pure…well, Ramones-Mania, mostly concentrating on their later or less known (not by my standards anyway) RAMONES repertoire which was amusing enough comparing to bands covering mostly the first three epic LP’s”…DJEDO’S eyes go shut while he finishes his theological education.)

DAY 5.
Another frantic morning. Foolishly thinking that we could compensate all the fun missed by sleeping, the whole gang got started with early intoxication. We detedmined the pretty tight schedule for the day starting at 2 p.m. in “Tilos (Forbidden) Radio” tent where our fellow-countrymen DARKWOOD DUB and SILA…were supposed to play. Just outside the tent people from Belgrade’s “Free B92” radio were selling the “Otpor” (Resistance) goods and it was great to see kids from all over Europe wearing “Otpor” t-shirts or buttons or whatever (DJEDOSG’s commentary goes like this: both “Free B92” and “Otpor” were given some MTV awards in the past few years for some “achievements” or so and nowadays, after the so called “revolution”, are incorporated into the new Babylon created by this new “democratic” regime which more and more occurs to be the same old sick and corrupted shit.) Anyway, somebody told us that the bands were having some problems with equipment and that they weren’t gonna start for the next couple of hours, so Stevan and me went to see DIE ARZTE press conference instead. The Conference was overcrowded with German journalists and all of them spoke only in German during the whole conference, except when drummer said “Hey! Cool t-shirt.” referring to Stevan’s CRASS t-shirt. Bored to death and sobered up we ran back to reunite with our wrecking crew just to find them at their finest. Screaming and laughing like mad, making fun of everyone around, especially the “Otpor” kids (neglecting the fact that we supported the movment back then, DJEDOSG excluded, those guys acted too fucking important and serious and you shouldn’t do that in front of Novi Sad people if you don’t want to become a laughin’ stock). To cut the long story short (DJEDOSG’s quiz question: what was the name of the first SPANDAU BALET 7”? Send answers to S.C.A.B.), Belgrade fuck-ups didn’t play at all and they pretty much ruined that whole afternoon for us. Goddamn patriotism coasted us fortune worth of fun! We’d be way better off watching any Hungarian band ‘cause they’re all ludicrous, believe me. After the quick stop at “Arany Aszok” village to get some liquid necessities we moved in front of the main stage to see anarcho fun-punk three-piece DIE ARZTE. One way or another (DJEDOSG’s quiz question no.2: what is the name of the second song on BLONDIE’S “Parallel Lines”? Send answers to Hell.), Stevan got lost in the crowd and later went with the female gangsters to see Natacha Atlas performing at the “World Music Stage”. The headliners of the evening were THE CLAWFINGER but they were out of luck ‘cause it started raining like hell, so instead of getting wet (we had enough moisture inside of us) Fedja and me spent the rest of the night debauching with some engaging Berliners.
(When confronted with Dulle’s in court, DJEDOSG spoke in his thick Jamaican accent: I must admit that I like and respect DARKWOOD DUB very much and while chattering with Russian Princess Ivana Oblomovskaya Adamova, we both came to the conclusion that SILA…is probably one of the best bands in Yugoslavia according to what the witnesses said, but we were both out of luck to see them live so far, so I was looking forward to see these two bands “in a strangeland”...which, as you may have read, coasted me missing the hell lot of DIE ARZTE’s performance. Being friends for years with local Deutsch-Punk fanatics this band means to me more that to my fellow Islanders who probably know them only from VIVA Music Channel. Their “Planet Punk” LP contains some of the best punk songs I’ve heard in the nineties and the other stuff I’ve heard cannot be called weak in any sense, so I was expecting the cool show. When I came around the stage they were just finishing my favorite “Schunder song” and it spoiled my day even more. The rest of the set was, say, OK but being a trio they just can’t match with their records in concerts. And, boy, I hate daylight performances, the night is where the magic really spreads. Maybe that’s why I liked the next band even more. To those familiar with “Alternative Tentacles” catalog name VHK is not new for sure. Biafra put out a couple of albums by this long-going Hungarian band and I was eager to check out his taste. And, believe me, these old fellas were quite amazing, noisy but still melodic, with tribal drums and percussions galore, they really moved the crowd and yours truly. Oh yeah, later I really went to see Natacha Atlas with the “Queens of the Dog Beach” (plus “queen of hardcore” I think) but while passing through the “African Village” I’ve heard some familiar sound and said to my lovely female companions “Hey, I wanna hear this for a few minutes…go on, I’ll catch up with you later”. Of course, I knew it was a fuckin’ lie – there was this German looking guy with two turntables playing some of the most beautiful reggae and dancehall I’ve ever heard. His set was mix of old and new reggae hits dome in the finest JA sound system tradition and for the next two hours I was melting in happiness and joy, feeling high without any helping substances, Just imagine when even the dreadful SANTANA’s “Maria Maria” in a dancehall version sounded to me like the best song in the world. OK, OK…I know this is the Punk fanzine and all but at least I must say this: a good DJ is 1.000.000 times better that most of the bands I’ve eyewitnessed in my whole life. There was a heavy rain at the end of his set but I really wasn’t paying attention.)

DAY 6.
“Like a rock, like a planet, like a fuckin’ atom bomb…” The excitement we felt knowing that we were gonna see BAD RELIGION led us straight to obliviousness and describing this morning would make me a liar, but I’m sure it wasn’t pepsi we’ve been drinking to com down. Another great thing of the day was BLOODHOUND GANG! Some might say they suck, but lemmetellya something – the title of the album they were promoting was “Hooray for Boobies”…shall I say more? Their press conference alone was a total blast. We could hardly hear anything because of all the guffawing around (the recording we made there was of no use whatsoever). Craze continued later on the stage. Not very high instrumental virtue hidden behind their great entertainment abilities, just perfect festival songs and embarrassment for life for those audience members who wanted to participate in the show. It was the first-rate prelude for what we broiled to see with impatience. Jelena, Milun, Stevan and I have already seen BAD RELIGION on the “Warped tour” back in 1998. and Stevan once more before in Berlin, 12 years ago on their “No Control” tour (lucky bastard), so we were a bit less excited than the rest of the losers, but somehow, way more wasted. Stevan and I had to take long cold showers to straighten up for the press conference and it has already begun when we perceived that both of us showed up wearing ALL t-shirts. Freaky. That was the first dates of their new European tour and the guys were extremely obliging, what encouraged us to “steal” one of the band members for a “face-to-face” interview (even for the price of getting banned from the tent).
(DJ Original, DJEDOSG continues in his mellow, subtle voice: quiz question no.3 goes like this – how would you call “face-to-face” interview with the members of FACE TO FACE? Send answers to Gaga. OK, the intention was to “steal” Brian Baker, we wanted to do that from the day one, and we succeeded. I mean, B.R. is a great band and we respect them all, even Bobby/Booby?/, but you know…MINOR THREAT, DAG NASTY etc. this was the right man for us, highly trained punk journalist, fuckin’ pro’s, man. In fact, what follows is not a fuckin’ interview, and I really hate to interview people in such a formal way, we just chat for a little while with the man that means a lot in our otherwise meaningless lives. And here it goes:

SCAB: Gdje se mi sada nalazimo Dušminko?
BRIAN: Chumbawamba…
SCAB: Bojim se da vas nisam baš najbolje razumio…

Whoops, wrong side of the tape. OK, rolling…

SCAB: DAG NASTY is one of our favorite bands…
BRIAN: Mine too, I love it.
SCAB: A few weeks ago I saw a guy with DAG NASTY tattoo on the back of his neck…(Milan of SUBMARINE DREAM fame)…
BRIAN: (shows his nicely done DAG NASTY tattoo on his, say, right arm)
SCAB: So, DAG NASTY forever?
BRIAN: Yeah. Forever. I love it. Dave Smalley, the singer, lives about 10 miles from me and we’ve just started working on new songs now…maybe we’ll do and some shows in Europe as DAG NASTY but I wanna do it so that it doesn’t look like some reunion for money, I mean, I will play for free…
SCAB: Did you play on “Four on the floor” album, there was no your name anywhere on the cover?
BRIAN: Yes I did, I have to use the fake name.
SCAB: Why?
BRIAN: Because I was on another record label, called “Geffen” at the time and they wouldn’t get me permission…
SCAB: You were in JUNKYARD, right?
BRIAN: Yeah, they wouldn’t give me the permission to be in DAG NASTY so I said “Fuck you, I’ll do my own, I’ll just use the fake name”…Dale Nixon is my another fake name, it’s like my e-mail address…and if you ever want to find me in a hotel I’m always under Dale Nixon…you know, it’s a little secret.
SCAB: How old were you when you’ve started with MINOR THREAT? Fourteen?
BRIAN: I was fifteen years old. Fifteen years old and had no idea what I was doing…
SCAB: But it later became one of the most influential band of all time.
BRIAN: We had no idea, we were doing it for fun in my friends’ mothers basement, we didn’t even know we would put out a record…it just happened, so I guess I was very lucky, that’s all.
SCAB: Do you still meet Ian or any of the “Dischord Records” crew?
BRIAN: I’ve talked to Ian and Jeff…I live in D.C. so I see them…I saw Ian two days ago…

And right in that moment the chief of the press staff came and took Brian away, but since we were not accredited to do this interview at all, we were still satisfied with what we got. Later that night we met again but in a performer-audience position and they were good as ever even though the sound was not quite brilliant. With so many great albums behind they always have a set of awesome songs to play so I guess everybody was satisfied that night. The only thing that was always bothering me at their shows were the songs from early records which I was never fond of…or as I use to say “How could BAD RELIGION concert could be any worse -–just let them play the songs from How could hell be any worse”, but guess some people like that stuff and I must respect that, being the tolerant guy that I am.)

DAY 7.
The last day of the festival. We weren’t very sad ‘cause we all missed our beds with clean sheets (Quiz question no.4 by DJEDO…oh, gimme a break!) our bathrooms (in sense of separate showers) and most of all some ”straight” mornings (God help me, I had my first only a few weeks later). The plan was to pack our stuff, store them in the bus we took on lease with some people from Belgrade, get back on the Island, drink ourselves silly and one hour after OASIS finish their set, get on the bus and go home bitter home. Of course, it wasn’t that easy because of Belgrade’s ceaseless attempts to affirm it’s superiority over Novi Sad – they were at least three hours late, so we had another major fight. The one we had on the arrival was our fault mostly, we were “laughin’ too loud”(?!). That all just proved the theorem that people of Novi Sad and people of Belgrade don’t mix, which is weird, ‘cause everybody knows that Serbian nation is pacific to the bone. Another waste of time was going to the press tent – both K2R RIDDIM and OASIS didn’t show up but fun time started with K2R RIDDIM show – crazy-dancing ska/reggae act from France with large amount of positivity. Slightly boozed and back in the good mood again, we moved in front of the “World Music Stage” to see probably the biggest attraction of the festival – BOBAN MARKOVIC ORKESTAR, Serbian Gipsy brass band, well-known for playing with Goran Bregovic on the soundtrack album for Emir Kusturica’s “Underground” movie, the Europe’s block buster at the time. The ocean of people witnessed the event (40.000 as we read somewhere later, but I could swear there were way more) and all of them were dancing like mad, waving their hands and breaking their tongues trying to sing along to some Bregovic's stuff and some Serbian brass folk standards, especially when Gipsies played “Kalašnjikov” and “Mesecina”, that was a complete madnes. The crowd wouldn't let them off the main stage, so the organisers had to stop them. OASIS, “the greatest band in the world”, sucked awfully bad! Everybody knew they were gonna split up after the tour and that Noel had already left the band. Although this was the loudest concert OASIS played so slowly that they were exhausting and really impossible to enjoy, even for the fans like myself. After them, we had one hour to go, which we spent on drinking the Island goodbye.
(Listening to the new SLACKERS CD, now in his Novi Sad residence, DJEDOSG concludes this festival report: K2R RIDDIM I already knew from French ska compilation out on “Moon Ska” label given to me some time ago by good editors at S.C.A.B., so I was expecting their performance with impatience. After seeing their sound-check earlier that day I simply knew that they were going to be ass-kicking: full horn section, percussions, 2 DJ’s along with standard rock instruments (read: bass, guitar and drum) just couldn’t make it bad. And they didn’t. The band that probably nobody in the crowd ever heard of before the festival played so fantastic and enthusiastic that you just couldn’t resist dancing and enjoying. Their noble blend of late 60’s/early 70’s Jamaican music commonly known as ska, reggae and rocksteady is just a perfect music for festivals or happenings off all kind – it really takes away the pain and sorrow and puts one big, big smile on your face while your feet can’t resist moving and moving…
OK, Dulles described the atmosphere at B.M. ORKESTAR show just right so I don’t need to add anything and the OASIS were such a bore, oh man, I really like some of their songs and kinda respect them as a band but this was way beyond any expectations. It was more fun talking with old friend from Srajevo about 80’s hardcore bands (SOULSIDE rule, Arsen!!!) than seeing the “best” or “biggest” or whatever they call this band.
And for the end, I just don’t know what to say…yeah, it was this big company sponsored festival, MTV stars were all around etc. but as you have read we were there just for the fun, making friends and be generally nice to everyone so I think seven nights in an uncomfortable tent was just worth it. At least, we were there for free so none of our cash would kill babies who knows where…the true “unchained spirit”. Just kiddin’. That’s all folks.)