Musicians - Rambo Amadeus

Home > Listing Index > Musicians > Rambo Amadeus

	Musicians - Rambo Amadeus

Rambo Amadeus (born June 14, 1963 in Kotor, Montenegro) is a pseudonym for the Serbian-Montenegrin rock singer-songwriter Antonije Pušić, popular all over the ex-Yugoslavia. A self-titled musician, poet and media manipulator continues to be one of the most interesting phenomena on music scene(s) of the former Yugoslavia.

His songs combine satirical lyrics on the nature of common people and silliness of local politics. He uses a mixture of musical styles (converging towards drum and bass in later works, but involving a lot of turbo-folk elements in earlier songs), and self-conscious ironic wit (for example, one of his aliases is "Rambo Amadeus Svjetski Mega Car" (RASMC) -- "Rambo Amadeus World Mega Emperor"). His scene name itself is made from John Rambo and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Known also as a "charming king of jovial pop", his concerts are never mere repetitions of recorded songs, but a mixture of musical improvisation and humor exploiting all aspects of human nature in a crude manner. Some fans compare his style and career path with those of Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart.

He is a graduate of the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and he also completed six grades of elementary music school for piano before dropping out.

Before taking up music as a career choice, Rambo was an accomplished competitive sailor. Between 1972 and 1984, he represented Yugoslavia in numerous international regattas. During this period he was champion of Montenegro several times, an 8-time South-Adriatic champion, national title winner in the junior category, as well as International Đerdap Cup winner in 1980.

He began to sing and compose during first year of high school (gymnasium) which soon led to involvement with various local bands in Herceg Novi and Podgorica. One of his first performances saw him play the mandolin in an orchestra that entertained guests of Herceg Novi's Plaza hotel.

In 1985, he moved to Belgrade in pursuit of higher education. Parallel to his studies, he also played with various struggling bands and musicians.

Musical career

1980s

In 1988 he dropped onto the music scene right out of nowhere with a debut album O, tugo jesenja. His sound was a mix of folkish ululations, rap and even opera mixed in with humorous lyrics and classic guitar riffs. Since very few people had any prior knowledge of him, Rambo delighted in creating confusion by introducing himself as Nagib Fazlić Nagon, a mine shaft operator who saved up enough money to record an album. He referred to his own musical style as turbo folk, long before the term would obtain grave social connotations and come to symbolize moral and cultural decline throughout the Balkans during the wars of the 1990s.

In reality, it was actually thanks to producer Saša Habić that Rambo got the opportunity to sign for the state television's record company PGP RTB. Rambo later wrote an anecdotal tribute to that event, in the song Balkan boy – "...So he took me by the hand and led me upstairs to his office; When we got there there were also some older people; They offered me something to eat, they offered me something to drink; I was pleased so I just grinned". Habić also played the synthesizer on this album, from which a track named "Vanzemaljac" continues to be very popular to this day. The record's sales weren't particularly high, but Rambo certainly created enough of a buzz to be able to remain active on the scene.

Next album Hoćemo gusle came out in 1989 and gave a small taste of much of Rambo's future musical direction - overt political activism. The track "Amerika i Engleska (biće zemlja proleterska)" was originally supposed to be named "Kataklizma komunizma" (Cataclysm of Communism) but powers that be wouldn't allow it. The album title pokes fun at a bizarre event from the 1989 protests in Montenegro that eventually grew into anti-bureaucratic revolution which swept Milo Đukanović and Momir Bulatović into power. Protesters were heard chanting "Hoćemo Ruse" ("We want the Russians"), but when the authorities and state-controlled media criticized them for it, many quickly began backpedaling by claiming they actually chanted "Hoćemo gusle" ("We want gusle").

Other songs like "Balkan boy" and "Glupi hit" would also become considerable hits and Rambo even received solid critical acclaim for chances he took in "Samit u buregdžinici Laibach". On that track, he creates a catchy hybrid by mixing pretentiously heavy sound of Laibach with poetry of Laza Kostić and Desanka Maksimović, as well as with folk kafana standard "Čaše lomim" and his own turbo-poetry. Album sleeve lists the lyrics of a song that wasn't actually recorded and explains that "it was dropped at the last moment because there was no room for it" but gives assurances it would appear on the next album. Since the song in question, named "Pegepe ertebe", was all about taking shots at Rambo's label PGP RTB it isn't surprising that it didn't appear on the next, or any subsequent album for that matter.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Rambo Amadeus ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Rambo Amadeus; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay