Miroslav DukiĆ

Miroslav .....

Posted: 05/10/15

My story
My parents bought me my first guitar when I was 12 years old. That's when I learned my first chords, had a few performances with the school orchestra, but after a few months the guitar ended up in the corner of my room where it gathered dust for years. I regularly listened to Radio Luxembourg and discovered the bands Kings, Rolling Stones, Animals and Beatles and of course I got hooked on them, but, still, football was more tempting than the guitar at that time.

In my second year of high school (1968), by my own choice, and of course again by my parents, I was given a homemade copy of a Gibson ES 135 guitar, but of course the acoustic version. However, I spent most of my free time trying to perfect my painting techniques, as I had a penchant for fine arts in elementary school. At that time, I discovered jazz and rock music by listening, in addition to Radio Luxembourg and Radio Belgrade, to a different program that rotated every morning. jazz and bossa nova standards and, of course, the show "Veče sa radiom" on the First Program of Radio Belgrade, edited and directed by Nikola Karaklajić, from where I recorded on a two-channel tape recorder what I liked... those were... Jimi Hendrix, Rory Gallagher, Cream, Santana, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, Humble Pie, Janis Joplin... and listening to those tapes for hours and days, I spent pencils, tempera, pastels, inks... searching for myself. From the age of 18 I started seriously practicing and learning the guitar.

In the fall of 1971, two key events happened. The first was a seven-day school excursion when two classmates persuaded me to bring a guitar. I followed the songs they liked to sing, which were, in addition to old-school songs, songs by popular local performers. I met two guys from the neighboring class who declared me a solo guitarist, and I enjoyed trying to improvise and repeat themes because the two of them already played the chords ... We already knew simpler rock standards like Hey Joe, House of the Rising Sun, Satisfaction, Suzie Q, Come Together and others, so on the way back we formed a band ... I put a magnet on the acoustic guitar and on the radio of my friend Pere, where we practiced. Another very important event for me was a set of gramophone records that Ivica, my friend from the bench and from the area where I lived, received, which had just arrived from New York. His father was Josip Broz Tito's chief of staff, and when he arrived in New York, he went into a record store, explained who he was buying for, and the salesman made a choice that played a big role in my education and my approach to the guitar. These were the following releases: Ten Years After - Cricklewood Green, Woodstock - 3 × Vinyl - LP - Album, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 4 Way Street - 2 × Vinyl, Hendrix - Band Of Gypsys, TASTE (Rory Gallagher) On The Boards and The Guess Who - American Woman. In addition, I often listened to the LP releases Deep Purple - April, Deep Purple In Rock, The Moody Blues - Days Of Future Passed, The Doors - L.A. Woman, Santana - Abraxas, James Taylor - James Taylor, Big Brother & The Holding Company - Janis Joplin and with the increasing frequency of attempts to reproduce as faithfully as possible the music that filled me, the entire school year passed. '
First electric guitar.

In 1972, I saved up my pocket money and bought a second-hand Jolan Czech-made electric guitar, and used the money I spent buying a wardrobe in Trieste to buy a guitar amplifier. I used a hand-made tube amplifier that a guitarist who practiced with a band in the local community room where my school friend Cveja and I practiced together left me. After two or three months, I bought a Gibson SG from the Italian company EKO. I also bought an EKO acoustic twelve-string guitar and a bass guitar, a copy of a Fender Prestige, and occasionally practiced with my best friend Cveja.

In addition to practicing by listening to songs, I also acquired some brochures on playing the guitar from which I learned little, but I came across a book called Fundamentals of Music Theory by Marko Tajčević, which at that time was like a bible for musicians in these parts. Since I didn't go to music school, there were two steps forward and one back, but it seriously broadened my basic horizons. In early 1973, I met drummer Pedja Zorić and bassist Ljuba Stanić, with whom I founded the group POKUS, which we quickly renamed KOREN. We played blues and hard rock compositions by Rory Gallagher, Hendrix, Alvin Lee, Deep Purple, etc. We had a few performances in smaller towns in Vojvodina and a few performances in Belgrade.

I lived with my parents on the third floor and one day I heard a piano performance of the songs Summer Time, I am a Man, Smoke on the Water, Child in Time... While I was wondering what was happening, because the girl was normally playing the then program for the high school music school, the doorbell rang and when I opened it, the girl invited me to meet her friend who plays rock music on the piano... That's how I met the seventeen-year-old boy Vlado Turas...
His mother was from several generations of the famous POPAZ family from Pančevo near Belgrade. He went to music school, studied violin and was very talented, and his father bought him a very good organ and of course an amplifier during that time, so it didn't take me more than a few minutes to go to his place and play together.

We also formed a band and played dances in places in Vojvodina like most other rock musicians at that time...

In 1974, in the army, I met the singer Jovan Rašić and founded the group KOREN with him, with whom we participated in the rock festival in Kisac (Vojvodina). We performed my compositions, of which the composition "Theme No. 13" was recorded on vinyl. PGP RTS 1975. In the fall of that year, we recorded two new tracks at RTS Studio 5, which did not go well, with producer Đorđe Debač, because I had already ventured into jazz-rock and fusion music, and those arrangements were too uncommercial for that time and the environment I lived in. After that, the following year, I started playing with the group TAKO, and Jovan Rašić with the group GENERACIJA 5. To be continued.....

To be continuum...