By: Blerim Shala (published for the first time in the Albanian Political Weekly "Zëri", January 2003)

The first impression that is created when listening to the CD of the group "403", edited a few days before the year 2002 ended, is that we, the generation to which the 403 belong, have at least 100 years of life!

This impression does not seem at all an exaggeration when we know how much death we have seen in our lives.

I'm talking about the death of a system (communism), of an international order (of Yalta or the "Cold War"), of a state (the SFRY), of an occupation (of Serbia).

The late Professor [Fehmi] Agani, in those final moments of the Rambouillet Conference, in the March episode in Paris, when the danger was mentioned that Serbia - at the moment of the launch of the NATO Pact campaign - would start killing members of the Kosovo delegation, with that well-known sense of humor that did not abandon him even when it was most difficult, told us: Even if I die, I will have something to show God. To witness the deaths of three Yugoslavians is not a small thing.

Between March '81 and July '90

In the eighties, when a stable rock scene was created in Kosovo, it was hard to imagine that in a dozen years Europe and the world would change so much.

Everything around us seemed eternal: from the political and cultural gloom, an individual lack of perspective, a political establishment that did not know how to find itself in those circumstances, communism as a social order that will not be able to change, Yugoslavia as the state that seemed to be the Albanians. In that suffocating environment there were very few oases of air where you could breathe more freely. One of them was rock. It was a kind of paper shelter and we knew it well. I remember that on one occasion my Serbian neighbor had turned up the volume of the radio where one of the "Truth Rallies" was being broadcast, which were exactly like that. There, nowhere before, the true face of a regime and a people was shown. In that helplessness of mine, I put the speakers in the window and blasted The Sisters of Mercy.

The Kosovar year of the 11s will take place between two boundary stones that mark, for Kosovo, two important moments in the new history: March 1981, 5 and July 1990, 81. In March 90, the Republic of Kosovo rolled as a request on the streets of Pristina and Kosovo. In July XNUMX, she took a seat in the Assembly of Kosovo.

The last rock event on the set of the Palace of Youth (formerly the "Boro e Ramizi" Center) was held on July 5, 1990. If I don't forget, it was Migjeni (Kelmendi) with "Tjurmët".

That night, Pristina was occupied with the Assembly suspended by Serbia, without television, without radio, with an anxiety that had entered each of us. As the chorus “Show me how to become a hero ...” was heard, each of us was faced with two conclusions: The first was the easier one, the self-indulgent one that everything will soon pass, that the world will now see how rude they are and how much we are victims. The second was the more difficult and realistic one: We have nowhere to turn back, we have declared the republic, we must implement it at all costs, regardless of the price.

On July 2, 1999, tens of thousands of Albanians for the first time celebrated the Republic Day freely in the streets of Pristina.

Sisyphus and the Stones

Rock in Kosovo, until these new days of late June 1999, had very little chance of survival. In other words, everything was against him. All those who were afraid of changes, thought that with a song, with long hair, with jeans and loud speakers, an order (state, social, cultural, etc.) could be broken, which had expired. Rock artists were seen first and foremost as rebels, drug addicts, maybe even junkies. They, on the other hand, knew very well that rock in Kosovo cannot be a business, that henceforth, you cannot live from it (with big profits) nor die (from drugs and fame). Predestined for failure, they knew that here the stones have more to do with Sisyphus than with the Stones. However, they couldn't stand it without making a little noise, enough to tell themselves and the listeners that Kosovo's peace was an order that was decaying day by day.

There were rock songs and groups in Kosovo even before the eighties. Haki Misini's MAK even won prizes in the Chords of Kosovo with folk-rock, which followed the open trend in the former RSFJ by Bijelo Dugme. However, in the eighties, under various rock influences (from new wave-t to hard rock-u), here a rock scene is established with groups that will stay for years, or even for decades (like "Minator" of Naser Gjinovci and Mufail Liman).

Of course, here I have no pretensions to recapitulate Kosovar rock in the eighties, which had as its most worthy representatives "Minator", "Illyrians", "Gjurmët", "403", "Seleksioni 039", " The East" etc. In the world, with very few albums and more, with filming in RTP, these groups tried to prove that rock can survive in Kosovo.

The rock-authors of those years, like all of us, had a hard time because of the censorship to honestly articulate their feelings about the time and about the people. With a metaphor, with a complicated line, with a hidden message, wrapped in a bunch of useless lines, they tried to "say something". In the late eighties, when a false system was demolished here and the real occupation was imposed, in that transitional period in the spring of 1990, the rock authors, like the rest of us, began to speak without gloves (and with fists raised as a sign of revolt), for the evils that had brought us into the depths of the hon. There was a flirtation with popular music (in "Minatori", "Ilirët", "Gurmët"), to prove that rock and patriotism are not at odds, or, to penetrate the masses more easily.

Then, following the aforementioned 5th of July, rock was largely marginalized, with only a few good bands and songs.

After the war, we have everything and anything in Kosovo. Even in rock and pop.

Journey into the past

The group "403" presented us these days with their CD, which deserves to be considered one of the two or three best albums released after 1999. This album has 15 songs, which is a very rare occurrence in our country. where usually, so-called albums have eight songs. It is true that among these 15 songs there are many of those that made "403" a very important group of the eighties. But, with the new production of Hector (Gjurgialit), they form a whole and the new listener gets the impression that the whole album is the result of the last three or four years.

For those of us who are fans of Hektor, Mentor and others of "403", this album is a journey into the past, commemorating many events related to this or that song of "403". We can't be nostalgic for that time, but still for the people, for the ideas, for the efforts to somehow move things. At that time, "403" seemed to be rock - the most promising Kosovar group which, for various reasons, never reached where it deserved.

I said before that rock here did not offer opportunities for existence. Kosovar rockers, loved or not, were scattered around the world and in different professions and destinies.

Thus, it took years for "403" to reunite and record this album.

Those of us who want to see real albums in our rock bands can find various faults with this album. There are errors in the album booklet, lyrics and reading. It may seem to someone that Hector, in his aim for a rich production of songs, knows how to overdo it, that's why those "wild" productions of the eighties (in some songs) seem even more beautiful than these the clouds. Overall, though, this is a great album, with songs that are memorable. Among these new songs, "Angels do not live on earth" and "My city" stand out.

Hector and his friends, even today, in very good circumstances, cannot live off rock.

But this album shows that rock has lived here in our country.

This "403" album, previously the recapitulation album of "Gjurmeve" and "Minatori" with the continuity of album production, prove that Kosovo had good rock in the eighties. /Telegraph/

MUSICCult