Disdrug, The Štrudls and Nika Solce Shake Up the Idyllic Alpine Expanses of Northern Primorska (2018)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Čadrg / Slovenia
Concert date: 12.05.2018
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: €0.00 free entry)

The traditional May get-together in Čadrg, with musicians in tow, remains a »time-honored custom« there. This time the flinty lads from the Čadrg Records label invited Nika Solce and the band Disdrug to join them, and for the occasion fired up their own bio punk rock’n’roll outfit The Štrudls, who hardly play anymore, or only very rarely. On that front, then, it was a bit of an exclusive.

A garage on a farmstead surrounded by pre-Alpine idyll, magical open expanses. The sun had gone down, the starry sky had switched on, and right there, where you can still hear the crickets chirping at night, The Štrudls were born once upon a time. The scene was happily »crackling« and »buzzing« with all the commotion of the crowd. After the opening set by the youngest crew of Čadrg awakeners of musical hope, Nika Solce was first up on stage, playing a selection of her settings of Srečko Kosovel’s poems. Solo, that is, without cellist Martin Neag, with just a guitar in her hands. Nika played for a good half hour. She floored us with her lovely, delicate, full-of-feeling vocals. Tenderness and purity. Moving, touching. Hearts melted.

The Štrudls were of course born in Čadrg. That’s your thoroughly rudimentary punk, and judging by the lyrics, it’s a kind of eco and agro punk, armed with a »green tongue«. Jani and Samo Kutin founded the band in 1997, but later spread their musical vision wide and got busy in plenty of projects and bands, to mention just the most current ones: Širom and Bakalina. The band played a run of originals, working through the complete bird fauna of Čadrg’s peaks, rock faces, gorges and ravines, and foreign ones as well. There were stories about the Cow, about Fičo, about the Štrudl with super powers, and of course the closing number called Frika. What would we do without frika? With his culinary streak, Jani once again confirmed that the best Frikas are baked in Čadrg. Anyway, great stuff. You can tell the guys really hadn’t played in a long time, that their fingers had gotten a bit stiff, but there was no shortage of heartfelt charm and infectious fun, with all the racket and the funny lyrics.

Disdrug (This Fuck), who’ve recently shortened the name to just Disdrug! Three flinty lads from Železniki, also played as part of this year’s Hafner Memorial program in Cerkno. We caught them there a week earlier. For a while they were shrouded in obscurity, though they never actually stopped, but lately they’ve reactivated their live activity, and Matija Žumer (guitar), Andrej Podlipnik (drums) and Anže Krajnik (bass guitar) are a big stage theater all by themselves. One look at them and you know they’re oddballs. And their music is all the more special for it. An absolute original. The trio is exceptionally distinctive in its boldly drawn rhythms, which hold up the skeleton of the songs and are often placed in strangely cryptic ways as they converse with the phrases themselves. These can break off at will and the song veers into a completely new mood. All instrumental music. True, there’s a heap of racket in the music, even some alternative rock posing, but the band is set up almost progressively, with some phrases already sounding downright proto-metal abrasive. Expect the unexpected, in other words. The band enjoyed themselves, relaxed, and even seemed a touch tighter and so even more convincing than at their rather daring gig at C.M.A.K. a week before. And once again they were hugely entertaining. Bassist Anže kept theatrically leading the audience into the message of each upcoming song in the set during the breaks. With a touch of black humor and fun stage theater. The band walked through their original material and delivered a tight, penetrating racket, no brakes, played, as they put it themselves, all the way to the limit.

The guys finally intend to record a studio debut. After almost two decades together. Bravo. This thing absolutely must get some kind of studio document. Let me hint that Andrej and Anže are rare men who listen to Eloy, the legendary German prog band of the seventies. So together in Slovenia there are now maybe even five connoisseurs of this magnificent progressive rock band. In short, an excellent show. In an excellent garage ambience, raw, genuine, with flubs or without. It doesn’t even matter. Just abrasive energy, backed by complex rhythms and compositional structures. Disdrug is a band that brings an absolute breath of fresh air to the Slovenian rock’n’roll scene.