Label: Self-released
Release date: February 2014
Production: Tomaž Maras & Don Mentony Band
Genre: Blues / Boogie / Rock ‘N’ Roll
Rating: 9.0 / 10
Don Mentony Band are, so to speak, the folk rock’n’roll legend (and fairy tale) of the Slovenian music scene. One of the most authentic musical stories about rock ‘n’ roll to come out of Slovenia in the late eighties, with a string of studio albums and a handful of juicy tracks that became national hits everybody knows! In 2000 came “Dobr se mi dogaja”, and then the band went into a long hibernation. Way, way too long. Somewhere around 2008 they came back from the dead and started gigging again with a nicely aired-out lineup. Naturally under the leadership of the one-and-only, ultimate figure that is Janez Zmazek Žan. The fruit of the reactivation was a double live document released by RTV ZKP Slovenija in 2010 called “The Best Of Živo”.
Žan has obviously found the winning formula for the rejuvenated Don Mentony Band, and he started writing new original material with it too. In May 2013 the band stepped onto the stage of Kamnik’s Dom kulture and played the new material live, in full. Not only that. They recorded it too? And the result? A recording of all the new material, played in one single take, became the new studio album called “Zajeban dan”. Zmazek is a seasoned musical rascal, and it’s hard for anything to stay hidden from him. The man has been musically active since the early seventies, when he played with Borut Činč in Jaguar, joined Buldožer in the eighties, helped out Vlado Kreslin, and then “finally found” himself in Don Mentony Band. And “Zajeban dan” isn’t entirely Buldožer-innocent. Besides Žan’s proverbial (and very real) knack for needling, which was always hugely in tune with the character and work of one of the sharpest bands of the Slovenian rock era, the new Don Mentony Band track Vraga naj te vzame even features the venerable Boris Bele himself on backing vocals.
For the new Don Mentony Band guard, Zmazek has gathered a crew of eager-to-prove-themselves and, most importantly, hugely talented musical aces. Žan and Luka Vehar create the desired contrast in how they approach the guitar. You recognize Žan by his musicality. The man needs just a sliver of the right space to drop a few notes in the right spot, and he’s won! He’s got a magic touch that he’s nurtured and developed over his career into clearly recognizable charisma. Vehar, on the other hand, has more softness, more technical definition. That contrast makes for a great meshing in the solos, fascinating in a full-blooded dose! The novelty is the accordion. Not keyboards, but accordion! We know Žan for his biting sarcasm. The man has definitely not forgotten how to write “off the cuff”, with no sugarcoating! What he feels, he says straight out, as the man himself puts it. What you see is what you get. No hide-and-seek here. That’s exactly why his barbed sarcasm has always hit home so well: he’s always dared to say out loud what most people think but would rather keep bottled up. This time, too, the basic themes of Žan’s poetry are handing out lessons to women and sketching what it’s like to be an observer of Slovenian society in 2013. It’s full of confessions about personal missteps, temptations, juicy man-woman games. Exactly what rock ‘n’ roll needs and what it was actually made for. A quiet rebel, devoted to following his own instincts. If you save your own integrity before the grayness of conformism sucks you in, you’ve done the essential thing, and if you also take along some filly who likes listening to your fairy tales, then you’re a total winner!
That’s more or less how the story on “Zajeban dan” unfolds, too. Žan’s rough, lower-pitched vocal is once again authentically cynical in its grumbling, but through that cynicism you also feel flashes of melancholy, which fits his innate sense for following musicality in the song structures. That musicality has at times leaned decisively toward elements of blues and rhythm ‘n’ blues, which you can hear together with the message of the lyrics! And it remains a constant. On “Zajeban dan” too! Žan stays mocking, generally entertaining, needling, endlessly jokey, despite the fact that his figure is placed at the center of a drama theater in which, one way or another, as the hero of the story, he ends up doomed (Bela črta, Ne grem se več). But it remains crystal clear throughout that in these seemingly “innocent jokes” of his, there’s still damn too much truth!
The songs are built on four, five chords! Everything is stripped down as far as it goes. This is a loose, relaxed album, full of short, punchy, yet precisely measured moves and gestures. That’s what Žan has always been famous for, as one of the most interesting and also most competent rock ‘n’ roll songwriters in Slovenia. The needling hum of a cunning old fox, despite a maturing vocal delivery, keeps its youthful glow and drive. The fire isn’t dying, and that’s the point! Alongside the vocals, the band co-creates an outstanding, beefy sound, masterfully carried over from the stage through the production and so authentically preserved on this record. The interplay of the building blocks, coloring in the contrasts of a stocky sound, is thrilling. Dorič’s accordion brings (totally unobtrusively) that genuine sheen of melody by which you instantly recognize that “Zajeban dan” is an album brewed on the sunny side of the Alps.
All of you looking for a simple, off-the-cuff, confession-packed dossier of purebred rock ‘n’ roll bitterness and occasional bluesy brooding, welcome home! Žan and company have made a strong album of twelve songs whose quality doesn’t waver for a second. The songs mostly rest on mid-tempo rhythmic solutions, here and there a waltz sneaks onto the record (Pravljičar), while elsewhere they warble out more rockingly (Mojster Povše). “Zajeban dan” is an album that the mass of die-hard rockers will take to in no time, and so will every fan of this band, who after 14 years of relentless thirst can finally, at long last, drink deep from the musical well of this record’s big heart!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Zajeban dan (3:53)
2. Ne grem se več (3:42)
3. Lahko si za, lahko si proti (3:06)
4. Mojca (3:59)
5. Vrag naj te vzame (3:16)
6. Pravljičar (2:50)
7. Neprijetna situacija (2:52)
8. Jaz nisem (2:41)
9. Saj je vseeno (4:08)
10. Bela črta (3:16)
11. Gospa Lepota ih gospod Denar (3:06)
12. Mojster Povše (2:22)
Lineup:
Janez Zmazek “Žan” – guitar, vocals
Luka Vehar – guitar
Boštjan Dorič – accordion
Klemen Teran – bass guitar, backing vocals
Žiga Kožar – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Robert Oven – backing vocals on tracks 1 and 6
Boris Bele – vocals on track 5
Mitja Kavčič – Hammond organ on tracks 4 and 10
