Pera Janjatovic was a guest on the second panel prior to the Arsenal Fest
Pera Janjatovic, a rock critic and the author of the illustrated edition of the Ex Yu Rock Encyclopedia, was a guest on the second panel of the “Conversations with…” series leading up to this year’s Arsenal Fest at the Youth Center in Kragujevac, led by Maja Cvetkovic.
During the panel, Pera provided a comprehensive musical guide to Arsenal Fest 2024. He reminisced about the 60s and Zdravko Colic, the 70s and Bijelo Dugme, Brejkers, and the 80s, then onto Goblins and Jarbol who rocked the 90s, and finally Nicim izazvan and their beginnings in 2010.
Throughout the panel, they also discussed the process of gathering biographies and interesting facts, and when asked if, after all these years of research, he had made any mistakes or errors regarding specific years, Pera responded: “Yes, of course. Well, you can’t, there’s so much data to sift through.”
In all his encyclopedias, the photographs were black and white, but as Janjatović says: “we’ve progressed a bit,” so in the recently published fifth expanded edition of the illustrated Ex Yu Rock Encyclopedia, there are some color photographs.
During the conversation, Pera mentioned that he “didn’t consider how many people would be in the encyclopedia, just what potential readers would find important and interesting to know,” and he recalled various anecdotes.
In the packed hall of the Youth Center in Kragujevac, there were both questions and follow-up questions for Pera from the audience, as well as signings of the encyclopedia.
Biography
Petar Pera Janjatovic is a music journalist and rock critic. He first got involved in journalism while in high school as a contributor to the program “Evening with the Radio” on the First Program of Radio Belgrade. Starting from 1976, he began collaborating with numerous newspapers and magazines such as “Zdravo,” “Dzuboks,” “Start,” “Politikin zabavnik,” “NIN,” “Vreme,” and also hosted and prepared music radio and TV shows. From 1997 to 2002, Pera was the music editor at RTV Pancevo.
Today, he is a correspondent for Billboard magazine and the representative of the publishing house Dallas Records for Serbia.
So far, he has published: “The Other Side – Almanac of the New Wave in the SFRY” (1983), “Songs of Brotherhood & Childhood” (1993), “Illustrated YU Rock Encyclopedia 1960-1997” (1998), “Illustrated Ex-YU Rock Encyclopedia 1960-2000” (2001), “Ex YU Rock Encyclopedia 1960-2023” (2024).
Let’s remind ourselves, Bijelo Dugme will perform on June 28th, and then on the 29th, rockers from Las Vegas, Palaye Royale, will take the stage.
At Arsenal 2024, performances will also include Zdravko Čolić with a symphony orchestra, Keanu Reeves with his band Dogstar, Nouvelle Vague, Asian Dub Foundation, Sivert Hoyem, Circa Waves, Nik West, Lil Pump, Partibrejkers, Goblins, Keni nije mrtav, Jarboli…
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