Biography

Nenad Koković - brač

Born in Zadar, Croatia on May 23rd 1965.

He has been writing poetry since the second grade of primary school. He was published in the school newspapers.

He started to play tambura in 1979 in the Folkloristic group Emona where he fell in love with this family of instruments.

He left Emona and joined the Folkloristic group Tine Rožanc as a tambura player – a bugarist ( a rhytm istrument, kontra) and as a »tapandžija« (apan, tupan, a Macedonian drum). At the same time he founded a funk-pop group »Bolšoj teatr«, where he played the bass guitar, sang, wrote the lyrics and music arrangement. After having concluded the military service in 1986, the band broke up.

In 1993 he joined the Šukar band, where he played the brač (bass prim), co-wrote song arrangements and sang the back vokal. At he same time he co-operated in several project by different Slovene musicians (Tinkara Kovač, Miran Rudan, Tanja Ribič, Monika Tratnik, Dadi Daz…) as a song writer, a composer, an music arrangement writer and an instrumentalist. He ended his co-operation with Šukar in 2002 and began his solo career.

After several unsuccessful projects he gathered a team of musicians in 2004, called KOKO & Mandovi.

Budimir Babić – bass guitar

Born in Bijeljina, in Bosnia and Hercegovina, on July 21st 1950.

As a 13-year-old he started to play the guitar in a band, which soon broke up. The same faith awaited him with his next group.

At the age of 15, being a student at the Učiteljišče (Secondary School of Education) in Bijeljina, he took up tambura (prim) , and later all the remaining instruments in his school tambura orchestra. He became a drumer for the group »Crveni fenjeri« that same year.

In 1968 he joined the rock group »Džentelmeni« as a bass guitarist.

From 1970 to 1072 he played in the group »Sebrne suze« and attended several Yugoslav festivals. Later he went to serve his nation.

In 1974, having served the Yugoslav National Army, he moved to Slovenia and took he job of a teacher at the Primary School Prežihov Voranc. He joined an alpine music band Ivan Kovačič (he played the bass the first year and then drums for seven yeas), where he remained until 1983. Then he moved to folk music and »turbo-folk«.

In 1979 he founded a school tambura orchestra.

In 2001 he and Koković decided to follow a slightly different career path. They have been inseparable since 2002, sharing failure and success.

Milan Bijeljac – guitar

He finished lower music school in Sarajevo as a promising young guitar player with several awards at different competitions.

He came to Ljubljana in 1992. He joined a guitar workshop that same year which went to become a group called Vali.

In 1996 the group Vali started to co-operate with Vlado Kreslin which led to concerts and co-operation with Vlado on two albums.

He met Nenad Koković in 1998 in, well where else than the Kreslin concert in Cankajev dom, where they both performed: Milan with Vali and Nenad with Šukarji. They have been working together ever since (the projects with Monika Tratnik, Tanja Ribič).

In 2004 he accepted the invitation and joined the group.

Boris Šprajc – drums

Five things you love to do!
Hanging out with friends, dancing ballet, playing tennis, listening to music, watching surf films…

Favourite dish?
Salad at one of the Ljubljana restaurants.

Shoe size?
39 or 40.

Colours that make your day?
All the sunny colours, green, blue…

The person who makes your day?
Every person that is not violent or pushy; however »žabica« brings me peace.

Sanja Kajdiž – back vocal

If I tell you I lived in a time when, we, the little ones, spent our time on the playground playing at cops and robbers, and games such as »Ljubljana, Zagreb, Beograd, stop«, »Dame in Gospodje« some of which had a nationalistic tone, … if I tell you I spent my childhood and adolescence watching partisan films and series à la »Pozorište u kući« (Theatre in the house), »Povratak otpisanih« (The Return of the Dead), »Kapelski kresovi (The Bonfires of Kapel), and the like… that the bunnies from the commercial Cik-Cak were the ones to send me to brush my teeth and go to bed, …. that I cried with my other schoolmates in the 8th grade at the news that our Josip Broz Tito was dead…., having told you all that I really do not need to put down the exact year of my birth since the latter is not that important.

Maybe it would be better if I say that a certain never-ending playfulness and lack of seriousness hold a grip over me, … that I still find friends to be more important than politics and a purse full of euros, … that I do not allow myself to spend a day without at least three wide smiles, and that music is my life.

Music is not just something being played in the background for me, it is not a noise coming from the radio accompanying my daily chores. Music always moves me, in one way or another. Good music makes me cry… good music makes me euphoric, it makes me almost fall into a trance, it gives me goose bumps… I cannot keep still when good music is being played, my hips start to swing back and forth on their own, … good music makes me feel love.

Gipsy music is music with a soul. Music whose middle name is love. My kind of music.

Irena Drobež – back vocal

Born to a mother and a father, and almost on the dance floor of the Festival Hall. …:) They taught me to appreciate simple things that make me happy even when everything doesn’t go the way I would want it to.

Good music, dance, smiles, a truthful friend, a sunny as well as a rainy day… And yet music is the one that stays and lifts me from the boredom of routine and makes every day something special and unique, as unique as we are ourselves.

A beautiful, 24-hour day, every day!