#slovenian cover

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

Welcome to Dead House - Slovenia

Amanda and Josh think the old house they have just moved into is weird. Spooky. Possibly haunted. And the town of Dark Falls is pretty strange, too. — But their parents don't believe them. You'll get used to it, they say. Go out and make some new friends. — So Amanda and Josh do. But these creepy new friends are not exactly what their parents had in mind.

Because they want to be friends...

...Forever.

[damaged-graveyard]

Quitting my job at a massive entertainment company in the capital. The anxiety and self doubt ive had for months due to the manager giving 0 feedback and playing favourites is not worth it. I hope she trips and falls down the bowling lane and gets sucked into the ball return machiene. Maybe she can attend a manadegement class once the machiene pulls her head out of her ass. I hope she gets stuck in one of the escape rooms and they just leave her there.

[jokeroutsubs]

SLOVENIAN CUISINE: EXPLAINED

Extremely confused by Joker Out’s recent post? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

KRANJSKA KLOBASA:

Carniolan sausage is one of the most recognisable Slovenian culinary products. Since January 2015 it has been protected with geographical indication by the European Union. It originates from the historical region of Kranjska, once the Duchy of Carniola, a crown land of the Austrian Empire. The sausage is a reddish brown colour on the surface and bears a faint scent of smoke. Each pair is held together with a wooden skewer.

Preparation: It contains at least 75 to 80% pork (aside from bacon) and at most, 20% bacon. It may contain up to 5% water, sea salt from the Sečovlje salt pans, a little garlic, saltpetre and black pepper. No other ingredients are permitted. It has to be cooked before consumption. It is usually eaten hot, together with sour or cooked cabbage or sour turnip.

Perfect for: folk village parties called ‘veselice’, where they are a common choice alongside wine or beer. For that occasion, bread, mustard, and sliced onion are mandatory accompaniments.

IDRIJSKI ŽLIKROFI:

Žlikrofi is a traditional Slovenian dish, originating from Idrija a small town in the east of Slovenia. Idrija is mostly known for its lace and now-closed mercury mines. Žlikrofi were the first Slovenian dish registered as a Traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG).

Preparation: Žlikrofi are made using pasta, filled with a mixture of potatoes, onion, pig lard, chives and other spices. They are best served with ‘bakalca’ (a sauce made out of lamb and vegetables).

Perfect for: Žlikrofi are eaten all year round and can be served either as a starter, side dish or a main course. Alongside restaurants in Idrija, tourists can also try them at the Idrija Lace Festival or at the Idrija Žlikrofi Festival, where žlikrofi are prepared in more than 35 different ways. The žlikrofi festival is held at the end of August, this year it is taking place on the 24th of August.

POTICA:

Potica (a Slovenian nut roll) is the number one traditional holiday pastry in Slovenia. It has been registered as a Traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG) in the European Union since April 2021.

Preparation: It consists of a rolled pastry made from sweet yeast dough, most commonly filled with walnuts, but there are variations with hazelnuts, tarragon, poppy, cottage cheese and others. Its ingredients are quite basic, but achieving the right balance of filling and dough is challenging. Traditionally it is ring-shaped, baked always in the special shaped potica baking mould (ceramic, glass or tin one), called ‘potičnik’, which has a conical protrusion in the middle.

Perfect for: All holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. Slovenian housekeepers are happy to bake it even outside the holiday season to pamper their loved ones.

PREKMURKSA GIBANICA:

Prekmurje layer cake (literal translation: Over-Mura moving cake 😂) is a special cake originating in eastern region of Slovenia, Prekmurje. The name ‘gibanica’ comes from the dialect expression güba and refers to a fold. Since March 2010, prekmurska gibanica is protected in the EU as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed.

Fun fact: If you are visiting Prekmurje, you can swing by The House of Gibanica, where you can enjoy the full gibanica experience which includes tasting handmade gibanica, made in the traditional way using a protected recipe.

Preparation: The preparation of this layered cake is quite complex and expensive, which is why it is only served on special occasions. Each layer is topped with plenty of sweet cream, eggs and butter. The dessert requires crumbly and rolled dough and four types of filling, made up of cottage cheese, poppy seeds, walnuts and apples.

Perfect for: special occasions like Christmas and Easter. As it is very filling, it’s not ideal to eat (or prepare) in hot weather.

BOGRAČ

Bograč is a hearty dish, consisting of many meats. It is typical of the Prekmurje region. It is a festive dish, as it is never cooked for just one person. It is best when cooked in a kettle over an open fire. In Hungarian this kettle is called 'bogrács' , hence the name of the dish.

Preparation: Sweat onions in lard, then add a different type of meat to the dish at the end of each hour of simmering: first the beef, then the venison, and finally the pork. Season with paprika and add a splash of white wine. Finally, add the potatoes and cook until they are done.

Perfect for: large family gatherings.

Fun fact: Every year, Lendava* organises the international 'bograč' cooking competition called ‘Bogračfest.’ The municipality of Lendava also holds the Guinness World Record for the largest bograč ever prepared (1,801 kg) since 2021.

* A Slovenian town near the Hungarian border.

Content prepared by: @kurooscoffee, @weolucbasu, drumbeat

Graphic design by: X pastellibianchi, anonymous JOS member

English proofreading by: IG GBoleyn123, @flowerlotus8, X klamstrakur

[brightlypainted]

I went completely bananas and wrote a full analysis of Joker Out and JO fandom stuff and situation... idk

Hi baby boos!

I’ve seen some confusion regarding JO’s latest announcements and social media activity (or lack thereof) so I've tried to analyze the current situation with a critical eye 🤓

I don't use Tumblr much so you're probably more familiar with my Twitter but I got suggested to post this here for easier reading (and... better audience in general 👀)

Long rant under the cut:

Before I begin I must point out that these are my opinions and theories. I have no idea how JO’s communication and management is being organized right now, I’m just making assumptions based on my perception as a fan 🤷‍♀️

(also I’m a communication graduate but my studies and current job cover this sector only tangentially so I may not know how some/most of this works…)

Let’s start with comparing last year’s situation to the current one: one year ago the boys were riding high on the wave of enthusiasm, having had a successful ESC (despite the ending placement) and having gained a lot of attention as fan favorite competitors ✨

A very high % of the growing fanbase, esp the international one, was coming directly or tangentially through ESC and how do you maintain that attention once the contest is over? you increase your social media presence and you start planning international concerts. which they did!

This constant exposure to content made the fandom flourish: we were all witnessing how easily people from everywhere could join and already feel at the very center of attention, both because JO’s communication was being very active and successful and also thanks to fanmade organizations like JokerOutSubs, group chats, old time Slovenian fans sharing juicy pre-ESC content, etc. I'll be grateful forever

We had a past year that could be divided into 2 halves in terms of communication: it all went extremely well until more or less the end of 2023 (last tour dates in Spain) and then started gradually becoming very odd and chaotic all through 2024 until last month’s complete draught

We know that they mostly tend to manage their online presence on their own, so ofc during breaks and during very busy times is harder for them to find good content to share. They had also been very clear about needing time off their phones all through the London era and the album recording in Hamburg, so that didn’t come as a surprise for fans 🤷‍♀️

But having very sensible, personal reasons to quit/decrease social media presence has unfortunately no meaning in communication, where the laws are very simple: once you stop sharing, you stop existing

I don’t want to criticize their choices, because they are entitled to their privacy and offline time. I’m just pointing out that this very long, hiccup-y period probably could have been avoided with better management and with the presence of a smm/pre-planned sm communication 🙃

It also unfortunately happened concurrently to the new ESC season, which was bound to “organically” erode part of the fandom anyway, and to an EU tour that, although successful, has still highlighted a lazy/bad management and yet again a communication that made little to no sense at times (es. the whole campaign that subtly asked people to go to more than one concert, which clearly made fans with less financial and logistical possibilities feel ‘lacking’ and ‘inferior’) 🙄

In their defense, the tour was to establish a fanbase more than gaining more fans and exposure, so pushing for getting more of a loyal than an occasional fanbase wasn’t completely wrong an idea… it just backfired

And it did because the greatest part of their international fanbase is made of very young people who aren’t financially independent and whose interests are bound to be fleeting and shifting ESPECIALLY when they aren’t constantly met with content production/consumption

Let’s also not forget that having completely shifted their attention to international waters at the expense of the Slovenian/regional fanbase has been very risky. We still can’t tell if the gamble was successful or not

It’s never a good idea to ignore/neglect your hardcore supporters, the very people that helped you raise to your current standards. it’s true they are the most loyal, but they are also very easily the ones that could feel more betrayed

I also think it’s very risky trying to shift the fans’ content consumption out of social media and into a (controlled, easier to manage, ofc) site like Openstage for two main reasons: as said before, complete disappearance from socials means communicational suicide and until now, the “dedicated content” directed toward fans on the site has been… too bland and generic (sorry)(they can learn how to improve that)

Openstage has other very interesting uses tho, firstly the early access to ticket sales and secondly the tracking of international fan presence, which was pretty clearly the main goal and reason why they opened the site in the first place... so it’s not ex ante a bad communication choice, just (until now) one that has yet to show its potential and usefulness

So what now? I think it’s time they make a few considerations and sensible choices to maintain what’s currently the status quo and in order to tackle festival season in the best way

They need to keep their international presence by opening their fanbase to a new kind of fans: festivals bring exposure to bands from a very specific type of fanbase, more interested in music than in contents. If they manage to capture the interest of Sziget people, for example, they could gather a new type of international fanbase less interested in the “social media” content consumption and more in the “I wanna see these guys play again, somewhere else, maybe a show of their own” way

(which, to be completely fair, could be the best choice to cure their current crazy/shifting/confusing fanbase state, giving them more peace of mind, more privacy and a more ���normal” rock band experience than the one they had in the past year… that we can all agree has been pretty bad at times)

I personally think this summer season must go in the quantity direction (gaining more new fans) and at the same time in the quality direction (less shows, bigger stages) and this is why some of you are disappointed in seeing so little shows compared to last year or to the SYS tour... I get it

Many of us, me included, won’t be seeing JO live for the whole summer season, and I’m aware that is disappointing, but I hope this analysis has helped you put things into perspective and consider maybe one of the possible reasons why this next phase for Joker Out is being organized this way

I’m still hoping they’ll find a good compromise with their social media communication, because right now I really feel that being the main issue with the gradual but constant drop in traction (please boys hire a smm. i adore jan’s sad edits and the unhinged video and stories like the next person but serious work has to be done too)

Ending the rant on a note of hope: I wish to see you all enjoy the summer and the content to come and I hope for the boys to have a successful, fun season full of new experiences, new music, new people, fresh ideas for the future. I’m honestly very excited for what’s to come! 🌻

[eremji]

WIP Wednesday

Messing around with some fun little writing exercise snippets for the #TF Mecha AU. This was definitely just an excuse to try writing something action-heavy, since so many of my other current WIPs are so scenic and talky.

The Escaflowne -> Gundam -> Evangelion -> Pac Rim -> Transformers pipeline has really done it for me over the last few decades and I cannot stop writing Big Machines.

Human!Mechanic Ratchet tickles something in my brain. I love putting men in their 40s with back pain in Situations and Predicaments. My working take is he's still working for an organization he hates, but he's too old for this shit, he resents his job, and is perfectly set up to have an eventual midlife crisis over wanting to date his Bugatti a robot an alien.

///

“How close?” Ratchet calls down at the pilot scaling the massive bot closest to his workstation. He doesn’t know her name, but her bot is Strika, one of the first manufactured models they bought from the Slovenian engineering program. The woman isn’t Strika’s original pilot.

“Half mile, incoming,” she shouts back, hauling herself upwards hand over hand with no harness, corded muscles flexing. “Two minutes.”

Direct contact. He can't just hide in his office and wait for this one to blow over. Fuck. Ratchet kicks his kit closed and crams the prototype knee assembly into an empty storage locker, hoping no one goes digging during the attack. He yanks on the buckles of his climbing harness, running through the safety check at record pace, then seizes one of the rapid descent hooks and flings himself into a three story drop with nothing but a hand brake and blind faith in his equipment.

Ratchet’s teeth rattle painfully as his feet hit the concrete, even though he takes the impact exactly like he's practiced a hundred times – the emergency abseil drills always have padded mats at the bottom and his brain isn’t ready for the reality of hitting hard concrete. He doesn’t go down on his ass, but a spasm of agony jolts up through his hips and spine and he has to stop to catch his breath, queasy.

The massive loading bay doors are already open by the time he recovers, twenty critical seconds of prep lost while the piloted bots are being disgorged into the sheeting rain. He unhooks from the line and snatches one of the combat kits off the storage rack. Three other mechanics are shouldering their repair rigs, already belted into their body armor.

Ratchet hauls on the plate carrier and buckles it with the strong feeling he's going to fucking die. He crams his helmet over his sweaty hair anyways, leaving the visor up. It's too dark and wet outside and the cheap polycarb fogs up no matter how many times they treat it. The repair pack goes on last, weighing him down, heavy coils of electrical patch cabling slung over his shoulder.

He’s out in the rain before he’s ready. His radio picks up a burst of feedback. There’s an unmistakable thunderclap report of a defense missile striking its target, followed by an ear-splitting roar that drowns out all other sound. The Quintesson is either way closer or way larger than he expects and he nearly climbs out of his skin with fear.

Ratchet turns just in time to catch the massive shape backlit against the storm-black sky, ten stories of nightmare. The Quintesson’s energy barrier flashes in a dozen places, incoming weapons fire flickering like red lightning over the glassy surface. It's covered in rain-wet armor plates and undulating tentacles, the massive shark-like mouth already filled with a twisted, sparking heap of metal. Spotlights blink out as the Quintesson takes out one of the substations, plunging everything into darkness.

[saucyjothoughts]

What would be each of them's go-to song for sex?

I wasn't initially going to answer this because opinions are going to be completely different for every boo (and I don't know any Slovenian music they might be into) but I ended up spending way too long thinking about it so here we go.

Bojan:

Come Together - the Beatles

Kris prefers the Godsmack cover but Bojan prefers the classic.

Wicked Game - Chris Isaak

So erotic and full of emotional turmoil that it's cliché - perfect for Bojan.

Lube - Adam Lambert

We know Bojan loves Freddie Mercury and Queen so it's not a big leap to find Adam Lambert's queer lustsongs.

Beggin' - the Maneskin cover

This song slaps and you can't tell be Bojan doesn't appreciate the opportunity to think about Damiano David when he's coming.

My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion

You know why.

Jan:

Toxic - Britney Spears

Jan probably has multiple Britney songs in his sexytimes playlist but this is his favourite.

FMLYHM - Seether

Fuck Me Like You Hate Me.

Shut Me Up - Mindless Self Indulgence

I love the idea of Jan finding this song/band as a teenager and being briefly obsessed. This song is still in his playlists.

Good Boy - Zee Machine

Kinda niche and Jan is always looking for new, lesser known artists. The fun 80s pop sounds that he likes, and shamelessly gay.

Beautiful Dangerous - Slash ft Fergie

You can't tell me Jan hasn't idolised Slash as some point and this song has such dirty female vocals.

Jure:

Hit That - the Offspring

Jure gives me strong Offspring vibes and this song gives slutty stray cat vibes with a perfect thrust tempo.

You Could Be Mine - Guns n Roses

I really wanted to give Jure some GNR and this song is probably in his sex playlist and his motorbike playlist.

Batshit - Sofi Tucker

He particularly enjoys being physical to this song when enjoying recreational substances.

I Was Made For Loving You - the Yungblud cover

This is a brilliant fucksong and I think Jure would love these raspy, raw vocals.

Shake That - Eminem, Nate Dogg

Jure loves an ironically misogynistic party song with a good beat. He also loves ass.

Bonus:

Community Property - Steel Panther

Not sure if this would be in his sex playlist but I'd love to see him try to play it during soundcheck and have Bojan shut him down as soon as he realises what the song is about.

Nace:

Slow n Easy - Whitesnake

I think Nace would appreciate the classics. And the way this song builds echoes how I imagine Nace fucks.

Suck My Kiss - Red Hot Chili Peppers

We know Nace loves Flea and this song is hot.

Crazy - Aerosmith

So smooth and soulful. And have you seen the video?

I Wanna Know What Love Is - Foreigner

Emotional sex and finally feeling like you belong? Yep, that's a Nace song.

Kiwi - Harry Styles

Hard liquor mixed with a bit of intellect. It reminds him of someone.

Kris:

Apocalyptic - Halestorm

A song about breakup hatefucking.

Feeling Good - the Muse cover

I just love how powerfully this song builds and relaxes and plays, especially for a man who loves edging.

I Wanna Be Yours - Arctic Monkeys

There had to be some arctic Monkeys in here somewhere, and of course it's this song for Kris.

I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself - the White Stripes cover

A perfect lapdance song. The yearning is real.

Kitchen Light - Xana

A heartbreak fucksong for the king of pining. It's not about anyone in particular. Nope, definitely not.

[cerosin-bis]

It's been nearly a year since we've heard about Samir... any more thoughts to share?

I'm making grabby hands.

Oh my god you remember him 🥺 YES fact is I think about him quite often... I was playing as him in MWIII not long ago... okay so uh. Headcanons for Samir, who's my sort of semi-OC stemming from the 4th skin for the default KorTac soldier in MWII (insane people messages)

Either a social introvert or an extrovert you'd think is an introvert. no one knows the truth not even himself.

Has a twin sister he's super close with, they call each other almost every evening for like an hour.

He's a Slovenian Bosniak and muslim

He doesn't have a sense of vertigo. He's been dong HALO jumps from the very start (and it is what he prefers doing. bro LOVES parachuting.)

5'10"

Good guitar player. Golem and him not only would get along, they could also cover a LOT of songs.

Literal only guy in Kortac who did not ever comment about König's height, which put the latter at ease.

VERY active guy his one regret is not being able to run marathons because he does not have enough off days to prepare.

The army was sort of a default choice for him. He didn't have a lot of aspirations apart from wanting to be an English teacher but ultimately he was not immune to propaganda and decided to enlist. His language skills and proficiency in very specific fields got him into KorTac

[homeosloven]

☢️ Nuklearna elektrarna Krško - 50 years of Yugoslav excellence ☢️

On December 1st, 1974, president Josip Broz - Tito (PBUH) laid the foundation stone for the first nuclear power plant in Yugoslavia. A compass was carved into the tonalite stone from Pohorje, as a symbol of all the workers that helped build this engineering wonder.

It was co-funded by the SR of Slovenia and Croatia to provide energy stability and self-sufficiency, crucial for the further development of local industries. With the agreement of the US government, Westinghouse was chosen to supply the power plant.

Less than 10 years after construction started, the power plant began operating, and continued supplying the two republics with stable energy for the next 40 years. It currently covers 25% of Slovenian and 15% of Croatian energy demand.

Originally it was planned to shut down in 2023, however, due to thousands of renovations, upgrades and increased security retrofittings, the operating permit was extended to 2043!

I unironically think this was one of the greatest achievements of the Yugoslav republics and a true testament to their long-term commitment to collective prosperity.

[aria-diary]

Nina Pušlar & Trio Vivere - Vivo per lei (cover Andrea Bocelli & Giorgia) @ live dvorana Tabor MB

#slovenian singers #concert nina puslar in maribor #live singing

#slovenia

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

The Midnight Library - Slovenia

When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

[matan4il]

To the Nonnie who (we really need to find you a better nickname) asked me about the Druze and the Bedouins in Israel, you're very welcome, and likewise, I appreciate your kind words! :)

I still think Israel should strive to include our closest brethren in law as much as we can

We actually refer to Arabs as our cousins. ;) I think the Druze in particular, as well as the Israeli Arabs and the Bedouins who are not hostile to Israel, who do not support terrorism and violence against Jews, are in fact generally seen as closer than that. And I already said in my first reply to you, that I absolutely think that Israel, like all countries, should constantly strive to make life as good and inclusive for its minorities as possible. So on that point, we def agree, Nonnie. To me, it's also clear that Israel must remain the Jewish nation state, while to you it isn't (you say you're undecided what the answer is, to me there's not even a question), and I'll admit, I'm not sure why. Being a Jewish state, doesn't mean Israel is solely a Jewish state (meaning, it is NOT a state for Jews only), but we've already covered that. You want it not to be solely Jewish on a national level as well, not just that of citizen rights, or who gets to be one. You still haven't provided me with an explanation of why you think Jews are the only ones not deserving of a nation state? Historically, many bigger and more powerful unions, have disintegrated into smaller nation states, because no one group wanted to feel controlled by, or dependent on the good will of another. Why is that acceptable for the former Yugoslavia's Serbs, Bosnians and Croats, Slovenians, Macedonians and Montenegrins (as one example), but not for Jews?

And why do you think anyone will thank the Jews for throwing our right to self determination away? The Druze, for example, have been forced to do exactly this. Under the French Mandate in Syria and Lebanon, they were given self rule from 1921 to 1936. Then, as part of establishing the independent Syria, the Druze State was taken away from them, and it was forcibly integrated into Syria, while they were still allowed some autonomy. By 1944, that was canceled, too. And what has happened to them since? Syria doesn't even recognize them as a distinct ethno-religious, let alone one that deserve protection or rights. In Syria's official demographics, the Druze are registered as Muslims (in fact, the only country in the Middle East that recognizes the Druze as a distinct group, is Israel). And according to at least one Druze researcher, the Civil war in Syria has made the Druze realize that their very existence there is in danger. And this is despite the fact that the biggest Druze population in the world lives in Syria, and that since the rise of the Allawi minority to power through a military coup, at the expense of the Suni Muslim majority, minorities in Syria were treated better than in most of the Middle East (while the majority was oppressed, leading to the war).

Groups without any power, without self protection, marginalized and vulnerable, have NOT been historically treated well. I don't really know many examples to the contrary, if at all. We, as Jews, should know that better than anyone. I know that you know this, but I want to emphasize it. NO ONE will thank the Jews if we throw away our right to self rule away, and NO ONE will protect us, if we choose to make ourselves once more weak and defenceless. It's just not how human nature works.

From your last ask, it sounds like your environment is very radical, and likely anti-Zionist? And I commend you for not being as extreme, as well as for being able to carry on a respectful dialogue. I think that's maybe the biggest counter to hatred, the ability to communicate respectfully even with people we disagree with. So I don't take it lightly, that you disagree with me, but we can still have a nice conversation. But I think you can and should pose some of these questions to the people around you, who you implied are radical. Do they recognize the Zionist nature of Judaism, and the unbreakable bond of Jews to their ancestral homeland in Israel, that Judaism sanctifies? Do they recognize that before the Jewish state, and the self rule and self defence it provides us with, Jews were horribly abused in the Middle East? Do they understand how Israel continues to save Jews since its inception, both by giving them refuge in Israel, and by protecting them in the countries around the world where Jews live? Do they understand and care, that dismantling Israel as a Jewish state, takes that protection away from Jews worldwide, at a time when antisemitic narratives about us are at their strongest since WWII? And why do they think it's okay for Jews to be the only ones deprived of the right to have a nation state in their ancestral land? Hopefully, you can have a respectful dialogue with these people about these questions. But even if not, I think it's vital to ask them, because Jews have suffered too much, for too long, and there's too few of us left, to risk the safety of those of us still left on this earth, by just being optimistic, or going on a sanitized version of the past (in which nothing was ever wrong between Jews and Arabs in Israel before the advent of 19th century Zionism), and not truly confronting the real facts, history, and rights regarding Jews, and the consequences of depriving us of a nation state.

I'm glad my posts and opinions helped you reflect on and form your own. And I'm happy to share whatever knowledge I have, or why my conclusions and beliefs are what they are... I would be happy to meet for a coffee, and to kvetch together if you come to Jerusalem, and you're absolutely welcome in my inbox! Have a great day and week, and I hope you really enjoyed your Hanukkah! ^u^

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[jokeroutsubs]

ENG translation: If we believed that we were "kings", that wouldn't be us

An interview with Bojan Cvjetićanin for Slovenian newspaper Delo, originally published on 24.12.2023. Audio version by IG GBoleyn123

Original article is available here for Delo subscribers. Original article written by Lucijan Zalokar for Delo; photos by Jože Suhadolnik; English translation by a member of Joker Out Subs, native proof reading by IG GBoleyn123.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post! And if you repost the photos, do not crop out the photographer credit.

With Bojan Cvjetićanin about the international breakthrough of Joker Out, the movie Kaj pa Ester?, about life on the road, football, sociology…

I met up with Bojan Cvjetićanin in Ljubljana's Stegne industrial zone, where the members of the popular pop rock (in their jargon: shagadelic rock'n'roll) group Joker Out created a rehearsal space for themselves two years ago. "Lately we've been on the road a lot, but this is still a great second home. If only you knew about the parties that happened here. There were fifty people dancing downstairs," he proudly looked from a small gallery towards the space that measures approximately thirty square metres. Even though the clock had just struck three in the afternoon, the 24-year-old Ljubljana resident had a long day behind him, which had been entirely dedicated to media obligations.

In journalistic circles, we often hear indignation about how modern day influencers - especially those who had gained their influence on social media - have no books on their shelves. Joker Out are first and foremost musicians, of course, but with 150,000 followers (Bojan's personal profile has 190,000) on Instagram, we can count them among the big Slovenian influencers. And there are plenty of books on their shelves.

I don't want to falsely portray the popular fivesome as enlightened donors to the Slovenian literary market: most of the books resemble those you can buy for little money in second-hand bookshops, or even get for free at library write-offs, but they still deserve praise for both the aesthetic sense and the content.

I also don't want to falsely portray the books as the only notable objects in the rehearsal space. There are also the golden plate for the Eurovision single Carpe Diem, which got over two million streams in Finland, a transfusion bag (Rh-) that Tomi Meglič¹, Cvjetićanin's biggest teenage idol, personally brought to them, and a small shop's worth of props given to them by fans: pillows with hand-embroidered patterns, plushies, bras with Instagram accounts written on them, various sweets, you could even find a vinyl from a Soviet cover band of The Beatles. If things continue like that, they soon won't have any space left for instruments, but those are just sweet worries. Joker Out, who were formed in 2016, are currently conquering Europe in a way that the Slovenian music scene has never seen before.

¹frontman of Siddharta, whose third album was called Rh-

I've heard that you approach your job with the utmost professionalism and that you wake up at five in the morning for media obligations.

That's true, today we started early in the morning in Maribor. The first few hours were the most tiring because we were constantly changing locations and driving around the city. After the third or fourth activity, we relaxed a little because we got to the studio. After that, everyone started coming to us instead of the other way around.

Slovenian cinemas have started playing the movie Kaj pa Ester? in which you play a boy who enrolled in high school just to get close to his ex girlfriend again. Did you have any problems with trying to get into the high school mentality?

We filmed the movie two years ago, when my memories of high school were much more fresh than they are today. But on the other hand, I played a boy who had just finished the ninth grade of primary school, so I had to put myself into the shoes of a primary school kid, which is much harder. We're also pretty different personality-wise. But almost the entire cast was around the same age, so too old. We joked about that a lot during filming.

Still, that's nothing unusual in the movie world.

Of course, there are 35-year-olds starring in High School Musical and no one is complaining.

Could you draw any parallels between a musical stage performance and filming a movie? You have to play a kind of role during a concert too...

I have to admit that it's completely different. On stage, I never feel like I'm performing. Of course I am actually performing, but I'm still in the role of myself, Bojan, whereas in the movie, I'm someone completely different. It might be easier to compare filming a movie with recording music in the studio, but there are big differences there as well. The biggest one is that for a movie, the director has the main and the final say. You have to trust him. When you film a scene, you don't even see what you've filmed for a long time. The movie in which I play one of the main roles will be played in cinemas, and I don't even know what I will look like on the big screen. It's different with music, because us authors listen to the songs a hundred times, a thousand times; we're the ones who make all the final decisions. That's quite a mental leap, but I didn't have too many problems with it, because I knew the previous projects of that team. V dvoje ('In a tandem') is my favourite Slovenian TV series. On the other hand, I needed time to get used to this new method of working. If I asked to see the scene we'd filmed one more time, but the director said it was good, we kept filming without hesitation.

You said that on stage, you are always in the role of yourself. Does the nature of that role change from concert to concert? And what influences it? The audience, the outfit…

The outfit has an influence for sure. More than I initially thought. Lately we've been playing with our stage look a lot and looking for the right combination. I currently find that the outfit suits me very well, it's just the shoes that bother me because they're too rigid. I have to change them. They're huge and massive, which makes me feel like I'm clumsily marching around the stage, whereas during rehearsals I wear sneakers and I'm therefore a lot more in the mood for dancing.

What about the language you sing in? Many people say that they feel as if by switching between different languages, they are also switching between their personalities.

I agree. When you change the language, your voice has a different colour and register, you come up with different jokes than in your mother tongue. If I lead a concert in Slovenian, Serbian, or English, I'm a different dude every time. This is also influenced by my notion that each time, I'm performing for a different group of people who are connected by a certain mentality. In Slovenia, I'm performing as a local for locals, and I feel like there are different "game rules" than for example in Croatia or Serbia. Elsewhere, I feel like I don't even think about this.

How did you get the idea to start creating and singing in English? You already broke through internationally with Slovenian.

Us creating in foreign languages isn't so much a result of wanting to break through internationally and the mentality that only English ensures global success. If we thought that way, we wouldn't have gone to Eurovision with a Slovenian song. We're primarily driven by a desire to learn new things, to push the boundaries... In the studio, it's similar to being on the stage. If you change the language, you're not only a different person on stage, but also inside your head. Your creativity is different. Playing with languages is actually also playing with your own creativity, because you enter a different space, a different mentality. The song Sunny Side of London could not have been made if we hadn't mentally transported ourselves to an English-speaking space. We want many more projects like that, not necessarily in English.

Can you be more specific? What kind of mentality do you associate Sunny Side of London with?

That song is a sort of homage to all the people who have suddenly become part of our story. Sunny Side of London has nothing to do with London as such. I was looking for a name of a well-known place with which to name all our concerts, and I decided on London.

The first time I said the words Are you guys real? – Is this really happening, are you really here and singing our songs? – on the stage, certain English phrases snuck into my mind. What the hell is going on? and so on. We also experienced, for the first time, foreigners coming up to us and talking about their own experiences connected to our music. That was something completely new for us. We listened to all those stories in English, as our fans of course can't speak Slovenian, even though they can sing our Slovenian lyrics. Sunny Side of London therefore emerged as a collection of all the experiences and stories that fans told us after gigs.

You've already touched on fans who sing your lyrics by heart from Finland to Spain. Could you highlight the nation with the best ear for the Slovenian language?

On the latest tour, when we visited Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Croatia, there were moments when I felt like I was singing in Slovenia. In Prague, I filmed the audience singing Umazane misli without me. As if I were in Križanke, for example. But it's even more fascinating that people sing well in England and Nordic countries too. It's understandable that our Slavic brothers have the best ear for Slovenian, but northerners aren't far off either.

How much of your international success do you attribute to the Eurovision performance?

A huge amount.

If you had to express it in a percentage?

99.9.

Really?

Definitely. It was an incredible catapult. Whenever I ask the audience at our international concerts if anyone was already with us before Eurovision, a few hands shoot up every time, but those are rare exceptions.

How do you explain the fact that you finished in the relatively humble 21st place in Liverpool, but your visibility still grew in leaps and bounds?

We were very, very, very dedicated to the Eurovision project. We put a lot of time and energy into demonstrating to the people who were open to it that we weren't just a three-minute performance, but very much an existing band that has made many songs and that lives on stage. With time, and of course in connection with the Eurovision performance, more and more listeners got to know that. We clearly showed them: we are here, we are real, try it, connect with us.

Because they had so much different content available, this actually happened. I think it was also because they saw that Joker Out really was made out of five completely regular dudes from Slovenia who live a totally normal life, and at the same time we make music and have a great time doing it. That is already a slight deviation from what's been happening recently, when we're being bombarded from all sides by messages that we need to distance ourselves from each other, that we have to hate each other...

That was the sociologist in you talking.

That's true. The atmosphere in society nowadays is such that it emphasises individuality more than building a team. Young people, however, need and want to be part of a community. And we offered them that chance.

Where does your interest in social sciences come from? Your father is a gynecologist, your mother a pediatrician, and you have a degree in sociology.

I had a very good professor in high school. If you wanted to listen to him, he offered a lot of knowledge. Even though sociologists often think about society in an abstract way, the subject always felt tangible to me. I recognised it in very concrete life situations that I was trying to understand. At my final exams, I did a great job with sociology with very little effort – and then made a mistake and enrolled in economics. I wavered between those two options from the start, and in the end, what tipped the scales were the warnings of many people I knew that sociology doesn't have good employment prospects. I gave in to the pressure and very quickly realised I had made the wrong decision. I gave up on economics after the first semester. That was when I seriously threw myself into the band, we made Gola, and then I transferred to sociology and there was happiness all around.

You clearly won't work as a sociologist for a while yet, if ever...

But I am a sociologist.

In your soul?

No, as my profession. Us musicians are sociologists. A lot of sociological terms could easily be transferred into our environment. Locale, for example. In third year, the professor asked me several times: Well, Cvjetićanin, if you have a concert, is that locale or something else? And then I said it was locale and started rambling on. (laughter)

So you are a singing sociologist?

Exactly.

How do you explain the success of Joker Out from a sociological point of view? How do your songs address the zeitgeist?

I write the lyrics exclusively based on stories that really happened. Not necessarily to me, but to people I love. Therefore, I have a strong emotional relationship with the subject matter. My opinion is that there will always be people who will connect with the story if it's real. Because it's easiest for us to connect with real emotions. Our songs are love songs, they talk about finding yourself and personal growth, some are socially critical... I think that I have managed to find the right balance between being direct and being poetic.

I'll word it differently. The Beatles already sang about love and personal growth. And they weren't the first ones by far. Later on, those same themes were covered by hundreds of successful bands and an infinite number of slightly less successful ones.

I think that nowadays, we most often associate societal changes with technological development. Technological advances largely dictate the rhythm of our life. But those advances are mostly just a substitute for something that already existed in the past. The basic emotions have therefore certainly stayed the same. Love, fear, hatred... I think that the use of language is very important here. Even though the emotions don't change, the way we put them into words does. In music, too. I don't sing about a topic the same way my peers would have in the 1970s. Consequentially, our relationship with emotions is changing and evolving as well. As if our entire society is gravitating towards the point of holding the belief that it's better for an individual to feel less and less, and in a more and more censored way.

On the one hand, excessive use of social media and other media causes us to feel like distinct individuals. On the other hand, it connects us to the world and places us into a very wide picture. In every moment, we are only a click away from becoming cosmopolitan and being able to access all the information, events, and people, but at the same time, that's exactly what reminds us that we are a small and actually not very important dot on this planet. The magnitude of everything that's constantly available to us makes us feel small. I think that we mostly listen to, watch, and use those who manage to poke the spot that unnerves people the most in this context. If performers manage to break through the firewall of someone's VPN, then those people will also show their interest in an analogue way. Otherwise, they will only be a swipe away.

And now a question that's more psychological than sociological: do you ever try to get into the heads of the people who time and again show their interest in very analogue ways?

I have an infinite appreciation for their dedication, because for myself, I don't see the chance of a phenomenon exciting me so much that I would be ready to dedicate so much time and love to it.

So you've never been a very hardcore fan?

If, at twelve years old, I had to highlight one musicians that I would've wanted to meet more than anyone in the world, that would definitely have been Tomi Meglič. That hasn't changed to this day. The only difference is that we meet up with Tomi and we're friends. I still feel the highest possible level of respect for him. Every time he calls me, I am extremely proud of myself. But I still cannot imagine going to, say, Berlin tomorrow if Siddharta were playing there and I had a free day. I'd go to Maribor or Zagreb, but absolutely not across all of Europe the way the biggest fans do. Not even at twelve. I could sooner imagine that at that age, a football match rather than a concert would be the thing that excited me beyond all reason.

We're probably talking about two groups of celebrities that get worshipped as deities by the masses in Western society: footballers and pop and rock musicians. And this is probably linked to emotions again.

True. The thing that wakes up a person's sense of smell, sight, and all other emotions that overcame them as a child, is what has the best possibility of succeeding.

Now please explain how this is connected to football.

If I go to a concert by Siddharta, Big Foot Mama, Magnifico, I turn into a ten-year-old kid who will explode from happiness. There's no Bojan anymore. He gets lost. It's the same with football. When I watch it, I dream about how I played for Slovan² as a kid and what I wanted more than anything was to score a goal and for everyone in the stands to yell: Yeeeees!

²ND Slovan is a football club from Ljubljana

You don't score goals, but you are in a similar position that Tomi Meglič used to be in.

All the band members come from very loving families that have always provided us with a very good support system and instilled basic values in us that we internalised deeply. That is why everything that's currently happening around us hasn't gone to our heads in a way that would make us think that we're bigger or more important than anyone else. If we started believing that we were "kings" because everyone was clapping for us and singing our songs, that would probably be a very strong feeling, but that simply wouldn't be us. We mostly love to see all the people, because we know how much we mean to them and how much they mean to us. Without them, we wouldn't be able to focus on what's most important to us – our music. On the other hand, I can say with a thousand percent certainty that I would easily and happily do my job if I was performing at venues like Cankarjev dom. So, in front of a calmer audience, without unreal hype.

But what I would like most in the world is to turn into a footballer for ten seconds and score a goal at an important match. You know why? Because that is the biggest adrenaline hit that exists. When we perform on various stages, there's mayhem around us for two hours straight. But in football, when a goal is scored, that happens in a millisecond. You go from nothing into total chaos. Everyone loses their minds. I'd love to experience that. Well, I did – much like everyone who played football in primary school. When I scored a goal for Slovan and a hundred people in the stands clapped for me, I felt like I was on Maracanã. Imagine what it would be like to experience that on the real Maracanã.

It's interesting that you highlighted a loving and stable family background. Many of the biggest pop and rock stars in the world grew up in a diametrally opposite environment. From John Lennon and Janis Joplin to Prince and Rihanna. There are actually so many of them that we can talk about a pattern.

I know, because I love to read their (auto)biographies, and I agree with your assessment that their family circumstances are fundamentally different than ours. That is always my answer to the question when someone wants to know how debauched our tours are. When I tell them that we mostly drink water and tea on the road, they just can't believe it. But it's the truth, because we've realised three things. First, we enjoy what we do immensely, and from the experiences of many musicians, we know that you can almost definitely forget about a long career if you start doing everything that we perceive as the proverbial rock'n'roll lifestyle. A band like that breaks up sooner or later, either because of frayed nerves, or exploding egos, or because of money. Second, we've all had to go to work hungover and we know very well that it's unbearable. I especially can't imagine how we could stay healthy and keep our strength and our voice if we were constantly hungover on the road. In that case, the only short-term solution is drugs, which we fortunately [knocks on wood] don't do. And third: I'm sure that you have a much better time on stage if you're aware that you are on it.

Your international breakthrough doesn't have a precedent among Slovenian musicians. Would you dare to point out where the difference is, why you made it and not for example Siddharta, who had filled Bežigrad stadium and later did not hide their international ambitions?

We have to understand that Siddharta didn't have the chance to perform at a festival like Eurovision. It's hard to understand what it means for 160 million people to watch you. That is a bizzarely huge number. All this happened in the time of social media, and we had set up a pretty good mechanism in that area even before Eurovision, and then also used it, whereas Siddharta established itself as a band in the time of analogue media. I can't even imagine how it would've been possible to break through abroad from Slovenia at that time. Because even we are already – even though some things have opened up for us very nicely and we've been joined by the right people – finding out how much of an investment going international demands. Dreams of megalomanical earnings and a luxurious life brought on by a European tour shatter quickly. Even when you start filling up venues, you stay in a kind of hustle mode. You fight. Unfortunately, the costs in the music business are so high that performing abroad is more or less just for promotion for a long time.

You're probably thinking of logistical costs?

Yes. Some of my colleagues have total misconceptions about our earnings. They think that we're literally swimming in money, while we actually earn what amounts to a normal salary.

In March next year you will have eighteen concerts. You will start in Helsinki and end in Milan. How will you travel?

With a tour bus. We've rented it twice so far: for the UK tour and for the tour around Lithuania, Poland, and Czechia. There are beds on it, so we can sleep while driving from one concert to the next. The tourbus is prohibitively expensive, you pay almost half of your royalties for it, but it's the only way for a musician with such a packed schedule to survive in the long run. Sometimes people ask me why we don't travel with a van instead, but you have to understand that we sometimes have concerts two days in a row and the venues are 800 kilometres apart. If we spent all night in an uncomfortable van, then looked for a hotel in the morning and so on, we might be able to endure it for a week, but definitely not all month.

Do you ever sleep in a hotel?

Only on free days.

Will the March tour be your most exhausting one so far?

It will definitely be one of the more exhausting ones, but I am definitely happy that we will be able to sleep on a tour bus. We haven't been on a month-long tour yet, so it's hard to predict anything, but on the Nordic tour this year we played six concerts in five days, because we had two concerts in one day in Helsinki. We didn't have a tour bus there, we flew instead. That meant that after the concert, we got to the hotel at midnight, then we had to be at the airport at three in the morning, a few hours later we were already at the new location, we napped for two hours on a couch, had a soundcheck – rinse and repeat for five days in a row.

Let's not talk only about the negative sides of tours…

Of course. I love sleeping on the bus! I fall asleep like a baby who's being taken for a walk in a stroller. I can't sleep more than nine or ten hours in my bed at home, on a tour bus I easily get twelve hours. Maybe it's because it's constantly shaking a little. The other guys also sleep very well on the road.

But the most magical thing on tours is when I visit a city for the first time just because we have a gig there. That seems unimaginable to me. To meet new people, wonderful fans, to bond as a band, experience new, funny situations, to bring home a bunch of new inside jokes and incredible gifts that fans have made themselves. [Points towards a hand-embroidered pillow in the part of the studio where they keep the gifts.]

Elite athletes often lament that it's true that they compete all over the world, but they often only see the airport, the hotel, and the sports venue.

It's similar for us. When we travel with a bus, we only see the venue. If we happen to have a free day, we walk around the city, but we definitely don't visit all kinds of tourist attractions as some people might wrongly imagine. When we go to Paris, we definitely won't go to the Louvre, and we will see the Eiffel tower through the bus window if everything goes well.

But you meet a lot of interesting people.

That's true. I find it the most fascinating if we meet fans when we don't expect them at all. In a restaurant, on a plane… When we were flying to Poland, it turned out that one of the flight attendants was a big fan of ours. She told us that she was going to three of our concerts and brought us champagne and a model of a Lot Polish Airlines plane.

I was even more surprised in Helsinki. I went to some kind of dark club that had a techno music party. Suddenly I was approached by three people, two guys and one girl, and they told me that they were our fans and that they couldn't believe that they met me in that club. I also couldn't believe that people recognised me in the middle of Helsinki. What's going on?!

In the summer, you took a step back from Instagram for a while. What brought you to that decision?

Many things. I felt creatively empty. I also, for the first time in my life, experienced the internet – not just Slovenian, but global – being completely oversaturated with me. That started negatively pressuring me and eating me up. I thought about it a lot, and the first time I asked myself whether I'd be less Bojan Cvjetićanin if I didn't have an Instagram profile, I turned it off. Immediately after that, I wrote three songs; I felt as if I had cleaned up some of the mess that had built up recently. I returned to social media some time ago; with much healthier habits than before, I think.

How do you see social media? As a space for playfulness, for promotion, part of the job, part of private life?

I think that at the time when they started killing me, I perceived them too professionally. I had a feeling that Instagram was a platform through which I had to achieve all sorts of things. Lately, I prefer to joke around more.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post! And if you repost the photos, do not crop out the photographer credit.

[glorious-blackout]

Have some ESC-related song recs, because it’s been over a month and I’m still having a lot of fun digging into the back-catalogues of my faves from this year!

Bear in mind that I’ve barely scratched the surface for some of these artists so if anyone has any other recs, please let me know. I’d love to hear them 🥰

Käärijä (Finland) - I’ve honestly liked everything I’ve heard from him (which is surprising as I’m not usually a massive fan of rap) and can highly recommend his entire Fantastista album, but if I have to narrow my choices down to a few absolute faves then I’d recommend the following to begin with:

Mic Mac

Viulunkieli

Paidaton Riehuja 

Välikuolema

Rock Rock (Daun Lou Remix)

Joker Out (Slovenia) - Again, I can highly recommend both of their albums and it’s difficult to narrow down faves, but these are the songs that made me want to listen to more of their work:

Demoni

Novi Val/New Wave (the latter is an English version performed with Elvis Costello which I love just as much as the gorgeous Slovenian version)

Ona 

Umazane Misli

Tokio 

Katrina

Lord of the Lost (Germany) - ie. talented kings who deserved so much better:

Loreley

One Last Song

My Better Me (I’ll be honest, most of my appreciation for this song comes from Chris’s parody where he reworks it into a love song for Matt Bellamy from Muse)

noituLOVEr (Happy Pride Month everyone 🌈)

Cha Cha Cha (technically cheating with this one but their cover was honestly fantastic and apparently they’re hoping to perform it live with Käärijä one day!)

Voyager (Australia) - ie. the reason I desperately need Australia to stay in Eurovision next year:

Colours

Ascension 

Submarine

Dreamer (this one was their entry for Australia Decides in 2022; it won the televote so in another timeline this song would have competed in last year’s ESC)

And have some additional recs by artists whose ESC songs I adored but whose other work I haven’t had a chance to fully explore yet:

Luke Black (Serbia) - Olive Tree (@aeolianblues you might be more familiar with Luke's other work than I am at this point 😅)

Blanca Paloma (Spain) - Plumas De Nácar (this woman’s voice is heavenly and I’ll happily listen to anything she releases)

Vesna (Czechia) - Płakały

[ishparpuaqib]

I've long, long assumed the Serbo-Croatian word for rainbow, duga, must be related to duga, the feminine nominative singular form of dug “long”. this is despite a) duga (as in “rainbow”) having a rising accent and duga (as in “long”) having a falling one, and b) the Slovenian cognate to duga (as in “long”) being dolga. indeed the two are completely unrelated—duga as in “rainbow” comes from Proto-Slavic *dǫga, from Proto-Balto-Slavic *dangāˀ, which apparently meant something like “covering” or “curtain”. it's directly cognate to Lithuanian danga “clothes”, and related to dangus “sky”. (duga as in “long” comes from Proto-Slavic *dĭlga, from a completely different root). always remember to check ur biases...

[justahusk]

Regional Timburr line! They're Grass/Fighting fakemon for PragMagik's ReJuneAlMagik contest! These are based on the Slovenian folk legend of Peter Klepec, a young shepherd boy who was gifted the strength to uproot a tree barehanded after covering a fairy he saw laying in the fields with leaves to protect her from the sun. Enjoy!

[soyouwinagain]

1, 43, + a book everyone raves about but you disliked !

1. Name the best book you’ve read so far this year.

I've read very little good fiction so far this year but a bunch of great nonfiction—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz' Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion was near the top

43. Title of a book you own that’s in the worst physical condition you have. Explain what happened to it. Post a picture if you want.

WELL. I don't own these anymore. but surely my copies of Dune and Foolish Hearts that ended up in a ditch by the side of a Slovenian road should win this one. other than that... I take very good care of my books so the only ones in rough shape were bought used or treated badly by others—notably my copy of A Separate Peace, which my mom got a nice coffee ring on the cover of 🥴 it's currently with my sister, otherwise I would share a photo

a book everyone raves about but you disliked

you think you know what's coming here? sure? maybe you do skskjdf we both know I'm still not over Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (but I thought about naming and shaming Babel here). it's just not a good book at all! the more I think about it the madder it makes me! this could've been SO good if it had actually been about video games!! instead we got Sadie blaming everyone else in her life for all the shit that happens to her (just like. don't fuck your professor. maybe. as a start.) and not realizing that's what she's doing. unbearable. also some very cheap narrative choices for some significant plot events. thank you for suffering through this buddy read with me <3