KUD Idijoti

KUD Idijoti were a punk rock band from Pula, officially formed on 2 February 1981 by guitarist Saša Milovanović "Sale Veruda", who led the group to the end. The name is a joke: KUD is the usual abbreviation for an amateur folk dance and music society, and "Idijoti" is a deliberate misspelling of "idiots". Known for their Ramones-influenced sound and their ironic songs about everyday life and society, they became one of the most prominent bands of the Yugoslav punk scene and stayed popular across the region for three decades.

The early years brought small venues and many line-up changes. In 1985 the band found its best-known line-up: Sale Veruda on guitar, Branko Črnac "Tusta" on vocals, Nenad Marjanović "Fric" on bass and Diego Bosusco "Ptica" on drums. Tusta was thirty, married and working at the Uljanik shipyard, with no stage experience at all. In 1987 the audience of the Subotica Youth Festival voted KUD Idijoti the best band, and they began to play clubs in West Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Their early songs, among them "Maja", "Kad sunce opet zađe" and "Lutke na koncu", came out on three EPs on the Koper label DID Slovenija.

Their first real studio album, Mi smo ovdje samo zbog para, came out on Helidon in 1990 with "Minijatura", "Neću da radim za dolare" and "Kako to može"; in 2015 the Croatian edition of Rolling Stone placed it 64th among the 100 greatest Yugoslav albums. Glupost je neuništiva followed in 1992 with "Pisma o ribaru Marinu, Mari i moru" and "Bepo, vrati se", and in 1993 Tako je govorio Zaratusta, a title playing on Nietzsche and on Tusta's nickname, with "Za tebe". On 10 October 1994 they opened for the Ramones at Tivoli Hall in Ljubljana.

In 1995 they made Istra ti materina with Franci Blašković of Gori Ussi Winnetou and released Megapunk. Cijena ponosa (1997), their first album for Dancing Bear, brought a more melodic sound and the hits "Ja sjećam se", "Rodna gruda" and "Lik", and it came out in Croatia and Serbia at the same time. They recorded new versions of "Dijete" and "Svršimo zajedno" with Peter Lovšin of Pankrti, and in 1999 two eighteenth-birthday concerts at Pula's Uljanik club became the live album Gratis Hits Live!.

Fric and Ptica left at the end of 1999; founding bassist Davor Zgrabljić "Buco" returned, and Dejan Gotal took over the drums. In December 2000 the band played the Belgrade Sports Hall and the SPENS in Novi Sad, and in 2001 they released their last album, Remek-djelo, with "Baj baj bejbe", "Dobro jutro" and "Mir no alternativ". At the beginning of 2011 Tusta fell ill with cancer and the band stopped playing. He died on 14 October 2012, and a few days later Sale Veruda announced that KUD Idijoti were over.

The stairs leading to the Uljanik club in Pula now carry Tusta's name, and in 2020 the band received the Rock&Off lifetime achievement award. A 2016 tribute album, Za tebe, gathered covers by Pankrti, Psihomodo Pop, Hladno Pivo, Superhiks, Lačni Franz and others, and Dubioza Kolektiv recorded their own version of "Ja sjećam se".