Parketi

Parketi are a punk rock band from Bitola, North Macedonia, formed in 1991 by Sašo, Slave and Sebastijan Parket; every member of the band uses Parket as a surname on stage. Their music moves between garage rock, pop punk and plain rock and roll, often with lyrics in the Bitola dialect, and the band is best known for its loud, funny and visual live shows.

The band's own story, written by Ranko Parket, begins in Bitola in the late 1980s, when underground rock barely existed in the town and a Ramones cassette passed between three local teenagers. New private clubs and local radio and TV stations with demo charts gave the young band its first audience. Not everyone was pleased: adults and parts of the press attacked their lyrics and shows, and one early concert near the city library was stopped by the police.

Parketi released their first album, Griža na sovesta, in 1996. On the second, Gazirana harmonija (1998), Sašo's brother took over the vocals, and Sašo returned to the microphone at the start of the 2000s. The compilation No tinkejšn gathered their recordings from 1992 to 2002, and new albums followed with Tajnata na imeto (2005), Mamo ne mu kažuvaj na tato (2009), Republika Frankenštajn (2012) and Parketi (2014), with another album in 2021.

Twice the band tried their luck at Skopje Fest, the Macedonian selection for Eurovision. In the final on 23 February 2008 they sang "Strawberry", written by Sašo Parket, and finished sixth of fifteen. In 2010 they came back with "Ti si kisi fenomen", but it ended thirteenth of fourteen in its semi-final with no points, after which the band said it would not enter again.

Their biggest concert was at the ancient amphitheatre of Heraclea in Bitola in 2009, and in 2011 they played a small acoustic show at the Bitola Culture House. Their songs range from nonsense and provocation to sincere love songs and social comment, among them "Portokali", "Bal", "Barbara" and "Sweet vegetarian", alongside punk versions of folk songs such as "Aco Kabadaja" and "Šekerna". The line-up today is Sašo, Zoki, Sims Sebastijan and Riste Parket.