Biography

 

Vladimir Nedeljkovic

Born at Pancevo, on 7 January, 1964. Finished elementary school and secondary school at Pancevo. He received his degree from the Law University of Belgrade.

Vladimir started drawing when he was only 6 years old. He had his first individual exhibition of drawings at the age of 12. After that, when he was 14, he started career of a singer with a local band. The next step was his own band Zontag & the Friends (Nedelja i prijatelji). In 1985, the band changed its name into New America. At that time, Vladimir closely cooperated with Dusan Novakov (drums), and Mirko Petrovic (guitar). His very first appearance at a studio (''Watermelon'' – Vrsac ) took place during the same year. The song called „Creasy Turkey“, became a hit record thanks to the famous Belgrade radio station „202“. Rock, a Belgrade Rock'n'roll, wrote that the band New America was one of the 3 most important new bands of the year, in the end of 1985.

In 1988, Vladimir finished his first individual album, but he had never published the material. However, two songs from that album had brilliant success on the most important radio station in Serbia of the time – Studio B. Songs like: „I am 22 and I wanna be The President of Yugoslavia“ could be heard on the air literally every single day, throughout 1990. The album was recorded at the BMR Studio, Vrsac. At the time, the band played in Belgrade – (Dadov, Dom Omladine), at Vrsac, and at Pancevo. Besides, it won the first prize at a local competition, at Pancevo. This prize opened the door for a big concert at Pancevo, where New America played together with Nano Belan and his band „Devils“, as well as with a Croatian band called Cacadoo Loo. In between 1989 and 1991, Vladimir visited the BMR Studio, once again - this time with Momir Cvetkovic and Alexandar Kozakievic. The song called „St. Sava“ is one of the tracks recorded at that session. This song was published 14 years later, on the CD called Psyche Delias.

From 1989 to 1991, Vladimir collaborated with Dusan Vukajlovic, who was one of the five people who had organized the first opposition party in Serba, in 1989. It was called the Democratic Party of Serbia. Vladimir left this party in 1991, because the weak response of the party to the growing war in Croatia. Shortly before the war, in 1990, Vladimir organized two performances fin the honour of Marko Brecelj, at Vrsac, and at Pancevo.

In the course of the same year, Vladimir organized a political performance at the Pancevo radio station, Radio Pancevo, together with the famous writers of ours, David Albahari and Dragan Radulovic. Slobodan Simojlovic and Mirsad were also of great help that evening. It was called „The Night of a Good Smoke“. After the show, we ran into the police officers who were waiting for us in the front door. The subject of the show was legalization of grass & prostitution in Serbia.

During 1992, Vladimir had stage appearanceas only at Pancevo. However, he did write quite a lot at the time. At the beginning of 1993, he recorded new songs with a gutarist, Vladimir Kruska, who played with the band called Contra Banda at the time, on an ordinary ''Tascom'' tape recorder. In the course of the same year, he started playing a bass guitar with the Contra Banda. This band made the very first rock&roll album of Pancevo. Vladimir played bass on this LP called Good night children. The Contra Banda mostly had concerts in North Serbia, and larger cities like Belgrade and Novi Sad... The most important concerts, among those, was the one that took place at the SKC Belgrade, in 1993, together with the Brothers Left and the Furies (Bjesovi), etc... and the one held on the The New Year's Eve of 2004, at Novi Sad with The Playboys.

In 1993, Vladimir started writing a series of articles titled ''The History of Rock&Roll at Pancevo: 60s-70s (18 articles), for a Pancevo paper called Novi Pancevac. The individual articles were published regularly from 1993 to 1995. At the time,the Editor of Novi Pancevac was Zivoslav Miloradovic.

The band Zontag was formed in 1995. The very next year, the band was at the studio Novi Sad, in this formation: Vlada Funtek – drums (ex Partybreakers, ex Electric Orgasm, ex Du Du A ), Stanojevic Bosko bass (ex EKV), Mario Separovic,guitar, (ex Psihopolis, El Ray), Vladimir, guitar, vocals, Vesana Bosic flute. The band represented Yugoslavia at one of the first meetings of rock musicians of the former Yugoslavia: The Summer Rock Festival 1997. It took place at Kumanovo, Macedonia. The promotion of the new records started in the summer of 1997 – Nis, Kragujevac, Krusevac, Beograd. Besides, Vladimir played acoustic guitar and sang live, at radio stations all around Serbia. Zontag played at Zajecar in 1988, but the concert started with a great delay because of the local police, who took all the participants to the police station to further mistreat them there. The police violence was ordered by Vlajko Stoiljkovic, the former chief of the Serbian police who committed suicide. Luckily, Vladimir was saved thanks to his friend Dragan Boharevic, who used to played drums with the Zontag, at that time. „I think that we were to receive the second prize or something, I do not know. Anyway, we ran away before receiving the prize, it was too hot...“. The concert at Krusevac was recorded live in 1988, with the assistance of Ivan Reizinger, and the same year Zontag played in the celebrated TV show called ''The Garage''; he took part in the specialized music tv broadcast from Novi Sad. Pedja Vranesevic was editor of the programme. Unfortunately, the TV studio and the whole building it was situated in, were destroyed by the NATO bombers, soon after december of 1998.

The same year Vladimir started drawing comics. One his subjects was Zontag's poetry. In the past, Vladimir had thrown hundreds and hundreds of his drawings in the basket. Vesna Nedeljkovic Angelovski ended this tradition and pressed Vladimir to keep on drawing.

The first comics of Vladimir Nedeljkovic were also called Zontag, and they were a constituent part of the CD Psyche Delias. The magazine Rock Express, published the special comics advertising for the CD, togther with an excellent critique www.rockexpress.com . Aleksandar Zikic wrote highly positively of the CD in Blic (the most popular daily paper in Serbia). Bane Lokner did the same on the waves of the radio station ''Politika'' as well as in the book Reviews. Zorica Kojic wrote about it in the Danas daily paper, Ilija Bakic in the Dnevnik daily paper, from Novi Sad etc......

When Aleksandar Zograf founded the group called The Kitchen (www.aleksandarzograf.com), Vladimir joined it right away. The Kitchen hanged all around Serbia, organizing exibitions and performing live music. Zontag and Nup were rockers and stripers, at the same time. The most important concerts and exibitions were held on the Belgrade Summer Festival – Belef, in 2001, and on the top of the township building of Pancevo, where Vladimir played wearing a uniform of Tito's guardsmen. The Kitchen published CDs with comics for all the important rock bands of Pancevo. Zontag took part in the project with the song called ''Rock&roll in a hundred of ways''. In december, 2001, Zontag played 3 songs alive in the TV show called ''Telecaster''. Aleksandar Zikic was editor of the show.


Soon after that, the comics like „Pancevac“, „Throw the Bone“, were published on the web site called Ispod Zemlje (www.ispodzemlje.com). The comics were also published in the following magazines: Recycled Art – USA, Stripburger (only one page), Pop Cult, Danas, Blic, Dnevnik, Pancevac, Nasa krmaca, Slic (first edition of Tesla comics ). Vladimir had exhibitions and concerts in Amsterdam 1999 (only 1 exhibition), Belgrade (Belef, Akademija, SKC....) Novi Sad (Exit 2004, 2005, 2006, Bunker SKC Novi Sad 2004, 2005), Pancevo (2001), 2003 Art club, 2004 Art club, 2005 Courtyard. 2006 Courtyard), Zrenjanin (Gong), Vrsac (Konkordija 2001), Kraljevo.

Zontag started with tour in 2002. The band under the name of Non Government Organisation for Killing Citizens took part in the tour together with Zontag. They played mostly in North Serbia. Comics exhibitions used to take place right aftre every single concert of Zontag at Subotica, Zrenjanin, Novi Sad, Bela Crkva, Pancevo, Vrsac, in Belgrade – in the garden of the Students Cultural Center), Belgrade – Academy, at Zemun, and at Gornji Milanovac. At Milanovac, Zontag made a live recording of the concert held there, while Zoran Marinkovic subsequently published a litlle book of comics by Zontag.

Zontag appeared on the stage of the Exit for the first time in 2003.

The first of the series of articles called --The History of the R&R at Pancevo'' appeared in June 2003. During the next 3 years, every summer, thanks to Nenad Zivkovic, Vladimir had a nine-page-long article in Pancevac. www.pancevac.com