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Hrvoje Bubić: LEONARDO PAVKOVIĆ INTERVIEW
Hrvoje Bubić
Leonardo Pavković je vlasnik diskografske kuće MoonJune Records, porijeklom iz Jajca. Za Solin Live nam govori o svojoj ljubavi prema glazbi, svojoj diskografskoj kući i s imenima s kojima je surađivao.
Fotografija: Scott Kinsey (sJohn Etheridge, Andy Summers, Leonardo Pavković)
Za početak, molim Vas da se predstavite našim čitateljima i rećete nešto o sebi.
Rođen sam u Jajcu, u bivšoj Jugoslaviji, današnjoj Bosni. Živio sam izmedju Italije i Jugoslavije u sedamdesetim, a u osamdesetim, poslije par godina u Beogradu, živio sam u Bariju, južna Italija. Studirao sam Portugalski jezik i književnosti Portugala i Brazila, Italijansku i Jugoslovensku književnost, i počeo sam raditi na post-diplomski u području Afro-Portugalske književnosti i povijesti. Ali nisam to završio, jer sam 1990-e godine odlučio napustiti stari svijet i južnu Italiju, i otići u novi život u glavnom gradu svijeta – New York City. Sve što me je zanimalo ranije, izuzev muzike i putovanja, sam odbacio i namjerno “zaboravio” i premda sam imao odličan život u južnoj Italiji i vjerovatno obezbijeđen posao u akademskom životu mogućno do kraja života, htio sam sve da uradim od same nule, sam, od početka, Jovo nanovo! Život mi je dokazao da ništa nema te nikakve vajde od fakulteta i magistarskih radova, ako te život povuče na neku drugu stranu, a mene je zvao, i ja sam se odazvao i krenuo tamo gdje pripadam. Ja pripadam svijetu, a mjesto mi je u zadnjih 30-31 godina bilo u New Yorku, koji mi je omogućio da budem to što sam zaista bio, a nisam znao da sam to, da radim što volim, da volim to sto radim, da sam slobodan, i da sam mogao da putujem po cijelom svijetu, i bio sam u 87 država na svih pet kontinenata. Sada sam spreman da se vratim na Mediteran, i zanima me Španjolska, jer mi nije filozofija da se vratim odakle sam niti tamo gdje sam ranije živio. Kada sam napustio Bosnu za sva vremena, kao i Jugu bivšu, pjevao sam onu od Bijelog Dugmeta “Nikad se neću vratit’ u svoj rodni grad, tamo me ne čeka niko, i već odavno su izblijedila sva lica, i već odavno imena im ne znam.” Slično sam se tako osjećao kada sam napustio Južnu Italiju u ljeto 1990. Ja volim budućnost, to me jedino zanima. – Inače govorim nekoliko jezika: Engleski, Italijanski, Portugalski, Španski, a onda da budemo ‘veseli’: Srpski, Hrvatski, Bosanski, a kažu mi da i Crnogorci hoće da im se njihovo zove Crnogorski jezik.
Vodite diskografsku kuću MoonJune Records, koju sam spomenio u intervju s T. Levinom & P. Mastelottom. Recite nam više o MoonJune Records, i kako ste došli do ideje za pokretanje diskografske kuće?
To je vrlo kompleksno, i ne može se objasniti ukratko, zato pišem knjigu o mome životu, zajedno sa jednim jaranom, muzičarem sa dosta albuma na MoonJune Records-u, Dennis Rea, koji je profesionalni pisac. Bilo šta da počnem da kažem o bilo čemu, to se razgrana na sve strane. Ali ne boj se, neće biti dugačka knjiga kao ‘U potrazi za izgubljenim vremenom” Marcel Prousta! Sve se to desilo zbog nekih nevjerovatnih i izvanrednih slučajnosti, dosta magike tu ima.
Uobičajeno, diskografske kuće će početi ovako: Imaju nešto kapitala u banci ili bogate poslovne partnere, imaju advokata, imaju računovođu, imaju marketing plan, imaju distribuciju. Nisam imao ništa od ovoga. Imao sam nešto para sa strane, i dosta kontakata, dosta dobre volje, i poslije 20 godina, eto me sada sa 117 izdanja.
Uz MoonJune Records, Vi ste ujedno producent, promotor, menađer, booking agent. Možete li nam reći nešto svemu ovome i koje su prednosti i nedostaci u takvim poslovima?
Ja sam producent samo sa MoonJune Records, van toga nisam. A kompanija u kojoj sam menađer, booking agent i svjetski vrzmaroš to je MoonJune Music. Sve to sam radim. To je prednost, a takodje i nedostatak. Ako mi sve ide dobro, slavim sa samim sobom, a ako ne ide, jadam se samom sebi, jer nemam partnera niti ortaka. Ali za mene je to uvijek bila prednost. Ja sam bukirao ili bio posrednik od preko 3000 koncerata od 2001-e godine, to obuhvata konmcerte, pune turneje, festivale, radionice u više od 60 zemalja svijeta, specijalizirane za turneje po Sjevernoj i Latinskoj Americi, Japanu (preko 70 turneja od 2002.) i Aziji.
Surađivali ste s imenima koje bih volio spomeniti (uz već navedene T. Levin & P. Mastelotto): Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Nektar, Scott Henderson, Markus Reuter. Siguran sam da je užitak raditi s ovakvim imenima.
Medju poznatijim imenima sa kojim sam surađivao ili još surađujem u ova dva destljeća su: Alex Skolnick, Allan Holdsworth, Andy Summers, Bill Bruford, Brian Auger, Carles Benavent, Chad Wackerman, Dennis Chambers, Eddie Jobson, Frank Gambale, Gary Husband, Hugh Hopper, Jan Akkerman, Jeff Berlin, Jerry Marotta, Jimmy Haslip, Jimmy Johnson, Joey Alexander, John Etheridge, Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum, Keith Tippett, Ken Hensley, Kenny Grohowski, Leo Lyons of Ten Years After, Lenny White, Markus Reuter, Nektar, PFM, Pat Mastelotto, Percy Jones, Pete Levin, Phil Manzanera, Renaissance, Scott Henderson, Soft Machine, Status Quo, Stu Hamm, Terry Bozzio, Theo Travis, Tony Levin, Vasil Hadžimanov, Vernon Reid, Vinnie Colaiuta, i mnogo ostalih. Jeste bio je užitak, i sa mnogima sam putovao po cijelom svijetu, a neki su i bliski prijatelji.
Poznati ste po raznolikom ukusu što se tiče glazbe. Koja bi imena voljeli spomeniti i preporučiti našim čitateljima?
Slušajte MoonJune! Evo ove su tri kompilacije za FREE DOWNLOAD, pa uživajte:
https://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-invitation-to-moonjune-records-vol-01-free-sampler
https://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-invitation-to-moonjune-records-vol-02-free-sampler
Uskoro objavljujem treću kompilaciju.
Inače sa prostora bivše Jugoslavije spomenuo bih prvo muzičare sa kojima sam sarađivao: klavijaturista Vasil Hadzimanov, gitarista Dušan Jevtović, saksofoinist i flautist Vasko Atanasovski, bubnjar Srđan Ivanović. Pa takodje izvanredni basista Uroš Spasojević, maestro pijanist Matija Dedić, sevdah pjevač Damir Imamovic, Niška avant-jazz grupa Eyot, trubač (a svira i bas, gitaru i klavijature ako treba) Miron Rafajlović koji kao Dušan Jevtović zivi poodavno u Španjolskoj.
Za kraj, što bi ste voljeli poručiti našim čitateljima?
Ne brinite, sve će biti opet u nekakvom redu, jednog dana a možda i prije. Svijet je lud. Uživajte, samo se jednom živi!
ENGLISH
For begin with, please introduce yourself to our readers and say something about yourself.
I was born in Jajce, in the former Yugoslavia, today’s Bosnia. I lived between Italy and Yugoslavia in the 1970s, and in the 1980s, after a few years in Belgrade, I lived in Bari, southern Italy. I studied Portuguese Language and Literatures of Portugal and Brazil, Italian and Yugoslav Literatures, and began working on my post-graduation in the field of Afro-Portuguese Literature and History. But I never finished, because in the 1990s I decided to leave the old world and southern Italy, and go to a new life in the capital of the world – New York City. Everything I was interested in before, except music and travel, I rejected and deliberately “forgot” and although I had a great life in southern Italy and probably secured a job in academic life, possibly for the rest of my life, I wanted to do start my life from scratch, by myself, from the beginning, ‘Hit The Road Jack! Life has proved to me that there is nothing wrong neither with or without college graduation, if life takes you to somewhere else, and my life took me ’somewhere else’, and I have reacted to it, and embraced that way. I belong to the world. My place in the last 30-31 years was the New York City, which allowed me to be what I was and I am really about, and I didn’t know before what that was, which I know now, to do what I love, to love what I do, to be free, and that I have been able to travel all over the world, visiting 87 countries on all five continents. Now I am ready to return to the Mediterranean, and I am interested to live in Spain, because it is not my philosophy to return to where I am from or where I used to live. When I left Bosnia for good, I sang the famous Yugoslavian rock song by Bijelo Dugme, “I will never return to my hometown, no one is waiting for me there, and all faces have long since faded, and and I don’t remember anymore their names.” When leaving fore good the Southern Italy in the Summer of 1990, I had the same feeling. I love the future, that’s all I’m interested in. – By the way, I speak several languages: English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and it’s very funny: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian (all three once upon a time the ’same language’), and they are me that also Montenegrins also want their ‘language’ to be named as Montenegrin language!
You run MoonJune Records, which I mentioned in an interview with T. Levin & P. Mastelott. Tell us more about MoonJune Records, and how did you come up with the idea to start a record label?
It’s very complex to explain all, and it can’t be explained in any brief and short form, so I decided to write a book about my life, with a help of a drear friend of mine, a musician with a lot of albums on MoonJune Records, Dennis Rea – who is a professional writer. Whatever I start to explain about anything, it can be branched out to so many different indefinite directions. But fear not!, that ain’t gonna be a thick fat book like Marcel Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’! Everything that happened in my life, it happened because of some incredible and extraordinary coincidences and circumstances, there was a lot of magic there.
Usually, record companies will start like this: They have some capital in the bank or rich business partners, they have a lawyer, they have an accountant, they have a marketing plan, they have distribution. I had none of this. I had some little money on the side, and a lot of contacts and good will, and after 20 years, here I am with 117 releases!
With MoonJune Records, you are also a producer, promoter, manager, booking agent. Can you tell us something about all this and what are the advantages and disadvantages of such jobs?
I’m only a producer with MoonJune Records, do not produce anything else anywhere. And the company in which I am a manager, booking agent and global schmoozer, is MoonJune Music. I do and run everything solely by myself. This is an advantage, but also a disadvantage. If all goes well for me, I celebrate with myself, and if it doesn’t go well, I can only complain with myself and lick my own wounds, I don’t have a partner or a partner to share my victories or failures. But for me, being on my own, was always an advantage. I have booked or mediated over 3000 concerts since 2001, this includes concerts, full tours, festivals, workshops in more than 60 countries, specializing in tours in North and Latin America, Japan (over 70 tours since 2002) and Asia.
You have collaborated with names I would like to mention (along with the already mentioned Tony Levin & Pat Mastelotto): Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Nektar, Scott Henderson, Markus Reuter. I’m sure it’s a pleasure to work with names like this.
Among the better known names I have worked with or still work with in these two decades are: Alex Skolnick, Allan Holdsworth, Andy Summers, Bill Bruford, Brian Auger, Carles Benavent, Chad Wackerman, Dennis Chambers, Eddie Jobson, Frank Gambale, Gary Husband, Hugh Hopper, Jan Akkerman, Jeff Berlin, Jerry Marotta, Jimmy Haslip, Jimmy Johnson, Joey Alexander, John Etheridge, Jon Hiseman’s Colosseum, Keith Tippett, Ken Hensley, Kenny Grohowski, Leo Lyons of Ten Years After, Lenny White, Markus Reuter, Nektar , PFM, Pat Mastelotto, Percy Jones, Pete Levin, Phil Manzanera, Renaissance, Scott Henderson, Soft Machine, Status Quo, Stu Hamm, Terry Bozzio, Theo Travis, Tony Levin, Vasil Hadzimanov, Vernon Reid, Vinnie Colaiuta, and many others. Yes it was a pleasure, and I have traveled with many around the world, and some are close friends
You are known for your diverse taste when it comes to music. What names would you like to mention and recommend to our readers?
Listen to MoonJune! Here are three compilations for FREE DOWNLOAD, so enjoy:
https://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-invitation-to-moonjune-records-vol-01-free-sampler
https://moonjunerecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-invitation-to-moonjune-records-vol-02-free-sampler
I’m releasing a third compilation soon.
By the way, first I would like first mention the musicians I collaborated with: keyboardist Vasil Hadžimanov, guitarist Dušan Jevtović, saxophonist and flutist Vasko Atanasovski, drummer Srdjan Ivanović. Also the extraordinary bassist Uroš Spasojević, maestro pianist Matija Dedić, sevdah singer Damir Imamović, avant-jazz group Eyot, tand rumpet player (who also plays bass, guitar and keyboards if necessary) Miron Rafajlović who, like Dušan Jevtović, lives in Spain for a long time.
Lastly, what would you like to say to our readers?
Don’t worry, everything will be fine again, one day and maybe sooner. The world is crazy. Enjoy, you only live once!
