II
Vajta & Teška industrija

About:

8 March 1950

Born Seid Memić in the Bosnian town of Travnik he took up his nickname Vajta as a child as an abrovition of Captain Wyatt. The name stuck. Vajta was forced to grow up fast when his father died when he was 13 years old. Being the oldest of the family he stopped school and went to work in the local factory. Late sixties he moved to Austria were he came in contact with modern music and started to sing himself. In 1971 he went back to Bosnia and settled in Sarajevo with a friend to make costume jewelry. Here keyboardist Gabor Lenđel had founded the band Teška industrija with former Ajani singer Fadil Toskić on vocals. Not satisfied Lenđel apporached Vajta to replace Toskić in 1973. The band started performing and were signed to Yugoton for a first single ‘U.F.O. / Karavan’ (1975) which became a hit record. This allowed them to record three more singles before the band was allowed to work on an album. The highly experimental psychedelic jazz rock album ‘Ho-ruk’ was the result. Too complex for the main public the album did not sell as well as expected. A second more aproachable album, which was more in line with the singles, followed soon. Artistic differences drove Vajta to leave the band and start a solo career. Teška industrija recorded one more album before the band fell apart.

With a growing popularity as a pop singer he represented Yugoslavia in the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with the song ‘Lejla’. He remained a recording artist in the Eighties with several hit singles. He also started acting on the side amongst others in the children’s serie ‘Nedeljni zabavnik’ (Sunday´s Kaleidoscope). He declined the offer to join the tenth anniversary of Teška industrija in 1984. During the war in Yugoslavia Vajta stopped his career and moved abroad organising benefit shows for the war victims. Since 1994 he lives in Hamburg, Germany. In 1996 he recorded a single with MC Od Kulina-bana called ‘Bosanska’ (A Song on Bosnia). A second beneficial single in (Na te mislim (I´ve Been Thinking of You) / Od Sarajeva do Banja-Luke (From Sarajevo to Banja-Luka)) was recorded for the Project Supporting Orphem Children by Unicef. In 2003 he returns with a new album. In early 2007, Teška industrija also reunited with a female singer. In 2009, Vajta participates in the Croatian reality TV show Farma.

On the web:

- Vajta's website: http://www.vajta.de/

- Teška industrija's website: http://www.teska-industrija.com/

If you like this, you probably like... / european counterparts:

Ton Steine Scherben (Germany)

Rainhard Fendrich (Austria)

What do we think:

DB: Maybe not the topnotch of ex-yugo progrock acts but definitely an act is in the top ten and should be present in your collection. Vajta's output became more and more poppy over the years also due to the musical partners he chose. I think you can see the gradual 'originality' in album-titles (or rather the lack off) as an indication of what to expect. The Teška industrija albums of the seventies may sound a bit chaotic and suffer from the fact that recording techniques were probably not state of the art in Sarajevo. But between the somewhat brackish recordings there is raw and innovative energy that still holds an allure. Even after so many years.

Recommended albums:

♪♪♪♪ - Zlatna ribica - 1979.

♪♪♪ - Vajta 2 - 1980.

♪♪♪ - Vajta 3 - 1981.

- Tebi pjevam - 1982.

- Kad bulbuli pjevaju - 1984

- Vajta - 1985

- Vajta - 1987

- Vajta - 1988

- Kupi mi, tajo, harmoniku - 1991.

- & Scandal Music Orchestra - 2006

Teška industrija:

♪♪♪ - Ho-ruk - 1976

♪♪♪♪ - Teška industrija - 1976

- Zasviraj i za pojas zadjeni - 1978

- Ponovo sa vama - 1984

- Kantina - 2007

- Bili smo raja - 2011

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♪♪♪♪♪ = outstanding album, an absolute must-have
♪♪♪♪ = great album, highly recomended
♪♪♪ = nice album
♪♪ = be careful, requires listening before buying
♪ = best to be avoided