In 1984, The No Smoking Orchestra recorded their first album “Das ist Walter”. It immediately made a lot of noise due to its radical lyrics. That year was a turning point for the band as they dared to “insult” the authorities of socialist Yugoslavia at one of their concerts. That made the “war” against the band begin – they were massively attacked in printed media as well as on radio and TV. All of their songs stopped being played on air and a confidential instruction from the authorities ordered that their gigs be canceled.

Then a young punk, Emir Kusturica, joined the band two years later in 1986 as a bassist. The band’s international musical career did not take off before the 1990s: The No Smoking Orchestra was still unknown despite film director Emir Kusturica already being internationally renowned because of his movies, “Do You Remember Dolly Bell?” and “When Father Was Away on Business”.

In 1989, the band broke up. However, two new reincarnations appeared in a few years with Kusturica as a front man of the Belgrade-based rockers.

In 1998, the band composed the music for Emir Kusturica's film “Black Cat, White Cat”, which won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival the same year. And in 2004 they recorded the soundtrack to Kusturica's “Life Is A Miracle” that was entered into the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

The band has been warmly welcomed in Moscow in the past, so gig-goers in the Russian capital are quite familiar with the repertoire – a wild mix of rock'n'roll, jazz, folk, Gipsy motives, Turkish marches, Asian melodies and Sarajevo punk culture. Don’t miss them this time on Sunday October 17 at Milk Moscow.