Paraf

Paraf is punk rock and later post punk band from Rijeka, Croatia. They are known as one of the first legendary punk bands in the former Yugoslavia.
Paraf was formed at the end of 1976 by three teenagers from Rijeka, influenced by early punk music: Valter Kocijanic (vocal, guitar), Zdravko Cabrijan (bass) and Dusan Ladavac (drums).
Their first discography appearance was a single Rijeka/Moj Zivot je novi val 1979. One year later they released their first LP A dan je tako lijepo poceo... (translated: "But The Day Started So Good..."). It was a straight-forward punk-rock album. Because of quite provocative lyrics and attitude, this record was put under a high tax rate and censorship. However, after that Paraf stayed to be as a one of the most controversial musical acts in the former communist Yugoslavia. Some of their gigs were remembered with police repression towards bandmembers and their fans.
Their famous track "Narodna pjesma" was included in the Novi Punk Val compilation released by ZKP RTLJ.
After this first album, frontman Valter Kocijanic left Paraf. He was replaced by female singer Pavica Mijatovic who was always presented under the pseudonym Vim Cola, and also with a new guitarist.
Second album Izleti (translated: "Excursions") was released 1982. From this album and previous single Fini decko/Tuzne usi (1981) band started to experiment with keyboards and soon moved from classic punk-rock sound to more artistic, post punk oriented music, but kept their contraversal and quite politically involved attitude in their concept.
The third LP titled Zastave(translated: "Flags") was released 1984. Produced with the help of Aldo Ivancic (member of Slovenian EBM band Borghesia), this album logically followed musical path from "Izleti" but only with more references to the early seminal gothic sounds of the likes such as Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Cure. It was also the last release from Paraf, because band disappeared from the scene (although they had never officially announced their disbanding). At the time of releasing guitarist Robert Ticic committed suicide; also Zastave didn't achieve almost any commercial success and attention in the media and as well band didn't tour and promote this album. But, however, this highly conceptual and artistic album achieved a cult status and became hailed as one of the all-time best releases of Croatian rock few years later.
Paraf reunited only once in their original line-up 1994 just to do a few gigs in Croatia, but there's no plans for real reunion and new works.