JZA Crew
Without the photographs and concert recordings made since 2010 by Jaka Čurlič – Čurlo, an active participant in the Gorizia alternative scene, with the help of various other enthusiasts, this important and highly productive period of local music history would likely have been lost to oblivion. Through thousands of photographs and hundreds of recordings from concerts at KC Mostovna, Pieffe Factory, and elsewhere, he has created an invaluable visual archive that will serve future generations of music journalists, historians, cultural scholars, and sociologists.
JZA Crew, conceived as a collective and multimedia platform dedicated to covering metal, punk, hardcore, grindcore, and other alternative events in the Gorizia region, emerged at a time when the local metal(core) and hardcore scene was at its peak. Numerous bands were active then, including A Murder Theory, Shallow End, Eternity, Veto, Coruss, Koromač, Betrayal, Slain Upon My Sword (later See-Through), and others, regularly performing at Mostovna. All of these bands were featured by JZA Crew through interviews, reports, and other formats. By organising its own events between roughly 2010 and 2015, JZA Crew established itself as one of the driving forces of the local scene.
The JZA Crew archive on YouTube comprises 283 recordings of both local bands—such as Elvis Jackson, Scuffy Dogs, Veto, Pigs Parlament, Pizda Materna, Extreme Smoke 57, Keller, Shutdown, and Kozara—and international legends including NOFX, Descendents, Hatebreed, 7 Seconds, Total Chaos, The Casualties, The Old Firm Casuals, Youth Of Today, SNFU, Belphegor, Strung Out, Agnostic Front, Warbringer, Madball, Exodus, A Wilhelm Scream, and others. In addition to allowing concertgoers to revisit memories and relive performances by truly iconic acts, the sheer scope of this archive also demonstrates that the Gorizia alternative scene was experiencing an undeniable peak at the time. Even niche metal events featuring local or regional bands regularly attracted audiences of several hundred people from Nova Gorica and the surrounding area.
JZA Crew, always primarily the project of Jaka Čurlič, has in recent years evolved into a production house responsible for music videos for various bands and video reports from local festivals such as Punk Rock Holiday and Metaldays. In 2021, Čurlič also directed the official documentary film about the Tolmin punk festival, PRH: The Beast From Soča River, which, based on a decade of material, offers insight into the backstage world of this globally renowned festival.
Avtor: Jaša Bužinel
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