This Friday 21st April at Phanganist Hostel we have a special guest from the Balkans. Mirko Radeka is an actor, occasional teacher and DJ resident in one of the coolest night clubs of Serbia’s capital. Whilst he is preparing a smashing mix of Tech House beats to prepare you for the weekend on the island, we are telling you his story which starts with a window replacing the DJ decks and a bunch of excited kids dancing in the street of Belgrade’s suburbia.
https://soundcloud.com/m33losh/melody-meets-repetition-3
Hello Mirko! Tell us how you got here in the first place...
Three months ago I quit my job in Serbia and decided to go explore Southeast Asia with my girlfriend. It was pretty random and we have traveled all around, with trains, boats and nice people willing to pick up hitchhikers.
On our way we found out how easy it is to meet and even live along with the locals in exchange for some work, including DJ-ing, which was a special pleasure for me.
Since these are the last weeks of our nomad life, which have been pretty intense, we decided to come here, settle down and enjoy lazy island days before we fly back home.
What kind of music do you play and who do you admire?
My music taste evolved as I grew – I went all the way from old school House, EDM and DNB to Techno and even Funky.
At this moment I enjoy the work of Solomun, Carl Cox and Dixon, as a lighter, softer choice, and Tale of Us, Maceo Plex and Recondite when I need something darker and deeper.
Once in awhile I don’t hesitate dropping some Oliver Heldens’ tunes as a representative of so called ‘future house’. I also have AMAZING Photoshop skills…
How did you find yourself behind the decks and what keeps you there?
I was 16 when I realised House music has such a powerful influence on me and my mood. I remember going to a music festival for the first time – it was (and still is!) EXIT, held on the old fortress of Petrovaradin in Novi Sad, Serbia. At the time David Guetta was my idol and seeing him there in front of such a huge and crazy crowd, under the open skies, made me curious about that feeling you get when you are the one making the beat drop.
And so it begins. I downloaded Virtual DJ and started annoying my parents and neighbors. Luckily, there were some kids playing in the park behind my building at the time who actually enjoyed my mixing. Few days later they got so used to it that they would start screaming under my window if there had been an entire afternoon without music grooving out of my room. So those were my first gigs and I am forever grateful to my little fans from the park!
A year later I applied for the Enter festival in Croatia, to be the warm up DJ before Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso. I will never forget the recording of that set. I didn’t have any external equipment, my laptop was dying and overheated every 10 minutes, so I had a little engineering project – I positioned it on two books and put the fan on the ground so it could provide some cooling and keep it on. I ended up as second but the effort paid off – just weeks later I applied for another festival in Belgrade Arena and finally got to play in front of people older than 12.
I have been DJ-ing during my studies for the pocket money, and during those years my preference shifted towards Techno, as it usually happens as you get older.
Dropping the studies and starting a job in an advertising agency brought another big change in my DJ-ing career – I met a guy named Miloš, who will soon become my partner behind the decks.
Our slightly different tastes, which combine melodic Techno and harder, Berlin-style sounds, resulted with our duo being named Melody meets Repetition and soon enough we became DJ residents in a Belgrade night club called Rokanje. Since then I’ve played in Cambodia, Vietnam and now Thailand, I can say we became international.
Do you remember your favorite gig?
I remember the time we played in this small club which was supposed to close by 2am. I ended my set with Solitary Daze by Maceo Plex and the crowd was singing to the melody. Eventually police showed up and we had to turn the music down. You can imagine my thrill when I realised that nobody was leaving. They were just standing there quietly, giving time to the police to drive away, and then the applause started. It lasted so long that the owner appeared, saying “Ok, one more song won’t hurt anyone. Just look at me, I will give you a sign if police appears again”. We put our headphones down and gave each other a look you can easily translate as “Play Acamar”. And so we did.
But I do have to mention another one, which took place in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Earlier that month I was volunteering in a school in Battambang, 490 km away. The day I was supposed to play I was just chilling on the beach with my girlfriend doing nothing when she suddenly jumped, looking like she saw a ghost – right behind us, there they were - five of our fellow volunteers! They traveled all night just to see my gig and go back to the school the following day.
Do you have any other aspirations?
My first ever lasting love is theatre. I have been acting in an amateur theatre called Teatar Levo for eleven years now and have played in more than 10 different plays. This means that I also devote a lot of my spare time to movies and theater, as a spectator.
Then, somehow, I ended up working in the digital marketing industry and became fond of it. That’s why I put all my efforts into fusing all these passions with traveling, by playing in clubs I stumble upon and regularly working on online marketing strategies for my clients.
Can you recommend us any Serbian movies or artists?
One my absolute favorites is ‘Underground’, by our famous director Emir Kusturica. Speaking of the DJ-ing scene, it is certainly Kristijan Molnar, who is most likely to become an international star. I can not miss mentioning Lea Dobričić, currently the biggest domestic name in Serbia.
Share your favorite life philosophy with us…
I would say that the world’s biggest cliché is also the world’s biggest truth: Everything really IS possible.
Everything you dream of can be done, if you put all of our effort in it. Once I felt it on my own skin, my life changed.
And don’t be afraid of mistakes. They will still take you somewhere new and, this way or another, will make you grow.
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