After seven years of gathering material and doing research, this book was finally done in 1991, when the war in Yugoslavia already started.

“When I first stumbled upon a Tom Waits record—in Amsterdam, thirteen years before—I discovered a very masochistic side of me: every time I played his songs they would hit a painful spot, yet I had to repeat the experience. Very soon I knew I had to do a book about him, but there was always another, more urgent project,” says Dragan.

The American media largely ignored Waits’ early years, and it was difficult finding even basic details about his life. Letters to his publishers were never answered, and even his agents played deaf. So Dragan informed practically everyone he knew that he was collecting everything related to Waits, and they started sending articles, interviews, reviews, news, and records.

“On two occasions I tried to send a copy of the book to Tom Waits,” says Todorovic. “Once, Jim Jarmusch was in Belgrade for the Film Festival. His host was Emir Kusturica, and through him I arranged a short meeting. I gave him two copies of the book and a short letter for Waits, but I doubt it ever got to him – Jarmusch had a glass full of vodka in his hand at all times. Second time it was after Waits’ concert in Toronto, and I prepared a neat little package, but they thought I was a groupie, and the furthest I got was the third assistant of the second stage manager in the night shift.”

[...]

The dome on the Temple of Holy Rock for almost twenty five years rested on four supporting pillars: Youth, Mutiny, Communication and Fun. Since the beginning it was “understood” that rock emerged as fun different from parents’ fun. In the living room, parents played the games that took two to play; behind the doors, their children danced in circle a ritual dance that demanded generational belonging.

Using language that consisted of less than 2,000 words, within the boundaries of associative mechanism adjusted to the teen age, early rock and roll was highly specialized product and aimed mainly at announcing, celebrating and commenting the first loves in the age when brain and body do not have perfect communication. More than music, less than art, rock of that period avoided the vertical penetrating power and spilled into the horizontal level of generational code. For understanding and enjoying of a classical rock song of the early period, sung in English, one needed not to live in a country where English was spoken, but to be young. There are social spaces where tie is required at the entrance. At the entrance of rock and roll tie is forbidden.

[...]

In November 1965 The Who made My Generation. Pete Townshend wrote a verse covered by much ink of the scholars since then: “I hope I’ll die before I grow old”. Townshend is 51 today and still is active.
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull wrote in 1976 another indicative verse: “Too old to rock and roll, too young to die”. Anderson is 49 and still writes good music.
Robert Plant is 48. Mick Jagger 53.
After the faceless period of 1980s the audience started searching for personalities, for the individuals with clear and emphasized message and attitude.
Rock establishment gladly supported this trend. Why, when one pillar of the Temple was ruined, namely Youth, and the other one—Communication—was attacked by this? For many reasons, but the basic ones were:

“Old Men” were good for business: It was much easier to further push an already established career of a star such as David Bowie, then to fabricate a new star.

“Old Men” socially mirrored the Eighties, a decade in which new terms—such as Yuppies and DINK—were born.

“Old Men” did not talk about gap among generations anymore. Their targets were fascism, autocracy, human rights. Their songs did not consist of the street-fighting paroles; they were more like poetic commentaries.

“Old Men” were not an instant product but a result of a process similar to the one found in the Oriental cuisine: long, slow cooking, with many different spices. Their vocabulary was far richer than 2,000 words and this—although endangering Communication—allowed vertical penetrating power, increasing the reach to many different generations instead of teenagers only.

Dialectically speaking, the same thing that happened to every phenomenon in the history of art, happened to rock : Novelty is brought by the youngsters, but full power to the phenomenon is brought always by the more mature artists. And indeed– in the mid-Eighties there were many reasons to talk about rock as an art form. Bowie, Gabriel, Tom Waits – were artists by every meaning of the word.

[...]