Şeytan Tüyü: The Ankara I Could Never Find Again

Some bands stay in your memory because of a song. You hear the first few seconds, and suddenly a certain year, a certain street, or a certain person comes back. Other bands are different. They are connected not only to music but also to a whole period of life, to places, friendships, habits, and nights that seemed ordinary at the time but became precious years later.

For me, Şeytan Tüyü belongs to the second group.

I listened to them many times in Ankara. I saw them at Baraka, at Nil, and later at Motion. For a long period, they were part of what going out in Ankara meant to me. If Şeytan Tüyü was playing somewhere, that was already a good reason to go. You knew the night would have energy, familiar songs, long performances, and the kind of atmosphere that did not need much planning.

Years later, when I think about them, I realize that I am not only remembering a band I loved. I am also remembering a period in Ankara when live music was not just background entertainment. It was the center of the night.

The beginning: Kavel Bar, 1997

The story of Şeytan Tüyü began in 1997, at Kavel Bar in Ankara.

According to old biographies and archive pages about the band, Volkan Pekkurnaz and Serkan Kamalıoğlu started playing there with two guitars. At first, the project was informal. Friends sometimes joined them on bass or drums, and the idea of a permanent band had not fully formed yet. But the audience reacted strongly, and the small performances slowly turned into something more serious.

The name of the band also comes from this early period. According to the story, the manager of Kavel noticed the attention Volkan and Serkan received from the audience and told them that they had “şeytan tüyü.”

The expression is difficult to translate directly into English. It refers to a special charm, something attractive that is hard to explain. A person with “şeytan tüyü” can make people like them naturally, without obvious effort.

It is difficult to imagine a better name for the group.

When people who listened to Şeytan Tüyü in those years talk about them, they rarely speak only about technical skill. They also talk about the band’s energy, sense of humor, communication with the audience, and ability to create a connection with the room.

The best-known and longest-remembered line-up was:

Volkan Pekkurnaz — vocals and guitar
Serkan Kamalıoğlu — vocals and guitar
Serter Çaybaş — bass guitar
Hüseyin Keskin — drums

Old records from 2004 list the same four musicians and give 1997 as the formation year. Information about the group is scattered across old forums, concert announcements, archived pages, and personal memories, but this line-up appears consistently in those sources.

A band that lived on stage

Today, when people talk about a band’s success, they usually mention albums, streaming numbers, festival appearances, social media, or large concert halls. Şeytan Tüyü belonged to a different model.

They were mainly a live band, and their real history was written in bars.

This is important because the live music culture of Ankara in the late 1990s and 2000s worked differently from today’s entertainment scene. People followed weekly programs. They knew which band was playing at which venue and on which day. Some bands became so closely connected to certain places that the band and the venue almost became part of the same identity.

Şeytan Tüyü was one of those bands.

Old schedules show how active they were. In 2004, they were listed at Nil Bar on Mondays, IV Rock Bar in Tandoğan on Thursdays, and Baraka Rock Bar on Fridays and Saturdays. In 2005, there were Baraka programs on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. A 2006 schedule again shows regular performances at Nil and Baraka.

Some of these shows lasted for hours.

That detail says a lot about the period. This was not a short performance where people entered, watched forty-five minutes of music, took a few videos, and left. A night developed slowly. The band played, stopped, talked to the audience, returned to the stage, changed the mood, and continued. People moved between tables. Some left, others arrived. Regular customers recognized each other. The room became more familiar as the night continued.

Şeytan Tüyü knew how to work inside that kind of atmosphere.

Baraka

Among all the places connected with the band, Baraka has a special place in my memory.

It is difficult to describe old Baraka to someone who never experienced that kind of Ankara nightlife. It was not a place designed for photographs or social media. Nobody was choosing a venue because the lighting looked good on a phone screen. The attraction was not perfection. The attraction was the atmosphere.

Baraka was dark, crowded, noisy, and sometimes probably too crowded. From a modern business point of view, there were many things that could have been improved. But that was not what mattered. People went there because the place felt alive.

When Şeytan Tüyü was on stage, the distance between the band and the audience was very small. The musicians were not remote figures hidden behind security or a large stage. During breaks, you could see them nearby. Sometimes you could speak with them. If you went regularly, the same faces appeared again and again.

This created a kind of continuity that is much harder to find now.

The venue had regular customers, and the band had regular listeners. After some time, those two groups almost became one. People did not always go to Baraka and then discover that Şeytan Tüyü was playing. Very often, they went to Baraka because Şeytan Tüyü was playing.

I was one of those people.

I listened to them there many times, and the sound of the band is still strongly connected with the memory of that place. Years later, I can still imagine the crowd, the low light, the tables, the stage, and the feeling that the night did not need anything more than the band continuing to play.

Nil

Nil Bar was different from Baraka, but just as important.

It was smaller, tighter, and more intimate. The physical distance between the stage and the audience was almost nothing. That closeness changed the experience completely.

I still remember going back to Nil in 2010 and listening to Şeytan Tüyü again after almost two years. The downstairs area was full, so we first stayed outside. Later, when the crowd became a little lighter, we went down and watched the band.

There was something strange about seeing them again after a long break.

When you meet people you have not seen for years, you notice how they have changed. At the same time, you become aware that you have changed too. The faces in front of you become a kind of clock. You realize that time has passed not only for them but also for you.

Nil had a special atmosphere because there was almost no clear border between performer and audience. After a while, it did not feel like four musicians were performing for a separate crowd. It felt more like a group of people had gathered together, and four of them had gone onto the stage to play.

What stays in memory from nights like that is often not the main event. It is the small details.

I remember the crowded lower floor. I remember the musicians moving between the stage and the back of the venue. I remember voices from the tables mixing with the music. I remember Cem sometimes joining the vocals.

At the time, none of these things seemed historically important. They were simply part of a normal night.

Years later, they are exactly the things I value most.

Motion

After the Baraka and Nil years, Şeytan Tüyü continued at Motion in Bahçelievler.

I kept listening to them there too.

By then, however, Ankara was changing. The nightlife was changing, and perhaps our own lives were changing at the same time. It is never easy to separate those two things.

There is always a danger in nostalgia. People often say that everything was better when they were younger. Memory keeps the good parts, removes many of the bad parts, and creates a cleaner version of the past.

I am aware of that.

Still, I do not think everything can be explained by age.

After the years of Baraka, Nil, Motion, and Şeytan Tüyü, I never found the same entertainment atmosphere in Ankara again.

There were other bars, other bands, good musicians, and good nights. Ankara did not suddenly stop having music. But the feeling was different.

Something had changed in the relationship between the venue, the band, and the people inside it.

More than three hundred songs

One of the strongest parts of Şeytan Tüyü was their repertoire.

Old biographies mention a list of more than 300 Turkish and international songs. Their Turkish side included important names such as Barış Manço and Cem Karaca, while their international repertoire included many classic rock songs.

This wide repertoire was not only impressive as a number. It gave the band flexibility.

A live band needs to understand the audience. A set list that works at one moment may not work an hour later. The energy of the room changes, and the musicians need to feel that change.

Şeytan Tüyü was good at this.

A Cem Karaca song could suddenly bring the whole room together. A classic rock song could slow the atmosphere down. A more energetic piece could then raise the room again. The night moved like a conversation between the band and the audience.

Old listeners still remember certain songs many years later. Deep Purple’s “Soldier of Fortune” is one example that appears in old comments about the group.

That detail is meaningful.

When people remember the same performance or the same song after many years, it usually means the band did more than simply play the notes correctly.

They created a memory.

Energy, humor, and familiarity

When old comments and forum posts about Şeytan Tüyü are read together, certain words appear again and again: energy, entertainment, sincerity, and communication.

The band talked to the audience. The audience answered. Volkan’s conversations with the crowd are especially remembered. During breaks, the musicians did not disappear into a completely separate world.

This made the evening feel personal.

That personal connection is probably one of the main reasons the band had such loyal listeners.

There were certainly technically stronger bands. There were musicians with larger careers, more famous albums, or more professional productions. But making people return to the same small venue week after week for years requires a different kind of ability.

It requires trust.

The audience needs to believe that the band will understand the room, create energy, and make the night worth leaving home for.

Şeytan Tüyü had that ability.

Perhaps this is exactly what the name meant from the beginning.

They had “şeytan tüyü.”

A band with a larger live history than recording history

Researching Şeytan Tüyü today produces an interesting result.

Their live history is much easier to trace than their official recording history.

Old forum posts, concert schedules, venue announcements, and personal memories create a clear picture of a band that was constantly on stage. However, their recorded catalogue from the early period is much harder to document.

In the mid-2000s, the band had a page on AnatolianRock, and old posts mention demo recordings available there. There were also discussions about album work. However, the early Şeytan Tüyü years did not produce a large, widely distributed album catalogue that represented the importance of the band in Ankara nightlife.

Much later, in April 2018, event pages mentioned a release titled Al da Kurtar, published under the DMC label.

This is part of the band’s history, but it is not the main reason I remember them.

For me, Şeytan Tüyü was never mainly an album band.

Their real archive was live.

It existed in long nights at Baraka, crowded evenings at Nil, later performances at Motion, and hundreds of small moments that were never officially recorded.

Ankara’s live music culture

At this point, the story becomes larger than one band.

It becomes a story about Ankara.

The city had a particular live music culture during those years. Certain places had strong identities, and certain bands became part of those identities. People did not simply choose a bar. They followed bands, friends, weekly routines, and familiar faces.

This created a social network before social networks moved online.

You knew where people would probably be on a Friday or Saturday night. You knew which band played at which place. If a program changed, people’s plans changed with it. Some venues felt almost like meeting points rather than businesses.

Live music was not decoration.

It was the reason people went there.

For me, this is the biggest difference between that period and what came later.

The nightlife became more temporary and more anonymous. Places opened and closed faster. Audiences changed faster. Music was still present, but the long relationship between the same band, the same venue, and the same listeners became weaker.

The old system created memory slowly.

You went to the same place many times. You heard the same band many times. You saw the same people many times. Each individual night may not have been extraordinary, but together they created something powerful.

The years after

It would be unfair to say that nothing good happened in Ankara after those years.

Good venues opened. New bands appeared. Younger people created their own culture. Different styles of music became popular. The city continued to change, as every city does.

My point is more personal.

I never found the same feeling again.

After Şeytan Tüyü, Baraka, Nil, and Motion, I never found another combination of band, venue, audience, and atmosphere that gave me the same sense of belonging.

This is partly about age, of course. When you are younger, you have more energy, more free time, and fewer reasons to go home early. A night that begins at ten and ends at three in the morning feels normal.

Later, life changes.

Work becomes heavier. Responsibilities grow. People move away. Friend groups become smaller or more difficult to gather. The idea of standing in a crowded bar until late at night becomes less attractive.

But even after accepting all of that, I still believe Ankara itself lost something.

The city lost part of a culture where live music, regular audiences, and specific venues were connected for years.

How a city keeps its memory

Cities usually remember large events.

They remember famous buildings, official ceremonies, important concerts, and well-known artists. But everyday cultural life is much more fragile.

A small bar can disappear without leaving a proper archive. A band’s weekly schedule may survive only on an old forum. Photographs may stay on a forgotten hard drive. A demo may disappear when a website closes.

This is why small memories matter.

A post saying that Şeytan Tüyü would play at Baraka on Saturday may seem unimportant. A comment from someone who remembers “Soldier of Fortune” may look like a minor detail. A personal note about a crowded night at Nil may appear too private to have historical value.

Together, however, these details tell the real story of a city.

They show how people spent their evenings, where they met, what they listened to, and which places became part of their lives.

This is also why I wanted to write this down.

I do not want Şeytan Tüyü to survive only as a name on an old forum page.

What remains

When I think about Şeytan Tüyü now, I do not first remember a single song.

I remember an atmosphere.

I remember the sound of a crowded bar, people talking over each other, glasses on tables, and the stage in front of us. I remember Volkan, Serkan, Serter, and Hüseyin. I remember Baraka, Nil, and Motion as parts of the same long story rather than separate places.

I do not know how many times I listened to the band. I cannot remember every night, and I certainly cannot remember every song they played. Some evenings were probably less exciting than I now imagine them. Memory changes things, and nostalgia often makes the past look more perfect than it really was.

Still, one part of the memory feels completely clear.

We had a lot of fun.

And I do not think that was only because we were young.

We had bands that felt connected to the city. We had venues with personality. We had regular audiences who returned again and again. We had places where seeing familiar faces was normal, not surprising.

There was a sense of continuity.

You did not need a special event or a large concert to have a good night. Sometimes all you needed was a normal Thursday at Nil or a Saturday at Baraka, because the band was there, your friends were there, and the night already had its own rhythm.

That is what I miss.

I do not miss better technology, larger screens, more professional sound systems, or more stylish places. I miss the feeling that a venue belonged to the people who kept returning to it.

I miss knowing the band on stage.

I miss the familiar faces.

I miss the small feeling of belonging to a part of Ankara for a few hours.

For me, Şeytan Tüyü was the music of that feeling.

They were the sound of Baraka, Nil, Motion, and a period when Ankara nights had a kind of warmth that I could never fully find again.

The city is still there, of course. Many of the streets are still there. New places have opened, new generations have created their own memories, and life has continued as it always does.

But cities are not only streets and buildings.

They are also habits, voices, repeated meetings, familiar songs, and places that once felt permanent.

Şeytan Tüyü belongs to that Ankara for me.

When I remember the band today, I do not only remember music. I remember a city that felt closer, smaller, louder, and somehow more alive.

And perhaps that is why the memory still matters.

Because when I remember Şeytan Tüyü, I also remember the Ankara I could never find again.