[wallpaperden.com]Precious but eye-brow raising: the celebrated glimpse of a time when Soviet Youth was toying with Western decadence.
Welcome to the Leningrad of the early Eighties and the bands of the Rock Club that emerged there. Part biopic/docudrama and part musical, this monochrome film which opened in Cannes last May to much fanfare, concerns the (fictionalised) life and times of Viktor Tsoi, lead singer of Kino and Mike Naumenko the vocalist with blue-rock band Zoo Park.
These `U.S.S.R punks` were smitten with Western rock and so, uniformed in denim and shades, tried to live for the moment, swigging wine and puffing cigs in the way they imagined their Western counterparts had done 15 years earlier.We see them haggling over Western rock posters in markets and getting hassled by old-timers on train journeys.
Many of their elders indulged them, however, and the Soviet authorities let them play their stuff – most of it on acoustic guitars and recorded on reel-to-reel tape recorders –provided it was their own work. We can be thankful for this edict because the music of Tsoi’s Kino is as timeless as it is Russian, even though nudged a bit by the likes of Joy Division.
It seems somehow fitting that many of these artisans, Tsoi and Naumenko included, were to die young just before the Soviet period, which they had chaffed against, drew to a close.
[filmpro.ru]The brainchild of this innovative movie is the outspoken Putin critic Kirill Serebrinnikov who is notorious for being under house arrest for supposed `embezzlement` – a situation which came into force during the making of this film.
He has brought the Russian rock star’s restricted milieu to life by use of quasi-avant garde flourishes. Leto features hand painted graphics, on screen lyrics, and abrupt vaudevillian rock turns the songs of Talking Heads, Bowie, and Iggy Pop.
Real life rock vocalist Roman Bilyk (of power-pop group Zveri) takes the role of Mika Naumanko and does so with able nonchalance. The difficult task of becoming the iconic Viktor Tsoi fell to the Korean-German actor Teo Yoo who had to say his lines in Russian despite not having any of that language!
However not even the addition of Irina Starshenbaum (Attraction) as the object of a love mix-up involving Tsoi and Naumenko, can disguise the fact that Leto is formless and overlong, (in particular if one is not fluent in Russian).
What saves Leto is its stylistic playfulness some of which even startled me, and of course the music proves enlivening, although I would like to have heard less of the old Western party pieces and more from Kino.
This film resembles Aleksey German’s film Dovlatov from earlier the same year.Both films brood over the well-known problems of earlier times. Perhaps it is time for Russian film makers to look forward.
Up-and-coming Sci Fi metal act Sunwalter have forged a great rapport with their burgeoning fan base, while established groovers Dolphin put on a polished but aloof performance.
Sunwalter shots by Iain Rogers.
Sunwalter, a five piece now in their first decade, term their own brand of symphonic power rock `sci fi metal`.
The lyrics of these twenty-something’s compositions (sung in English) reside in an intergalactic reality of their own. This is a broth of Roswell speculation and cosmic adventure as shown in their most recent album – Alien Hazard – which they toured Eastern Europe with last year.
They sustain this theatricality in all their dealings: they wear costumes, have stage names (Alexio – vocals, Olga Sol- vocals, Myutel and St Odium on guitars and Miran on drums), their stage act constitutes masquerade and the music itself owes something to the pomp and circumstance of the `prog rock` of 40 odd years back.
Sunwalter form an upbeat (if escapist) counterblast to the dark and (often lazy) nihilism of all too many acts in the same genre. They are very much helped by the soprano like `clean` vocals of Olga, who gives an operatic edge to the whole enterprise.
Sunwalter’s Olga Sol
When I interviewed them a few years back I was very much struck by their ambition. This was focused on the music itself, in getting it just right, but also in pushing themselves out there and becoming known.
So when I clambered in to the Alibi club, right next to a Lukoil building, it was with some proprietorial concern.
The event was another `battle of the bands` format of the kind that I had first met them in. That is, a coterie of camp followers congregating to compare notes and to cheer on their own teams. This time, however, Sunwalter were hosting and it was their name at the top of the list and their t-shirts and CDs on sale in the lobby.
The bands had to do their own sound checks before going on. This was why I had assumed that the portly, bespectacled lead singer of Schwarzkopf was a sound engineer.
He and his band went on to parody Rammstein with great competence. I think their songs were their own, but would have believed them to be by the band they so much model themselves on.
Likewise, the next act (Suicider?) – lead by a standardised hairy rock god – seemed to be referencing Metallica, up to an including the American accents.
When Sunwalter made their eventual appearance they brought with them a sense of relief. This lot, at least, represented more than mere acolytes.
Alexio from Sunwalter. He may look like a stage hypnotist but he can reverse the polarity of the neutron flow in your warp drive faster than you can say ` ““Flash Gordon`.
The attendance swelled to about 300 and it became clear that many of them had come just for Sunwalter, who, for their part seemed to relish every moment of their hour and a half set.
Sunwalter guitarist Myutel. (He’s a nice boy really)
Alexio growled from behind a Sunwalter themed disc shaped lectern while Olga, resplendent in a shiny blue one piece costume and green eye shadow nodded to the beat.The drummer wore a death’s-head mask and at one point the guitarist leapt down from the stage and began playing from behind the audience. Olga kept up a lot of banter with her fans – she seems to have become the focus of attention – and one of them won a competition and received a gem stone.
After the curtain call the satisfied punters posed with Olga for selfies. It was then that I reflected that, for all the cheer this accomplished band spread around, they remain a hobby-band with day jobs. They deserve so much better.
With the tickets going at 2, 200 roubles, this was the most that I had paid for a concert in Russia. This might explain the nature of the ticket holders. They were dressed as if for the theatre and a few men had ponytails but not many wore the usual faded black t-shirt with band logos on. I was amongst urban professionals. One of them even apologised to me when he almost knocked a glass out of my hand!
The Glav Club Green Concert venue is to be found in the industrial heart of the Leninsky Prospekt area. The place seemed well run as snazzy black suited young women took our coats in the wardrobe area and it proved spacious enough to house the two thousand or so punters in non-sardine like conditions.
Andrei Lysikov of Dolphin. An icon of Russia’s post-Soviet rock-pop scene. [spblife.info]Dolphin (Delfin) represent one of the few signature Russian rock bands that I know little about. This owes to the fact that there is a strong lyrical content to their `rap rock`.
The lead singer, 47-year-old Andrei Lysikov, began life, after all,as a hip-hop rap artist. With Malchysnik – think a Russian Beastie Boys for the post-Soviet generation- made the Russia of the Yeltsin years both blush and wince.
Long since then he has mellowed (this concert was certificate 12+) and has been producing a more thoughtful type of techno-rock rap fusion in creative buddyship with the guitarist Pavel Dodonov.
Nobody seems quite sure how to categorise this fusion. Trip hop? Shoe gazer? British readers will know what I mean when I mention New Order and DepecheMode. The ensemble also sometimes recall the more indigenous t.A.T.u at times.
Whatever the genre, many of their numbers, such as `Vyesna` (`Spring`) are known to pretty much all Russians.
The nondescript three-piece engineered a non-stop two-hour set shrouded in a purple and blue laser light show. Between sets they produced portentous electronic soundscapes.
This combination was often majestic and the drummer in particular fleshed out a pre-programmed bass with sharp percussion, sometimes incorporating wood blocks. A trumpeter and saxophonist came on for three songs too. The vocals, however, all seemed a bit the same, although it would have helped if I could have caught the content more.
In contrast to Sunwalter, though these heroes of Russian rock did little to reach out to the people who had bought tickets to see them. We might as well have been watching them on a screen. The audience responded in kind by not singing along and not calling for an encore.
What we did do, however, was jive. It is not so obvious from their recorded material that Dolphin constitute a great dance band – but, as the gyrating girl in dreadlocks and a satchel in front of me well knew – they can get you moving it.
A state-of-the-art stadium metal act…fronted by an Armenian woman with oppositional views.
The Adrenaline Club, in the Northwest of Moscow, whilst not quite Earls Court Arena, drew a queue outside it which must have numbered well into the thousands, making this the biggest gig I have yet been to. Shivering in the first snow of the year we all looked – a few painted face fanatics aside – a bit the same, donned as we were in the same post-rock uniforms that almost everyone goes about in these days: black jeans, hoodies, desert boots, khaki and so on.
As we reached the massed ranks of door security awaiting us at the entrance to the stadium, they advised my Glaswegian colleague-cum-press-photographer that, as he had no press pass, he would have to leave his top of the range camera in their safe hands. At this my helpmate spat on the floor and rejoined the mid-November frost.
Having lost my hope of any decent visuals (sorry about that!) and a rare chance to bond with a fellow expat, I tried not to let this setback put a pall on the whole entertainment and consoled myself with a few overpriced Budweisers in the voluminous darkened auditorium.
Here’s what they REALLY look like! [spb.gdechego.ru] Nothing here but us.
At around quarter to Nine some members of the audience invaded the stage, or rather Louna appeared, for it seemed like the same thing. Tonight, showcasing their new offering `Polyoosa` (Poles) with the sponsorship of the sterling Russian rock outlet Nashe Radio, they were on their home turf and their sense of comfort seemed palpable.
Louna came about ten years back, whereas Lousine Gervorkyan, a 35 year old Kapan born Armenian who studied music and teaches singing, has been a vocalist for over twenty years. In a previous life she headed Traktor Bowling (and sometimes still does) before her bassist Vitaly Demidenko and her made a bid for a new band with a bolder sociopolitical thrust. With this aim they head hunted two guitarists – Ruben Kazariyan and Segei Ponkratiev and the rhythm wizard Leonid Kinzbursky. Enter Louna.
This outspoken band have been prepared to put their money where their mouth is too, having been involved in fundraising for Pussy Riot (a fact which may have explained why they came to be pulled from an MTV documentary called `Rebel Rock` following pressure from unknown Russian sources).
Set piece.
Gervorkyan, with her dark angular looks, trademark long hair shaven at the sides and jeans torn at the knees, is more of a tomboy skater icon than a sex siren and the many women in the crowd were the most excited to see her. (Her stage presence was lost on me a bit, stuck as I was behind a forest of raised mobiles and having to watch the TV screen to get a proper view).
Throughout their industrious two-hour long set the band must have taken us through every hard rock trend of the past thirty years – a bit of ska punk here, a bit of thrash there, then a bit of pomp rock…and so on. This was all mixed with care and not so ear-splitting that you were unable to appreciate, for example, the well coordinated interplay of the two lead guitarists. Louna constitute a song based act, however, and the vocals were placed at the forefront. For a comparison the most obvious choice would be Sandra Nasic and the Guano Apes (minus the inventive range of that singer and band) but Gervorkyan’s more baleful and operatic moments, however, put this old New Waver in mind of Hazel O’ Connor at times.
Louna are accomplished chant-along merchants and Russians in particular are always all to eager to oblige when it comes to joining in with the performance. I am not sure how that many of them shared the finer points of the band’s philosophy, however, even if they had memorised the lyrics well. The message of the medium – from the confetti and smoke being disgorged into the air, the lit mobiles and paper hearts held aloft for the slower numbers, to the tomfoolery with a huge balloon, and the onstage man on rollers filming it all this – might have been a set by the rather more conservative dad rockers Aria.
Reality check.
There remains one performance, however, that will stay with me after I have forgotten all that standardised pageantry. They did not treat us to their classic single `Divny Novi Mir` (`Brave New World`) – although I did recognise some numbers from the same titled album from which it comes. What they did do though was to play a tribute to another dystopian classic: 1984. With the rally like format of the show, and the way in which the chorus read out the numbers in the year as a list as they flashed on the display behind the band (`Adin! Devyat! Voysem! Chetyre!`) created a very poignant and eerie impact.
So while the downsides of impersonal stadium gigs hardly require to be itemised (I caught Traktor Bowling in the smaller Red Club a few years ago and could relate to it all a lot more) there were times when the medium and the message worked as one. `Adin! Devyat! Voysem! Chetyre!`….shudder.
Vintage garage rockers promote gleeful disorder among younger fans.
Photography by Iain Rodgers.
I have been among many gig goers in Kazan and Moscow to catch a bit of darkwave (Otto Dix), some grindcore ([Amatory]), some blues (Blues Gravity) and a bit of pop-rock (Gorod 312) but had not really been witness to any rUsSiAn PuNk. Until now that is.
In fact Russian punk rock has a longer history than you might expect. Many trace this genre’s origins back to Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in 1979. And what if I told you that there was a punk band called Adolf Hitler from Siberia – in 1986!
Posledni Tank V Parizhe (Last Tank in Paris) – often abbreviated to P.T.V.P – were formed ten years later in 1996 and in fact they hail from the supposed birthplace of Russian punk. They are said have kept hold of some (whisper it) political dissent. As so many newer acts seem to fail in this regard, this would be worth seeing.
Their appearance in the capital on 16th September this year was not well publicised and even grabbing an advance ticket proved to be an obstacle course. The babaushka at the kiosk who would be the usual supplier swore blind that there was no such band on at the Red Club, and it was to that club that I had to go to in the end to get satisfaction.
Situated on Bolotnaya Nab on the bank of the River Moskva, this long established nightclub-cum restaurant serves as a place for big acts, with the emphasis on rock. This event was billed as Demokraticheskoi KonsertPo Zayavkam which I first took as a bold plea for a more representative government before realising that it had more the sense of `Due to popular demand. `
I estimate that the mixed sex and age audience that came in from the early autumn nippiness reached 800 or so. Few looked like hardcore punks: I espied a `Punk’s Not Dead` t-shirt and a `Motorhead `one and one guy with a mohican, but the rest of us had come as we were.
As we sipped our 400 rouble a throw Budweisers, a backstage projection behind the stage shone the initials P.T.V.P and we grew restless. They arrived at about 9.00 pm, an hour after the ticket time. This four piece string and drum outfit consist of Denis Krichov hitting the skins and adding to the vocals, Igor Nedviga on bass and also some vocals and Anton `Bender` Dokuchaev, the axeman. These came on first as the gathering chanted `P! T! V! P! `
Then, from the back of the stage, emerged Aleksei Nikonov, the poet and kingpin of the ensemble. No pretty boy, chunky and in a dark suit and shades he resembled a member of the Blues Brothers except for his slicked back hair and man-bun.
Nikonov greeted Moscow and they kick-started their two hour set. Their dirty sound was predictable for the most part: honed down energetic rock and roll (think The Damned era punk) and some more upbeat power pop but also some more thoughtful alternative rock interludes which brought to mind Magazine. This was a big sound for a four piece (I think I detected the use of a backing track only once). Some of their guitar work reached a divine level. Nikonov’s vocal delivery, on the other hand, aped the standard telegrammatic nagging of early British punk rock.
The musicians presented a nondescript appearance but Nikonov compensated for this by his `Red Indian` style circular stomping, his waving of a baton and by appearing to swig from a wine bottle (I say `appearing` because I believe that onstage drinking is banned in Russia. At least I have never seen it done for real).
The audience were the ones providing the main spectacle though: women gyrated like charmed snakes and I saw a guy held up by two walking sticks head banging with his dreadlocks flying everywhere. There was much in the way of slam dancing and its attendant stage diving. One girl, after doing her first exploratory stage dive, ran back to the embrace of her mother.
I think I caught the word `revolutsia` once but any sense of taking on state control was lost in the indiscernible lyrics. While the motley crew who came to see the band were no conformists, they had not come for that. The word had clearly got out that P.T.V.P could create a backdrop for a bit of organised mayhem. So what!? Naff off!
The two members of Russia’s most popular band have both played in Moscow recently -and I caught them both.
Fame.
A girl synth pop-rock duo formed in Moscow in the late Nineties, the Russian outfit t.A.T.u produced a string of international hits through a nine year period in the Noughties.
As much as Eurovision followers may recall who Dima Bilan is, or rock historians may have read something about Machina Vremya or Akvarium, or metal-heads could well have head banged to an anthem that Aria played, the Russian group with a worldwide profile is t.A.T.u. They were the `National treasures` who featured in the opening ceremony of the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
T.A.T.u consist of the Muscovites Yulia Olegovna Volkova, now aged thirty three (and married with a child) and Katina Elena Sergeevna, who is one year older. Ivan Shaplov, who had a background in television, managed them.
Beginning with Ya slosha s’ooma (I’ve Lost My Mind) in 2000, they released a series of dance floor standards, pop ballads, cover versions and even mash ups with the like of Rammstein, the German heavy rock band. They strutted their stuff in the Eurovision song contest of 2003, and came third place.
Synth-pop with attitude.
t.A.T.u could be seen as a product of the ferment of Nineties Russia, which brought forth techno bands like Virus, but also song based dance acts like Mirage. They combined something of both of these styles but injected it with a dose of teenage defiance. In so doing, they made the Spice Girls of a few years earlier look tame in comparison. Moreover, their mock-lesbian pose, with corresponding graphic videos made them notorious.
In fact, the romantic thread which runs through their lyrics had been inspired by the Swedish film called Show Me Love (1998) by Lukas Moodyson. This is about a schoolgirl tryst in the small town of Omolo. Their trademark white shirt and short check skirt look, meanwhile, owed something to the erotic end of Japanese Manga comics.
Their sound, a distinctive mix of Euro-pop and techno, was helped along by the Durham born British pop visionary Trevor Horn, who produced many of their compositions.
t.A.T.u forever created controversy, and sometimes without meaning to. They appeared on stage brandishing Kalashnikovs, they were accused of sneering at the disabled with their song Lyudi Invalidi, mimed sexual acts live, supported gay rights, and wore t-shirts that featured ant-Iraq war slogans.
Their fans came from the same age group as the girls. Their appeal lay in the music and the image more than anything else. t.A.T.useemed like ordinary Russian young women: a bit talented, attractive without being too glamorous, half Westernised and with ambitions for something more. Furthermore, by singing in both English and Russian they kept hold of their national identities. Their debut album 200 Po Vstrechnoi /200KM in the WrongLane (2001) was the first ever to win the platinum award in two languages. t.A.T.u encouraged kids in China and Turkey and elsewhere to try and learn some Russian.
The Venue: Mumiy Troll bar in Moscow.
Mumy Troll, an uneasy mix of cabaret bar and restaurant, can be found just below street level on Tverskaya Street in an area of plush hotels. The place has a dress code and the lead singer of the band after which it is named intends to set up an international chain of such places.
Julia Volkova live, March 2016.
Voices called out `Julia! Julia!’ as though she was a friend that they had passed in the street and she beamed as someone handed her a huge bouquet of pink roses. I had come expecting to see an ice queen; instead what I got was a good-time girl….
This, I had also thought, was not going to be my scene but I found myself happy to lay down the thousand rouble entrance fee at the door to see Julia Volkova play live. It would not do to miss a chance to witness the return of an iconic half of Russia’s best known pop sensation.
Since the t.A.Tu days Julia has fallen out with Lena, reconciled with her and then fallen out again, married and divorced and given birth twice, and received surgery for throat cancer. Furthermore, if you type her name into a search engine the word `homophobia` will pop up. She found herself in the middle of a row about gay men after letting slip, on a Ukrainian chat show, that she would not like her son to be a homosexual..
Donned in smart casual gear, there were more women than men and many could not have clear memories of the early noughties. They gathered round the oval bar in the centre of the club to order pricey German beers or even cocktails. Some of them were Friday night regulars who would pass the evening chomping on their pommes frites and chicken kievs gazing at it all as if it were on television.
The faithful, however, congregated around the platform and waited while a loop of soft rock from Mumiy Troll played on in the background. The lights then flickered as stage smoke appeared.
There was no other build up. Looking over at the stage door we stole a glimpse of Julia, hemmed in by bouncers with sweatshirts bearing the legend `No Stress`.
The drummer lumbered on stage first, and looked like one of the bouncers, and he was followed by a silken haired maestro of a violinist, a t-shirted guitarist and a man with strap-on keyboards.
Then at last Julia made her entrance: she was a black kitten in fishnets, with wild spiked hair and lobster coloured skin. She was accompanied by two backing singers in black and white uniforms like air stewardesses.
This odd ensemble set about a rendition of `Friend or Foe` and, as though they had been waiting for this very number, the gathering sang along as they held their smart-phones aloft hoping to capture Julia as she boxed the air to the peppy beat.
This set the trend. Julia’s more contemporary pieces, such as the Berlin cabaret like `Woman All the Way down` did not get an airing and instead we were treated to a bit of a t.A.Tu retrospective with such classics as `Nas Nye Dogonyat`, `Loves Me Not` and `Ya Soshla s Ooma`
There also ensued some sort of monologue spoken over an instrumental backing, the usual teary ballad and a token rap interlude. The chunky rap artist –whose contrast with the diminutive frame of Julia could not have been greater –only drew a polite but cool reception.
The hour and a half long set was filmed and what defined it was Julia’s ebullient demeanour. At one point she even addressed onlookers peering in from the windows overlooking Tverskaya Street.
Then the sound. Rocked up by pounding drums and reinforced by extra singers it became pure pop-rock-dance fun, and was quite apart from the plastic industrial clatter of some of t.A.T.u’s recordings.
I have been to more worthy gigs and to ones cooler and more up-to-the-minute. This one, with its feeling of being a friend’s reunion, is one of the few where I haven’t been waiting for it to end so that I could replenish my drink.
Lena Katina live, March 2018.
Some of the nondescript thirty-somethings who came stamping into this from the early March frost that night may have been regular clientele come to sample the lobster. Even so, the crowd struggled to reach three digit figures. They then had to sip their spectacular cocktails for about an hour before the five-piece band, including two backing singers, appeared on the stage. Then, at last, the spangled and henna haired form of Lena Katina sauntered on, to polite applause.
Her two and a half hour show was episodic. The first section consisted of a string of short and sweet pop ditties, with a female violinist making a guest appearance for one of the slower numbers. Most of these songs went in one of my ears and out of the other although `Never Forget` is a good solid ballad, worthy of t.A.T.u. For me, however, the stand out piece had to be `Silent Hills`, a stirring rumination on marital breakdown with some intelligent lyrics.
The band then fled the stage to allow two Townies to come on with a mixer desk for a drum `n` bass interlude. (At least there was no rapper!)
Then the predictable last section was one which doubled the number of spectators standing near the stage: it was t.A.T.u revival time, and this seemed what many of them had come to see. The band rattled through the classics which they were authorised to do – and these included `Pol chas` `Ya soshia S’uma` and the barnstorming `All About Us` all of which sounded pretty much like the t.A.T.u originals. The band then left without an encore but not before they had rolled down a screen and Lena sang a ballad about her t.A.Tu days accompanied by shots of Yulia and herself in New York in the Nineties.
If t.A.T.u could be considered to be a `rock-pop` act then Lena Katina, with her sound grasp of melody and `sincere` persona, represents the pop part of the equation. The more `rock and roll` one, however, is Julia Volkova whose act was a bit more transgressive in its sexyness and I rather preferred her for that.
The main image (of Julia Volkova) belongs to Mumiy Troll bar, Moscow.
The review of Julia Vokova first appeared in Moskvaer (see related links page).
