Punk – Generation P: Edward Crabtree's blog.

KIS-KIS BANG! BANG!

The saucy Mumble Rockers draw an oversized crowd at Zhest Club in ….KAZAKHSTAN.

I now reside in Almaty, the largest city in the Russian speaking former Soviet nation of Kazakhstan. This is the first experience that I have had of seeing live rock music here since arriving here just over two months ago.

Kis – Kis (their name, rather than being a reference to sucking face, has the sense of `Kitty Kitty`) originated in St Petersburg. Throughout their four years in business they have already amassed (as I would discover) a dedicated following.

The four-piece personnel consists of Sofiya Somuseva who supplies most of the vocal element and her buddy Alina Olesheva hits the sticks while Yuri Zaslonov (`Kokos`)grinds out the chords and Sergei Ivanov (`Khumny`) pumps out the bass.

Their 2019 album, `Punk Youth`, alerted the Russian rock public to their existence and their latest release, of this year, glories under the title of “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living`.

Of late the quartet have been hawking their wares in the major cities of Central Asia. Before I caught them on the 26^thNovember they had already entertained the kids of Astana (Kazakhstan’s capital in the North of the country) and then done the same on Karaganda in the central region. Then, after playing for me, were due to make their way to Bishek, the capital of Kyrgystan and Tashkent of Uzbekistan.

Excess demand.

I had already expected that by getting to Zhest Club by 8pm – the time given on the ticket – would provide me ample time to chill with a glass of Line Brew, the local beer, and find a good spot to get some visual record of it all.

In the event, on reaching the unlikely street, with its endless rows of eateries and food stores, I gasped on seeing a queue coiling down the street. This would be my home for the next hour, as a diverse set of punters, not all ethnic Russians, joshed each other with bonhomie while concerned looking members of staff, walkie-talkies in hand, emerged from the club to see how their clientele was burgeoning. For the first time that year, it began to snow and we were all well dusted with it by the time the line had inched its way to the entrance.

`Zhest` means `tin` and, indeed, this twelve-year-old venue resembled a huge sardine tin, and, as the supply had exceeded demand (reaching a thousand rather than in the hundreds), we were to be the sardines.

Some had opted to leave their coats in a pile in a corner but I opted to keep mine on. Getting to the bar involved more tortoise like movements and getting anywhere near the front proved impossible as the true fans, taking the precaution of having got there early, had long since squeezed up to the front.

Kittens and heavies.

I was adjusting to all this palaver when the brassy and copper haired Somuseva strutted onto the stage wearing an asymmetrical skirt, one side being longer than the other. Flanking her were two identical men, built more like roadies than the string section that they were, hidden behind ski masks (a la Moscow Death Brigade).

The modelesque Olesheva sat on a raised platform behind her drums and a wind generator rippled her pink hair as she drummed. This was a blatant bit of theatrics but she did look very fetching and provided much of the ensemble’s most memorable visual impact.

Only Rock and Roll.

They ran through their hits and other songs “Girlfriend`, `Kirril`, `Mincemeat` – and so on with some impressive synchronized pogoing throughout the two hour show. The crowd was kept engaged, anticipating each song as it came.

The two girls talked a lot. They sprayed the crowd with water. They collected the bras that fans hurled at them. They encouraged us to chant Rock! Rock! Rock! They told us to crouch down and then to all leap up on command.

Then Kokos took over as the drummer and another guitarist materialized so that Olesheva could launch herself into a sea of upraised hands. They quaffed some cognac (The rules must be more relaxed here as I never saw the like on a Russian stage).

Then Alina and Sofiya went for a clinch in a show of `spontaneous` affection for each other.

Of course, this stunt calls to mind the faux-lesbianism of tATu in the early noughties and no doubt they are already tired of this comparison. (The frisson that this had at that time is hard to recapture now, but the band are doing their best by, for example, recording an audio version of Maxim Sonin’s `queer` novel Letters Until Midnight of 2019).

Slick.

For a four- piece, the band bang out a full sound, albeit they add some prerecorded keyboards to the mix. This is garage rock with elements of rockabilly and alt -rock, but all spun on a power pop framework. They are competent players well versed in their own upbeat genre and yet have no signature style of their own. (Kis-Kis have been bracketed in with a supposed rock trend dubbed `Mumble rock` which was initiated in Ukraine in 2016. However, it is difficult to say what the defining features of this journalistic invention are apart from a general cheekiness of attitude). For all their show of street rough-and-readiness the band aim straiight at their teen demographic, leaving nothing to chance.

Like Zveri before them they offer up a world which is cleansed of depressing oldies and which is full of parties, crushes, friendships, experiments and adventures.

A Kick to Kill the Kiss.

On this tour, perhaps Kis-Kis are playing at being cultural ambassadors to Russia. If so they are doing so at a time when many Central Asian countries, Kazakhstan in particular, are drifting away from the belligerence of the Great Bear. What can these two vixens, and other bands like these, do to bridge the gap and offer the youth of the former Soviet countries?

A punk ethos hides a very calculated approach. [Shazam.com]

The thrill of transgression? Maybe so, yet the band’s insolent naughtiness is ever more out of synch with the direction of the new wartime Russia and it even remains to be seen for how long it will be tolerated in their own country. Teen spirit? That’s a closer fit, yet the pair are now well into their twenties and I wonder how long they can sing as though they are in their first flush of youth. `Female empowerment`? Yet they appear accompanied by two body guards masquerading as guitar players. Rock and roll? This is the best suggestion, although the closest musical and stylistic comparison I can come up with is that of the Canadian teenybopper from the noughties – one Avril Lavigne.

Lead image: Mobilelegends.net

OURS SINCERELY: LUMEN LIVE AT THE GLAV CLUB IN MOSCOW, 26TH MARCH.

Live rock is back – and with it LUMEN, an unpretentious quartet revisiting the songs that made them Russia’s favourite alt-rock exponents.

Lumen: (i) A unit for measuring the amount of light an object radiates.

Lumen: (ii) A prominent Russian alt-rock band who have been on the scene for 23 years..

About this time last year, with the Big Stop looming,I decided to forego the few live gigs still on offer then. Little did I realise at that time that it would be a whole year later before I would be gracing darkened halls full of people younger than myself and observing amplified performances.

Can I even remember how to do it?

Back in harness.

Getting back to the fray bought back all the tatty rawness of gig going that
I so love to hate.

The huddled gangs getting tanked up in the queue as you wait to enter…the general getting jostled about…the overpriced headache inducing Budweiser in plastic glasses…the pre-gig excited whoops as a roadie comes on stage to fiddle with a detail of the set…the trying not to spill your beer as you attempt to get some passable shots of the band with your unfit for purpose camera…all of that.

Alt-rock success story.

LUMEN – a four piece string and drum outfit -constitute a product of Ufa in Bakshortostan (in fact, they have written at least one song in the Bashkiri language). It tells you a lot that the band can boast an exact birthday: 12th February 1998, the fateful day when they became LUMEN and embarked on writng their own material.

LUMEN eschew genre labels and their music does elude them to some extent. They do not represent any kind of Metal, Nu or otherwise and seem too well-mannered and reflective to qualify as` punks`.` Alt-rock` seems the safest fit for what they do. Their nearest peers might be STIGMATA, except minus the grandiloquent Gothic trappings of that act, or PILOT yet lacking the evergetic inventiveness of those St Petersburgians.

They have gifted Russia and Eastern Europe with some nine recordings. Their name is fated, however, to be bound up with a piece entitled Sid and Nancy – a ballad extolling bonding through shared alienation which name-checks the punk celebrities in doing so. This summoned up a cult status amongst the nadstats of 2003 on receiving radio exposure.

LUMEN followed this hit with a reputation-cementing 18 track album called (in Russian) No Preservatives. Here was a band in the KINO tradition, taking a no-frills approach and telling it like it is.(Indeed, anti-government and ant-war anthems form a part of their repertoire. So far though, they seemed to have escaped the kind of attention from the higher-ups that have dogged the carees of LOUNA and IC3PEAK).

It is this very album that the concerts at Glav Club on 24th and 25th of March were staged in honour of. For two nights running – Friday and Saturday LUMEN were to revisit those compositions again as an 18 year anniversary.

Real people.

The two thousand or so punters who show up on this early spring evening – plus three degrees already! -appear an unspectacular lot, all grey and black khaki and t-shirts and anything between twenty and thirty years of age.

Among them are some true fans: I espy people at the front holding up some illuminated signs of the band’s birthday at the front of the pit.

Otherwise, I sense that we are all here to check out each other. This is always the case with such rock events but, this year, the hunger is even greater.(Indeed, at the end of the show many show a marked reluctance to leave and even crash out on the floor in small groups).

It’s about the music.

LUMEN saunter onto the stage without any theatrical preamble, soI am at the bar when it happens, trying to get the barman’s attention. Donned in tight jeans and their own promotional t-shirts, they could be members of their own audience.

The lynx-lean lead vocalist Rustem Bulatov.for all his lack of preservatives, does not look his forty-years of age although his chunkier colleagues do just a tad more.

I am more familiar with the band’s more recent anthemic material but what they play tonight seems to be a kind of power-pop which most in the audience know well enough to to sing along to. Sid and Nancy, however, is taken out for a walk.

With his earnest image,I do not expect Bulatov to be so garrulous. In between pieces he addresses us all as though he knows us, but with a casual and respectful air. What has most impact on me though, is Igor Mamaev’s lead guitar. He delivers quasi-classical sequences of soaring melody which have me closing my eyes in zoned out relish.

It is all about the music. The band have no recourse to video projections, or such special effects, but just use alternating red and blue lights for the most part. There are only a few balloons, The rhythm king – Denis Shakhanov – does not lob his sticks into the crowd and nor are there multiple encores or a selfie taken with the crowd.

A proper picure of the band – taken by a proper photographer. [metalking.org]

Isolation begone.

When the two hour set comes to a close and the masses chant `mol-od-yets` (`well done`) Bulatov, in a gesture of honest humility bows with his palms pressed together.

It all feels like a note in the margins of the post-pandemic situation. Yes, we are ordered to mask up on the way in to the venue. Yes, the bartenders insist on us wearing masks when we order (as is right and fair). Otherwise the masks are off and the band do not even reference the pandemic. It is like 2019 again – and a worthy beginning to a new season of live music in Moscow.

Soul versus market.

LUMEN offer a kind of heartfelt desire to share. They offer `sincerity`. This commodity may have been a bit out of vogue in the West for some time but many roubles could be put on `sincerity` making a rapid come back.

The Welsh rock combo THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS are what LUMEN remind me of a little. Here we have decent young men cocking a snook at the acknowledged grim realities of contemporary life for all too many of us.

But the burning question this raises is as old as the hills. Can LUMEN’s `sincerity` hold up when they are, for example, flogging LUMEN themed money belts, or producing arty-crafty videos to showcase their latest slow moving ballads – and staging nostalgic retrospectives like this one? They are, after all a well-established act who have reached, as they say, `the pinnacle of their career`.

ROARING TRADE: PILOT LIVE AT GLAV CLUB, MOSCOW NOVEMBER 9TH.

Is this much-loved band the saviour of the Russian rock genre?

This November Saturday night proved to be as grey as the preceding October and I hoped that this band, new to me, could buoy me up – in particular as those last two live gigs had left me unmoved.
They did.

Pilot [short /i/and beat on the second syllable] were recommended to me during a rare chance encounter with a self-confessed Russian rock fan who was also a Russian himself. This seemed a good enough omen in itself.

The Pied Piper’s of St Pete’s.
The second good omen came when I tried to get my ticket. For various reasons I buy my tickets in person over the counter. My trusty usual kiosk told me that all the tickets had already been pocketed. I got lucky at another place however.
Then at the Glav Green Club itself I encountered a queue on my way in and, along this, wideboys were pushing last-minute offers for anyone who had turned up on the off-chance.

The gig going community – and this night it did feel like a community – became so populous that we had to wait our turns to get in and out of the venue.

In the lobby meanwhile, the band’s merchandise – the lemon yellow wooly hats and scarves -were getting swallowed up faster than the stall holders could unbox new batches of them.
After twenty-two years of strumming and pounding, Pilot have the capacity to really pull the crowds.

Alt rock institution.

Conceived and organised in the rainy second capital of St Petersburg by Ilya `Chort`Knabengof in 1997, the band, first under the moniker Military Jane, have honed their own local strain of hard indie rock. This incorporates folkish and punkish influences but within an industrial sensibility.
What’s more, their Russian nationality seems to be encoded into these sonic emanations. Throughout their existence they have been transmorgifying into a unique brand, complete with a recognisable cartoon logo, numerous fan sites, endless photo shoots and so on.
In this tour they were revisiting an album called `Fish, Mole and Pig` which was first produced 15 years back.

Anthems for the 21st Century.
The doors of the concert venue were unlocked at 7 pm and the four piece materialised about an hour and a half later. There was no warm up act.
Following a shamanic sounding introductory soundtrack, the drummer, Nikita Belozyorov, arrived shirtless. The bass guitarist, Sergei Vyrvrich, a relaxed tall man with a floppy blonde fringe, came on next. Then Ilya himself appeared – wearing shades, which he never removed. The keyboardist was invisible (supplied by digital means, I presume).

They compensated for their nondescript appearance with much use of back projections to underscore the songs themes. Not that it was easy to see that much anyway, through the vineyard of raised phones, scarfs and girlfriends sat on shoulders.

Their opener was a declaration of intent just called `Rock`. Many in the audience seemed to have anticipated this as they held up pictures of the horned fist salute with the words `Rock` written beneath.
The next number spoke of their civic pride for their home city as the backdrop showcased it all with shots of the spires and waterways of that city. There were songs about the sex industry, the Hindu religion, psychopaths (`Nye Chelovek`) and one titled `Terrorism`.

Pilot, without offering leadership, could not be called escapist and do seem willing to confront the questions of the day.
That said, some of their compositions showed unashamed sentimentality. One involved a visual tour through old family albums and another, celebrating the band’s longevity, showcased children’s drawings from yesteryear as balloons dropped down from the ceiling.

Quite singular.
Like t.A.T.u, Pilot prove a more impressive experience live than in recorded format. Belozyorov’s tom -toms, put high in the mix, are a great boon in the upbeat ambience they create. In fact, Pilot dish out quite a detailed sound with keyboard melodies and guitar digressions aplenty.

I find it difficult to twin this outfit with any that I know in the West. Pilot owe a clear debt to the grunge of the Nineties. Otherwise they might be understood as a more slick version of their compatriots Posledni Tanki V Paris.

If `Russian rock` constitutes a genre in its own right, and many contend that it does, then Pilot might be said to be one of its last remaining popular exponents.
Sure, there are bands like Louna and IC3Peak, but the former seem to belong to an international nu metal trend and the latter to an international dark wave hip-hop tendency. Pilot are Russian-Russian.

My kind of crowd.
The feeling in the air of this enjoyable gig had a lot to do with the punters. In their thirties and forties and not dressed to impress, they exuded cheery bonhomie. For example, they offered to hold my beer for me as I tried to take pictures. I saw no fights break out.

We all downed quite a few Tuborg’s together with a lot of help from the – let me say – angelic bar staff. I got a real sense of this being an audience who were not just here to see the band, but here to say: Here we all are! Just look at us all!

`Osyen` by Pilot.

Main image:Flavara.com

LOUNA: Live at the Adrenaline Stadium, Moscow 17th November.

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.

1984 by Louna