Russian rock since 1988
Zak May
read some interesting references to Russian rock music of the last several
years and I was fascinated by them. So here's some questions for the
knowledgable ones.
In 1988 the situation I was leaving behind was close to this: BG was finally
living out his sick fantasies, Tsoi was on a sure track to superstardom and
imminent death, Nautilius Pompilius were the top pop band in Russia, Alla
Pugatchova got mature, Zhanna Aguzarova sold out, Vyssotsky was still dead,
GO were still underground, DDT paved a way for nationalistic bands from Sibir'
and Ukraine, and Moscow was flooded with pseudo-decadent acts like Zvuki Mu,
Obermaneken, Krematorij, etc.
From then on the picture is not that clear. Liube and Laskovyj Maj appeared
from out of nowhere and were the first to establish white-trash pop for mass
consumption. An endless stream of Modern Talking soundalikes was slowly
replaced by an endless stream of American R&B soundalikes and dissappeared
altogether. Massive pop-outfits started using good keyboards and sampling
collections. A new industry of fly-by-night Tin Pan Alley producers overrun
the radio and TV airwaves. To sum it up - the Fifties almost ended :)
And we all know what comes after the Fifties. And if takes a presidential
death for the turn to occur (as it did in the U.S.), then - so be it. What's
more important, after all? :^)
My question is - what did I miss?
And where am I wrong?
___
Zak.
P.S. 'Subtle' is the keyword here, KtA, 'subtle'.
Igor Pankevich
wrote a summary of his perseption of rock in Russia for past several years.
>
>My question is - what did I miss?
>
Well, you definitely missed the phenomenon of Yurii Naumov and
his "Prohodnoi dvor". He left Russia a little over two years ago and
is now in New York. His next gig will take place in a place called
"Down Time" on West 33rd st. between 5th and 6th avenues in Manhatten
tomorrow (Wednesday, teh 11th). Starts at 8pm. And the next one is on
Saturday the 14th in CBGB's Gallery (313 Bowery st.). 8pm as well.
>And where am I wrong?
>
I don't know, I haven't been there for the past several years.
>___
>Zak.
>
--Igor
Zak May
> Well, you definitely missed the phenomenon of Yurii Naumov and
>his "Prohodnoi dvor". He left Russia a little over two years ago and
>is now in New York. His next gig will take place in a place called...
I guess you know where you won't find me in NYC this Saturday! :^)
I didn't really miss Naumov (having the misfortune of meeting him personally
in 1988). I was mainly talking about people that had some effect either on
the audience or on the situation in music. Naumov's songs were, IMHO, too
'constructed' to have any mass appeal and too shallow to influence any good
songwriters. My favorite Naumov quote is "I never borrowed any Knopffler
licks - I never even heard any Dire Straits songs." What a snake!
___
Zak.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Gde ta molodaja shpana, chto sotriot nas s litsa zemli?"
BG, 1980
"S dobrym utrom."
Zak, 1993
-----------------------------------------------------------
Igor Pankevich
>
.....
>the audience or on the situation in music. Naumov's songs were, IMHO, too
>'constructed' to have any mass appeal and too shallow to influence any good
>songwriters.
No, they are too good and complicated for the mass appeal. There is a
difference between "high art" and "mass production". Naumov is the
former.
>My favorite Naumov quote is "I never borrowed any Knopffler
>licks - I never even heard any Dire Straits songs." What a snake!
>
"Dorogi, veduschie k serdsu - opasnaya zona, mama,
goryachii pesok na gubah.
V fioletovom nebe mne chuditsya v stonuschih zvonah, mama,
kak plachet raspyataya pamyat'
na kilometrovyh stolbah.
Rozhdennye t'moyu, po-moemu, zryachi,
no pryachutsya v ten'.
Noch mechetsya v beloi goryachke,
daruya mne zhizn' tsenoyu v edinstvennyi den'.
Ya vizhu kak serdtse s galerki spuskaetsa v lozhi, mama,
ustalo byt' toschim.
A korm vse tot zhe, podkozhnyi, no v meste prokolov, mama,
Vsya kozha stanovitsya korkoi,
ona s kazhdym godom vse tolsche,
i mne s kazhdym chasom trudnee idti k zaschischennomu lozh'yu.
Vse eto bezumno pohozhe
Na to, chto tvorilos' vo mne, a mozhet byt' - net."
-- Y. Naumov, "Zhizn' kak edinstvennyi den'".
>___
>Zak.
>
--Igor
Alexander Petrushko
Any more socio-cultural analyses of Soviet rock-music coming our way?
Eagerly awaiting,
Shura.
Zak May
>No, they are too good and complicated for the mass appeal.
*You* are too good and complicated for the mass appeal. :^)
Any sixth-grader can do transliteration like "kastrat stratocaster ukral
nesprosta" nowadays. And anybody can come up with pearls of wisdom such as
"Bozhe, kak trudno byt' non-konformistom, osobenno jesli eto vyhodit iz mody".
(pheeew)
> There is a difference between "high art" and "mass production".
No there isn't. Try to think up a "high art" that is/was not "mass-consumed",
Mr. Discriminative Taste. Especially, in rock-n-roll culture.
___
Zak.
Igor Pankevich
>Igor Pankevich <ig...@news.cs.columbia.edu> wrote about Naumov's songs:
>>No, they are too good and complicated for the mass appeal.
>
>*You* are too good and complicated for the mass appeal. :^)
>
>Any sixth-grader can do transliteration like "kastrat stratocaster ukral
>nesprosta" nowadays. And anybody can come up with pearls of wisdom such as
>"Bozhe, kak trudno byt' non-konformistom, osobenno jesli eto vyhodit iz mody".
>
Anybody can make a color Xerox copy of Mona Lisa, too.
>
>> There is a difference between "high art" and "mass production".
>
>No there isn't. Try to think up a "high art" that is/was not "mass-consumed",
>Mr. Discriminative Taste. Especially, in rock-n-roll culture.
>
Didn't I already do that? Naumov is my candidate :)
"Across the fire and through the ice,
I came to see a blue sky in your eyes, but
day is already dead
and night is sinister and silent.
I've got a friedom without relief,
I found god in whom noone believes,
maybe in your eyes
I'll find the only asylum, baby,
oh, my love.
I'll tell you a story of a crazy man
who tore himself apart from his land.
He could heal by word and hand
the hearts that were oppressed by fear.
He dreams that everybody's happy, no less,
he was betrayed by those whom he'd blessed.
Cry for him, but try to guess
when he regrets the pain he feels, baby,
oh, my love, its me."
Y. Naumov, "Someone who needs a reply"
>___
>Zak.
>
--Igor
Zak May
I have a professional opinion of Naumov's songs. They make me puke.
No need to clash the two.
Peace.
___
Zak.
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Prostyje slova, strannyje sviazi - kakoj bezotkaznyj metod!.."
BG, 1984
---------------------------------------------------------------
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
of my killfile (was out for several weeks, to be honest).
What he writes there is actually pretty interesting.
In article <248eg8...@umbc8.umbc.edu> cs42...@umbc.edu (Zak May) writes:
>In 1988 the situation I was leaving behind was close to this: BG was finally
>living out his sick fantasies, Tsoi was on a sure track to superstardom and
>imminent death, Nautilius Pompilius were the top pop band in Russia, Alla
>Pugatchova got mature, Zhanna Aguzarova sold out, Vyssotsky was still dead,
>GO were still underground, DDT paved a way for nationalistic bands from Sibir'
>and Ukraine, and Moscow was flooded with pseudo-decadent acts like Zvuki Mu,
>Obermaneken, Krematorij, etc.
Two things left out. First, the _Japan_-like acts:
polyrythmic postpunk sparse semi-acoustic music.
The most genuine example was Vezhlivyi Otkaz (Moscow)
though by 88 the progressive tendency was not
full-fledged. Another example is Kollezhskii
Assessor from Ukraine and, of course, Auktsyon.
In the same row, Sverdlovsk's Aprel'skii Marsh
(named after Borghes' story) who actually
emulated Eno pop music with lots of frippertronic,
female screaming etc. Best known for having
Kormiltsev's brother writing lyrics, translating
Eno's _Here_By_This_River_ and doing funny
things like chanting "Mengistu Haile Haile
Mariam" over reggae back track (note that
Mengistu was a Commie man who overthrew Jah
Rastafari Haile Selassia in Ephiopia). They
also cover "I Zimbra" by Fripp/Talking Heads.
A second thing left out is grassroots (literally,
garage) pop music: Telephone, Mirazh, Loza, Bananovye
Ostrova, Mashina Vremeni. A silly stuff, but some of
this was sincere and really good. Lots of Zoopark
(eg, the song _Leto_) is of the same ilk. I am afraid
that this music (except Zoopark and Mashina) would
die out alltogether - who actually has Telephone
tapes now? The most important group in (around)
this category was DK, who by 1988 produced
about 30 albums and was extremely influental.
>From then on the picture is not that clear. Liube and Laskovyj Maj appeared
>from out of nowhere and were the first to establish white-trash pop for mass
>consumption. An endless stream of Modern Talking soundalikes was slowly
>replaced by an endless stream of American R&B soundalikes and dissappeared
>altogether. Massive pop-outfits started using good keyboards and sampling
>collections. A new industry of fly-by-night Tin Pan Alley producers overrun
>the radio and TV airwaves. To sum it up - the Fifties almost ended :)
>My question is - what did I miss?
There is a perfect theory of geography of rock
authored by Troitsky. The cultural centres of rock
music go East. It started in US in Fifties, moved
to England in 60-ies, stayed in England and
Europe in 70-ies, moved to Leningrad at the
end of 70-ies, then was in Moscow (Center, *)
DK) then in Sverdlovsk and now moves in Siberia.
This is sort of true. There were millions of
excellent Siberian rock group after 1988 -
GO (Kommunism, Yanka, Instruktsiya Po Vyzhivaniyu)
(basically, punk/gothic/industial genres),
Vostochnyi Sindrom (postpunk psychedelic,
like Death in June or very heavy Echo and
the Bunnymen), Kalinov Most (very subtle
crossover of punk and Russian folklore),
etc etc. There is also a reggae revival -
critics literally rave about the Kaliningrad
group Komitet Okhrany Tepla (KOT), though
I have not get their tapes yet.
*) I hate Center, but they are pet group of Troitskii)
Generally, there are heaps of music besides
white trash (the wording is perfect, IMHO)
Misha.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Liber AL 1.40
"thou hast no right but to do thy will.
Do that and no other shall say nay."
Liber AL 1.42-3
"Every man and every woman is a star."
Liber AL 1.3
THERE IS NO GOD BUT MAN.
-- Aleister Crowley
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>Igor Pankevich <ig...@news.cs.columbia.edu> shamelessly plugs Yuri Naumov:
>
>> Well, you definitely missed the phenomenon of Yurii Naumov and
>>his "Prohodnoi dvor". He left Russia a little over two years ago and
>>is now in New York. His next gig will take place in a place called...
>
>I guess you know where you won't find me in NYC this Saturday! :^)
>
>I didn't really miss Naumov (having the misfortune of meeting him personally
>in 1988). I was mainly talking about people that had some effect either on
>the audience or on the situation in music. Naumov's songs were, IMHO, too
>'constructed' to have any mass appeal and too shallow to influence any good
>songwriters. My favorite Naumov quote is "I never borrowed any Knopffler
>licks - I never even heard any Dire Straits songs." What a snake!
I completely agree with Zak. Just recently
a sporadic scs reader whom I got to know through
the net gave me a tape (90min) by Naumov.
This is something incredible. Bad Hendrix-wannabe
guitar licks, supercheesy drum machine and synths
and KSP-like infantile lyrics. My wife died out
after 10 minutes, I had guts enough to sit through
about 70. I clearly understand his appeal, though.
His lyrics are like KSP (only less professional),
but to regular Soviet intelligent it's naturally
easier to understand this stuff than Aquarium or
(shudder) GO. If someone likes KSP, but did
not listen to KSP much and don't have discerning
taste in this domain, he could buy on Naumov.
*Test on Igor Pankevich: I guess that he likes
*Vyssotsky, Okudzhava, Nikitiny, doesn't know who is
*Luferov and knows 3-4 songs by Shcherbakov at max.
Naumov's music is just regular radio drivel,
slightly less professional, but it's OK
for someone who is hungry to mass-appeal
music with "profound" texts. Of course,
for someone with a little experience
in listening to either KSP or rock
Naumov is just this - silly mass-appeal
wannabe music with nonsense KSP lyrics trying
to look profound without a gram of poetry
or intelligence.
Misha.
Michael Kagalenko
group "Derev'annoe koleso". Anyone heard them ?
"Plahudra letit na jug ...
Pejzazh obuknovennyj
Izr'adno raduet ej glaz .."
Dmitri Manin
>In article <248i9l...@umbc8.umbc.edu>, Zak May <cs42...@umbc.edu> wrote:
>.....
>>'constructed' to have any mass appeal and too shallow to influence any good
>>songwriters.
>
>No, they are too good and complicated for the mass appeal. There is a
>difference between "high art" and "mass production". Naumov is the
>former.
> V fioletovom nebe mne chuditsya v stonuschih zvonah, mama,
> kak plachet raspyataya pamyat'
> na kilometrovyh stolbah.
Judging from the quoted song, I'd rather agree with Zak: it's a whole
stonushchij, raspyatyj, fioletovyj shtamp.
By the way, can anybody cite a really good text from russian rock
literature? Of course I realize that a song does not necessarily need
a good non-trivial text, but still?
- DM
Dmitri Manin
.......
>Any sixth-grader can do transliteration like "kastrat stratocaster ukral
>nesprosta" nowadays.
(I suppose you meant alliteration, right?)
>And anybody can come up with pearls of wisdom such as
>"Bozhe, kak trudno byt' non-konformistom, osobenno jesli eto vyhodit iz mody".
Wow! Here I disagree, Zak. Just think of it: non-konformist means,
roughly speaking, the one who hates to be like everybody; 'v mode'
means roughly 'like what everybody does'. So the above quote says
literally the following: "Bozhe, kak trudno byt' ne kak vse, osobenno
esli vse uzhe perestayut byt' ne kak vse". Huh? No, it's a product of
a non-trivial mind.
- DM
Dmitri Manin
In article <1993Aug11.0...@husc14.harvard.edu> ver...@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
> His [Naumov's - DM] lyrics are like KSP (only less professional),
> but to regular Soviet intelligent it's naturally
> easier to understand this stuff than Aquarium or
> (shudder) GO. If someone likes KSP, but did
> not listen to KSP much and don't have discerning
> taste in this domain, he could buy on Naumov.
>
> *Test on Igor Pankevich: I guess that he likes
> *Vyssotsky, Okudzhava, Nikitiny, doesn't know who is
> *Luferov and knows 3-4 songs by Shcherbakov at max.
OK, I'm not Pankevich, I like V, O, N's (less), know who's L and have
listened to S once or twice. Nevertheless, IMHO Naumov's lyrics sucks
(see my previous posts). I could understand your references to KSP if
you didn't identify it with V, O, N etc. You are right in that
mainstream KSP lyrics is often mediocre and banal. But I would by no
means say it about V, O, Kim, Galich -- they are NOT KSP.
Best regards,
- DM
Greg Landsberg
> OK, I'm not Pankevich, I like V, O, N's (less), know who's L and have
> listened to S once or twice. Nevertheless, IMHO Naumov's lyrics sucks
> (see my previous posts). I could understand your references to KSP if
> you didn't identify it with V, O, N etc. You are right in that
> mainstream KSP lyrics is often mediocre and banal. But I would by no
> means say it about V, O, Kim, Galich -- they are NOT KSP.
>
> Best regards,
>
> - DM
First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
The second - Kim is a TYPICAL KSP - dunno whom do you mean by a
"mainstream". Starting with his primitive lyrics ("Podo mnoj glubina - sem'
kilometrov do dna", going on with his less primitive, but still bana lyrics
like "Na nochnyh kustah vetki trogaya" and of course wih all his apolitical
funny sings like "Na menya upal Kapital." Just your typical KSP, not the
best one, BTW. KSP a la Visbor, Berezhkov, Tur'yanskij.
Luferov, Scherbakov, Mirzoyan are the people of the next generation and
their songs putted KSP on the higher level. But not Kim's sorry.
As to Galich, he doesn't belong to KSP directly, but affected KSP lyrics
very much, and the people who do the best in KSP right now grew up under
the influence of his songs. So, he contributed to KSP implicitly.
Vysotsky is a standalone phenomenon - he is neither a KSP guy, nor a poet -
just a menestrel, if you like it.
And Okudzhava is just a symbol of KSP ("Voz'memsya za ruki druz'ya"),
though often he was doing better than your typical Kim/Gordnitskij et al.
Cheers,
Greg
Zak May
>By the way, can anybody cite a really good text from russian rock
>literature?
Anything by BG is brilliant. Siting randomly from memory:
Jesli kazdyj iz nas
voz'miot vinu na sebia,
to na vseh ne hvatit viny.
or:
Stol'ko tysiach slov,
I vse - vpustuju, ili - krazha ognia u slepyh bogov.
My umejem sgorat' kak spirt v rasprostiortyh ladoniah.
or:
Iz goroda v gorod, iz doma v dom, po kvartiram chuzhih druzej,
Naverno, kogda ja vernus' domoj, eto budet muzej.
or:
Ona otkryvajet okno, pod snegom ne vidno krysh.
Ona govorit: "Ty pomnish, ty dumal, chto sneg sostoit iz molekul?"
or:
Radosti tem, kto ischet;
Muzhestva tem, kto spit.
or:
Mne skazali, chto k etim vinam podmeshan tainstvennyj jad,
A mne smeshno - nu chto oni smysliat v vine?
or:
Mne nravitsa leto tem, chto letom - teplo;
Zima mne mila tem, chto zamiorzlo steklo,
Menia ne vidno v okno i sneg zamiol sledy.
or:
Prostyje slova, strannyje sviazi - kakoj bezotkaznyj metod..
I ja pishu pesni, vsio vremia - odni i te zhe, hochetsa sdelat' shag..
etc.
Jegor Letov would be my second quoting choice, but I can't site him from
memory. I guess I'm too happy an individual :^)
I can quote my favorite Russian punk song though, it's by K. Kostenko:
Vot voz'mu ja gavna pol-puda
I razmazhu sebe po rozhe.
Potseluj-ka menia, Iuda,
I ostal'nyje apostoly tozhe.
Love it.
___
Zak.
Zak May
Especially, since they don't know what they're talking about :)
Greg Landsberg <LAND...@d0gs05.fnal.gov> wrote:
>First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
I wonder why it's funny. They're both dissidents, they're both playwrites,
and they both wrote good songs about the same things at the same time.
>The second - Kim is a TYPICAL KSP - dunno whom do you mean by a
>"mainstream". Starting with his primitive lyrics ("Podo mnoj glubina - sem'
>kilometrov do dna", going on with his less primitive, but still bana lyrics
>like "Na nochnyh kustah vetki trogaya" and of course wih all his apolitical
>funny sings like "Na menya upal Kapital." Just your typical KSP, not the
>best one, BTW. KSP a la Visbor, Berezhkov, Tur'yanskij.
'Typical KSP' is being done by amateurs. Kim is a professional.
Those lyrics are not primitive at all - they are fine stylizations.
And don't forget the more recent lyrics ("Ne pokidaj menia vesna", "Da osenit
tishina", etc.) - they should fit your taste better (they do sound like
Tiutchev, don't they? :)
>Luferov, Scherbakov, Mirzoyan are the people of the next generation and
>their songs putted KSP on the higher level.
What higher level? In KSP?
Amazing - when people have no culture, they cling to whatever they can access.
I don't know Luferov (I know Zappa personally though :) but both Scherbakov
and Mirzojan suck big time. I've heard their songs. "Babel'mandebskij
proliv..." Pheeww...
___
Zak.
Leonid Andreev
> Dmitri Manin <ma...@Csli.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
> >By the way, can anybody cite a really good text from russian rock
> >literature?
>
> Anything by BG is brilliant.
Bob really has a damn lot of brilliant pieces of
lyrics!
I won't say he is a terrific poet, and as far as I
know, Bob did not think he is a big poet himself.
But I suspect that you don't have to be a good
poet to be a terrific rock lyrics writer. I would
say that good [in a traditional sense] poets
never managed to write good rock songs --
everybody is invited to explain us why. Maybe
that's because rock is a synthetic art, so if
you try to use an excellent poetry for it then
it would simply put the music in the shade?
Who knows...
Bob has pretty weak verses and primitiv rhymes
sometime (kino/vino, fakt/takt, etc).
But he doesn't have *banalities*! Even
his love songs are pretty original and unusual,
assuming it is possible at all. ;) Even his
social statements are really interesting.
I cannot listen/read virtually any social/political
stuff, produced in "perestrojka time" without
it making me puke. But I still can listen
Bob and I find his social formulations to be
really non-trivial and incredibly precise at the
same time:
"Rock'n'Roll mertv, a ja esshe net..." -
or
"10 let ja ozvuchival fil'm,
No eto bylo nemoe kino..."
Well, he had some obvious failures during the
later period of his work when he produced some
overexplicit political stuff -- i would name
2 songs: "Poezd v ogne" i "pokolenie dvornikov".
But I can forgive him.
NOZH REZHET VODU.
================
Otpechatki pal'cev na moem lice - ja zdes'.
Otkrojte mne dver', nakrojte mne stol.
Moi druzja vojdut s'uda vmeste so mnoj.
My l'ubim drug-druga i ja chasto smotr'u im v stvol.
Ja mechtal ot etoj zhizni s dvenadcati let.
Ja sdelal svoj shag, ostavil svoj sled -
Kak nozh rezhet vodu ...
Ja znaju - v konce puti mne obesshan pokoj.
No ja ne pomn'u - gde dom, ne pomn'u - gde dver'.
Ja znaju: l'ubov' - eto nagrada za vse,
I vot ona spit v moih rukah, kak nedoverchivyj zver'...
-------------------------------------------------------
This is a terrific song. I think this is an incredibly
precise description of life and an incredibly honest
confession of the "ambassador of rock'n'roll to
a non-rhythmical country"...
Pigslaughter, you and your flames are fucked up in
advance!
-L.
> ___
> Zak.
Alexander Burshteyn
>both Scherbakov and Mirzojan suck big time.
Ivashchenko & Vasil'ev seem to be OK, though. At least they don't sound
like Dolina or Mityaev, also purportedly "new generation."
>Zak.
AB
Zak May
>Ivashchenko & Vasil'ev seem to be OK, though. At least they don't sound
>like Dolina or Mityaev, also purportedly "new generation."
I'd like make a point here. It's not enough to write technically good
songs to be a good songwriter. The fact that some I&V songs sound well-written
at the most qualifies them for a Sojuz Pisatelej membership. It doesn't
make it 'OK' for them to write shallow and insincere pieces of useless crap.
"Don't forget the songs that made you cry, and the songs that saved your life",
says Morissey, and he knows what he's talking about. Songs are much more
important today, IMHO, than any other form of art. Treating or viewing them
as amateur poetry sung to 3-chord riffs is a stupid crime.
That's why I think it's useless to discuss KSP here. People with brains
see the KSP movement for what it was - several good songwriters and several
million stupid fucks with nothing to do.
Rock literature is completely different. For example, most BG fans can say,
what changed in them after hearing a certain song/album. Same with Vyssotsky's
songs. It has nothing to do with professionalism/banalities. It's just the
amount of spiritual input the author has put in the song. I'll stop here.
___
Zak.
Greg Landsberg
> Some people have the nerve to talk about KSP in my thread. How disgusting!
> Especially, since they don't know what they're talking about :)
Yeah, that's the best part of your letter -- a self criticism.
> Greg Landsberg <LAND...@d0gs05.fnal.gov> wrote:
> >First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
>
> I wonder why it's funny. They're both dissidents, they're both playwrites,
> and they both wrote good songs about the same things at the same time.
OK, let's then put Kukhel'beker and Pushkin in the same row too. :-)
> >The second - Kim is a TYPICAL KSP - dunno whom do you mean by a
> >"mainstream". Starting with his primitive lyrics ("Podo mnoj glubina - sem'
> >kilometrov do dna", going on with his less primitive, but still bana lyrics
> >like "Na nochnyh kustah vetki trogaya" and of course wih all his apolitical
> >funny sings like "Na menya upal Kapital." Just your typical KSP, not the
> >best one, BTW. KSP a la Visbor, Berezhkov, Tur'yanskij.
>
> 'Typical KSP' is being done by amateurs. Kim is a professional.
Best KSP is done by amateurs. Remember the translation: Amateur Song Club.
With the professionalism KSP just lose its face - e.g., the same Kim who
started as an amateur and at his time he was good, e.g., Klyatchkin who
started with an amazing performance of "Shestvie" and then ended up with
"Sinij krab" being affiliated with Leningrad Philarmony.
> Those lyrics are not primitive at all - they are fine stylizations.
> And don't forget the more recent lyrics ("Ne pokidaj menia vesna", "Da osenit
> tishina", etc.) - they should fit your taste better (they do sound like
> Tiutchev, don't they? :)
Please, don't propagate your own taste (if any, which I doubt) to myself.
They DO NOT sound like Tyutchev to anyone who knows Tyutchev. Stylization
can never ever be as good as an original, by the way. Though I don't see
any special stylization in cited songs.
> >Luferov, Scherbakov, Mirzoyan are the people of the next generation and
> >their songs putted KSP on the higher level.
>
> What higher level? In KSP?
You might be surprised, but, yeah, KSP has higher and lower levels, as any
culture (subculture).
> Amazing - when people have no culture, they cling to whatever they can access.
Like Zappa?
> I don't know Luferov (I know Zappa personally though :) but both Scherbakov
> and Mirzojan suck big time. I've heard their songs. "Babel'mandebskij
> proliv..." Pheeww...
The cited (and misspelled) song is one of his earliest. He did a lot much
more serious stuff after that one. As to Mirzoyan I'm sure that you don't
like "his" lyrics! (People who heard him will understand what I mean :-).)
And your amazing mixing of styles (Galich and Kim, Scherbakov and Mirzoyan,
Luferov and Zappa) is very like famous "odin topor raven odnoj ovtse."
Keep listening your "friend" Zappa!
Cheers,
Greg
Zak May
Greg Landsberg <LAND...@d0gs05.fnal.gov> wrote:
>> >First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
>>
>> I wonder why it's funny. They're both dissidents, they're both playwrites,
>> and they both wrote good songs about the same things at the same time.
>
>OK, let's then put Kukhel'beker and Pushkin in the same row too. :-)
I don't see why not. Tynianov did. And so did many historians. Stop it.
>With the professionalism KSP just lose its face - e.g., the same Kim who
>started as an amateur and at his time he was good, e.g., Klyatchkin who
>started with an amazing performance of "Shestvie" and then ended up with
>"Sinij krab" being affiliated with Leningrad Philarmony.
Yeah, sure. And "Okudzhava lost his credibility when he started releasing
records on Melodija". Incredible narrowmindness...
>Though I don't see any special stylization in cited <Kim's> songs.
It's in the language. Try again.
>> What higher level? In KSP?
>
>You might be surprised, but, yeah, KSP has higher and lower levels, as any
>culture (subculture).
There's such thing as "threshold". When the average level is below threshold,
no levels can be detected at all.
>>.. when people have no culture, they cling to whatever they can access.
>
>Like Zappa?
A za Zappu mozhno i po rozhe shlopotat'.
>> ..."Babel'mandebskij proliv..."
>
>The cited (and misspelled) song is one of his <Scherbakov's> earliest.
Ha-ha! How am I supposed to spell it here then? :^)
>As to Mirzoyan I'm sure that you don't like "his" lyrics!
Oh please. Making a career out of whining Brodsky's poems is as pathetic as
it can get. Besides, Zykina singing Jesenin would not make my playlist either.
And neither would Pugatchova singing Tsvetajeva. Once again, songs are *not*
poetry sung to music.
>Keep listening your "friend" Zappa!
Don't worry, you ignorant pissant, I will. First thing tonight. Something
about ignorant pissants. "Broken hearts are for assholes", for example.
___
Zak.
Zak May
>Well, he had some obvious failures during the
>later period of his work when he produced some
>overexplicit political stuff -- i would name
>2 songs: "Poezd v ogne" i "pokolenie dvornikov".
On the contrary - I think it was really majestic of him to suggest an opinion
on our earthly affairs. From my point of view, his recent songs ("Do chistoj
zvezdy", "Kogda projdiot bol'", "Nikita Riazanskij", "Bozhe hrani poliarnikov")
are actually a big step forward for him and his loyal listeners.
I always try to see the songs from the author's point of view. BG's political
statements were not triggered by commercial considerations or a guilt complex.
He was sincerely trying to help. Besides, he did it in a subtle enough way:
Teper' nas mozhet spasti tol'ko serdtse,
Potomu chto nas uzhe ne spas um.
___
Zak.
Boris A. Veytsman
>
>That's why I think it's useless to discuss KSP here. People with brains
>see the KSP movement for what it was - several good songwriters and several
>million stupid fucks with nothing to do.
>
>Rock literature is completely different.
I don't wish to start a flamewar, but the ratio talent/epigon
(like signal/noise) seems to be a universal constant. My
impressin that for KSP & rock it is roughly the same.
If you launch a completely new style (say, play on beer cans
with Dinosaurus urine) you'd have a couple of talented players
and a thousand of second-hand ones. The universal law.
Good luck
-Boris
Zak May
>I don't wish to start a flamewar, but the ratio talent/epigon
>(like signal/noise) seems to be a universal constant. My
>impressin that for KSP & rock it is roughly the same.
Nope. The main difference is in the relations between the author and the
public. KSP is based on some theoretical equality between the Creators
and the Consumers. Rock (esp. Russian rock) is just the opposite.
People come to KSP 'slioty' and 'posidelki' to listen to each other and to
show they can do no worse than the average level. Rock people come to
festivals and home concerts to listen, to watch and to experience.
The same difference shows in the critical approach. KSP-'panibratstvo'
towards the Creators is unimaginable in rock culture.
Some branches of rock-n-roll (i.e. pop-metal) are more or less 'democratic'.
But we weren't talking about those particular ones, we were talking about
BG, GO, etc. Those people are deities to their fans, and it would be
considered in extremely bad taste in Russian r-n-r community to sing
'Elektricheskij pios' or 'Zhioltaja pressa' u kostra :^)
>If you launch a completely new style (say, play on beer cans
>with Dinosaurus urine) you'd have a couple of talented players
>and a thousand of second-hand ones. The universal law.
You're right in general, but it doesn't apply to KSP directly. In KSP the
audience *is* the multitude of 'second-hand players'. It's more like an
insurance salesmen convention than an art movement :^)
___
Zak.
FRIM...@sluvca.slu.edu
My first step: $ telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
(login) ex-ussr
List&FTP
soc.cul.soviet
Chitau. Hohochy. Vozmyashus'. Izdevaus'. Plachy.
My second step: idy v gopher. Kopaus' v Illinoise, vyhozhy cherez soc/v soviet
i perepravlyu by "mail" k sebe.
And finally- otpravlyau msg v soc.culture....@decwrl.dec.com
Ne dovodite menya do krainostei!!!
If you think that I'm not a register user( and others like me)
it's not allowed you to use my patient for reading
THIS
>In 1988 the situation I was leaving behind was close to this: BG was finally
>living out his sick fantasies, Tsoi was on a sure track to superstardom and
>imminent death, Nautilius Pompilius were the top pop band in Russia, Alla
>Pugatchova got mature, Zhanna Aguzarova sold out, Vyssotsky was still dead,
>GO were still underground, DDT paved a way for nationalistic bands from Sibir'
>and Ukraine, and Moscow was flooded with pseudo-decadent acts like Zvuki Mu,
>Obermaneken, Krematorij, etc.
Tsoi eshe ne razbilsya, a Naytilys rezko ystypil pervenstvo GO.Alla iz materi
stala babyshkoi, Agyzarova prodalas' merikantsy i yhehala v US,Vyssotsky byl
po-prezhnemy dead( v etom s Zakom trydno ne soglasitsya),DDT ostavlyal na
pamyat' v zalah defetsitnye rvanye prezervativy i otvratnyiotbornyi mat.
Zvyki Mu ischezli kak-to, Krematorii raspolzalsya v zapisiah po kavkazskim
i aziatskim respyblikam.
>Vezhlivyi Otkaz (Moscow)
>Kollezhskii Assessor Auktsyon. (etomy Mishke dazhe palky v Kolesa ne
postavish'. Vsyo. Pokypau Ak. Trotskogo.)
Ptotolzhaem hhrazgovor o "roke".
>A second thing left out Telephone, Mirazh, Loza, Bananovye
>Ostrova, Mashina Vremeni.
A knizhonka to y Mishi staren'ka:
Nevest' s chem prishel "Sektor Gaaza"(menya igla pronzit pryamo v sertse...),
Technologiya"( rus. variant of Depish Mode),
ne is etoi opery-" Duna"- s rozovo-limonnymi mechtami v stile stydencheskogo
marazma ( Rastyt limony na vysokih gorah- i ya sorvy limon i bydy rad - no ya
tebe ne dam, ne smei menya o tom prosit'...),i- voshititel'neishii armyano-
evreiskii dyet "Akademiya". Potom ybili patriota Goshy Tal'kova, Aziza sorvala
Kar'ery, Malikov i Presnykov (yzh koli Mirazh vnesli v spiski "roka"- im to
tozhe mozhno) eshe peli( i pout,), Malinin yglyblyalsya v Romansy...
Za "Mirazhom" poyavilas' "Kombinatsia", "Karmen",Titamir ostalsya odin.
A ved' zabyli vy "Chaif" da i Vorobeffa s metallostar'em spisali...
>A silly stuff, but some of this was sincere and really good.
I'm seriously wondering: Which one????
A hochesh' popylyarnyu pesenky s kommercheskogo Moskovskogo Kanala
2X2? (do-o-lgo voshishala slyshatelei....)
Devyshka- devyshka gde zhe tvoi dom?
Vstretitsya, vstretitsya nado vdvoem
Vot yzhe shto-to sozrelo vnytri-
Ne yhodi, slyshish', ne y-ho-di
Devyska-aa-a-a-a-a-a-a
Chem tebe ne rock?
S brilliantovym msgem k slyshatelyam...
> An endless stream of Modern Talking soundalikes was slowly
Kakoi "Modern"- vsya strana napevala "sis'ki v teste- eto vkysno, zahodite..
.. v teste"...
>My question is - what did I miss?
Nothing.
Zhizn' prodolzhatsya dazhe tam gde nas net,
dorogoi ZAK...
Rokohyl'nyi Che.Ka.
eshe kakogo roka vspomnu- skazhy:
PS: Is anyone by the chance brought tapes of Al.Bushlachev???
Greg Landsberg
> Oh goodie! Flame flame flame, as Kalmoth puts it. My favourite. :^)
My Godness! Are you an Englishman or what??? "favourite" - I like it! Too
much Beatles in the childhood... Anamnez..
Anyway - like to be putted your face in a shit - you bet!
>
> Greg Landsberg <LAND...@d0gs05.fnal.gov> wrote:
> >> >First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
> >>
> >> I wonder why it's funny. They're both dissidents, they're both playwrites,
> >> and they both wrote good songs about the same things at the same time.
> >
> >OK, let's then put Kukhel'beker and Pushkin in the same row too. :-)
>
> I don't see why not. Tynianov did. And so did many historians. Stop it.
If you think that writing a novell "Kyuhlya" means to put Kukhel'becker in
the same row as Pushkin... Well, what can I say - read Belinsky... Oh no -
I got a better advice - just READ! It might help (though I'm not sure
anymore). Rozhdennyj slushat' chitat' ne mozhet...
>
> >With the professionalism KSP just lose its face - e.g., the same Kim who
> >started as an amateur and at his time he was good, e.g., Klyatchkin who
> >started with an amazing performance of "Shestvie" and then ended up with
> >"Sinij krab" being affiliated with Leningrad Philarmony.
>
> Yeah, sure. And "Okudzhava lost his credibility when he started releasing
> records on Melodija". Incredible narrowmindness...
Your typical Soviet style of arguments - first to assign your own silly
words to your opponent and then to brilliantly show their stupidity...
>
> >Though I don't see any special stylization in cited <Kim's> songs.
>
> It's in the language. Try again.
If I'll tell you "fuck off" = would it be a stylization for a 42nd street
whore or you will accept my ability to express such a simple thought
myself? :-)
> >> What higher level? In KSP?
> >
> >You might be surprised, but, yeah, KSP has higher and lower levels, as any
> >culture (subculture).
>
> There's such thing as "threshold". When the average level is below threshold,
> no levels can be detected at all.
It depends exclusively on your definition of the world "threshold." Being
aware of your favorite - Zappa, I'd dare to say that even Kim should be
above your anticipation threshold.
> >>.. when people have no culture, they cling to whatever they can access.
> >
> >Like Zappa?
>
> A za Zappu mozhno i po rozhe shlopotat'.
A, nu da! Za druzej my - vsem skopom!
> >> ..."Babel'mandebskij proliv..."
> >
> >The cited (and misspelled) song is one of his <Scherbakov's> earliest.
>
> Ha-ha! How am I supposed to spell it here then? :^)
Zak, do me a favor - just open a World Atlas and look it yourself (near
South America, to save you some time which you can later spend on listening
Zappa).
>
> >As to Mirzoyan I'm sure that you don't like "his" lyrics!
>
> Oh please. Making a career out of whining Brodsky's poems is as pathetic as
> it can get. Besides, Zykina singing Jesenin would not make my playlist either.
> And neither would Pugatchova singing Tsvetajeva. Once again, songs are *not*
> poetry sung to music.
He was making his career as a physicist. As to Brodsky's poems, Mr. J.
Brodsky likes Mirzoyan's performance of his texts.
> >Keep listening your "friend" Zappa!
>
> Don't worry, you ignorant pissant, I will. First thing tonight. Something
> about ignorant pissants. "Broken hearts are for assholes", for example.
Oh, now I'm impressed! Now I believe you that you know Zappa in person.
Sure enough he devoted the cited text to his best freind, Zak May.
> ___
> Zak.
Get a life, man! (stylization for a ... - well, you guess!)
Cheers,
Greg
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
I never heard this group, but one of my hippie
friends raved a lot about them (this was in 1988-89).
He said, basically, that they are three guys who
sit around a table and
pass instruments clockwise so that everyone plays
everything. I though that's cool and should sound
like Ganelin Trio's _Simplicita_.
By the way, what is with Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin nowadays?
Ganelin emigrated to Izrael ~85 - do you guys know anything
about him upon the emigration? Chekasin played with Aquarium,
Kuriokhin and then started his own jazz academy in Lithuania
and prospered there (data ~1990) - what did he do
later? Tarasov put out some solo LPs on drums and
then played with some jazz-Gypsie gal (Valentina
Ponomareva, to the best of my memory).
The most important question is availability
of this stuff. All their records are supposed
to be put out by Leo Records in London, managed
by Leo Feigin (?). Does anyone know the address/
US distributor for Leo? Did this label vanish
alltogether? I never saw any of Leo records
even if I spend 5-15 hours in various record shops
weekly.
Misha.
P. S. I crossposted this to rec.music.bluenote.
Please use discretion when posting followups.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
I just want to point out that I did not want to say
anything against Vyss., Okud., Nik., but I wanted
to say Naumov appeals to someone with KSP tastes
and without extensive listening to KSP. Liking
Vyss., Okud., Nik. means having typical KSP tastes,
(ones of 95% of Soviet intelligentsia, I think) and
lack of knowledge about less popular KSP artists
means lack of "extensive listening to KSP".
Misha.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
>
>The second - Kim is a TYPICAL KSP - dunno whom do you mean by a
>"mainstream". Starting with his primitive lyrics ("Podo mnoj glubina - sem'
>kilometrov do dna", going on with his less primitive, but still bana lyrics
>like "Na nochnyh kustah vetki trogaya" and of course wih all his apolitical
>funny sings like "Na menya upal Kapital." Just your typical KSP, not the
>best one, BTW. KSP a la Visbor, Berezhkov, Tur'yanskij.
>
>Luferov, Scherbakov, Mirzoyan are the people of the next generation and
>their songs putted KSP on the higher level. But not Kim's sorry.
Note that both Luferov and Shcherbakov rate Kim
amongst the very best KSP authors (Luferov's
favourite authors are Matveeva, Galich, Kim, Okudzhava,
Vyssotsky. Kim's all-important influence on Shcherbakov
is widely acknowledged). From all Luferov's
top 5 I can actually listen only to Kim (sometimes)
and Matveeva (she's in *my* top 5 :). Others
are bland, boring, un-adventurous.
>As to Galich, he doesn't belong to KSP directly, but affected KSP lyrics
>very much, and the people who do the best in KSP right now grew up under
>the influence of his songs. So, he contributed to KSP implicitly.
Well, Kim, Galich's friend and "colloborator"
(he co-wrote "K Galichu v Dubnu" :) believes
that Galich *does* belong to KSP and it seems
that almost everybody thinks so.
Misha.
P. S. Shcherbakov colloborated with Kim on his LP
and (as the story goes) took lessons of guitar
and songwriting from Kim.
Keir Reavie
> Misha.
I haven't seen any Leo records for years. The few Ganelin Trio recordings I
have on Leo were found, by luck, in second hand record stores back in the
early and mid 80s. They consist of live recordings smuggled from the east in
the seventies. I highly recommend a recording done in East Berlin, 1977 I
think (I don't have the record in front of me, so I don't have details).
There was one recording on ECM released shortly after the groups 1985 or
1986 (agin I can't remember) tour of North America. I was lucky enough to
see them at the Toronto Jazz Festival that year. they were a lot of fun to
hear and watch - a shame they are no longer together.
If anyone has any information on where the trio memebers are now, I would be
very interested.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
I am basically tolerant but when it comes to Ivashchenko
and Vassiliev I become furious. I mismanaged to listen
to these two several times (they often sang on various
KSP sessions). I never listened to anything as
stupid, full of pseudo-political "figa v karmane"
reminiscences and pretentious in the worst sense.
Funny enough, half of my acquaintances are avid
I&V fans and they are exactly those amongst my
acquaintances whom I believe to be complete idiots.
Speak about coincidences.
Misha.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>I agree with Leonid's posting. One thing though:
>
>>Well, he had some obvious failures during the
>>later period of his work when he produced some
>>overexplicit political stuff -- i would name
>>2 songs: "Poezd v ogne" i "pokolenie dvornikov".
>
>On the contrary - I think it was really majestic of him to suggest an opinion
>on our earthly affairs. From my point of view, his recent songs ("Do chistoj
>zvezdy", "Kogda projdiot bol'", "Nikita Riazanskij",
>"Bozhe hrani poliarnikov")
>are actually a big step forward for him and his loyal listeners.
IMHO, these songs are downright boring. His songwriting
is proficient, but there is nothing from the heart
there. BG was good when he sang about
Vytri sliozy, esli est' eshcho sliozy,
Znachit to, chto sluchilos' ne tak uzh plokho
Vytri krov', ved' ikh ne dogonish' a esli dogonish'
To mozhet byt' khuzhe
My vsegda gordilis' tem, chto my...
Nam povezlo, my ostalis' zhivy a eto prosto
Eto prosto
Rebyata rebyata lovyat rebyata lovyat svoi kaif
basically, about things which are broken, never mended.
Now when he started all this Christian sweet noodling
it makes me very sad about wasted talent.
>I always try to see the songs from the author's point of view. BG's political
>statements were not triggered by commercial considerations or a guilt complex.
>He was sincerely trying to help. Besides, he did it in a subtle enough way:
>
> Teper' nas mozhet spasti tol'ko serdtse,
> Potomu chto nas uzhe ne spas um.
He's very popular so he's trying to be up to this
popularity. So he stops experimenting and gives
the formula tried first 6-7 years ago when he
started getting popular. The formula boiled
down to several words is that BG does everything
to sound as cute and sweet as the animated Bible
for 5-yrs old kids. This is disgusting, and besides,
cutiness and rock music are not compatible. The lines
that you cited are forcefully sweet, cute and lovable -
I think this is a shame even more gross than being a
Laskovy May fan/colloborator.
Misha.
ke...@mhd.moorhead.msus.edu
>In article <1993Aug11.1...@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> mkagalen@lynx
> By the way, what is with Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin nowadays?
=========I don't know offhand about Ganelin or Chekasin, but Tarasov
put out a record with Andrew Cyrille called "Galaxies" on Music and Arts 672.
It's live and recorded on 1990.
==============================
>
Leo Records
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Does anyone know the .. US distributor for Leo?
======Cadence distributes a good portion of the Leo catalog.
===============================
Did this label vanish alltogether?
=====NO, Leo still releases things, like some new Sun Ra for example.
==Bill Kenz======
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
This is not exactly true. As it was often said,
rock music is not a music - it is a lifestyle.
So it does not actually count how you play etc:
what counts is your attitude. Noone actually cares
what (or how) punk rock musicians play (I can say
this as an afficionado of the genre :) what counts
is the philosophy, attitudes, consistency of both
with the actual music. Music is sort of important,
but not as much as these.
So KSP is very much different with rock music.
The difference is basically the same as between
traditional art and modernist art, especially
Surrealism. Tristan Tzara (a Surrealist) proposed
(in 1920-ies) the following methode of writing poetry:
you put cards with words in the hat and pull the
cards one by one. He meant that in Surrealist
view the poems don't count anymore. He was
expelled from Surrealists by his more
traditionally-minded colleagues, but now
his ideas prevailed (in modernism). For
example, most of compositions of John Cage were
"written" via some algorithm based on
random choice, and he's considered to be
one of the most important figure in the modern
music (along with Stockhausen who also used
random/arbitrary composition technique).
Misha.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>>I don't wish to start a flamewar, but the ratio talent/epigon
>>(like signal/noise) seems to be a universal constant. My
>>impressin that for KSP & rock it is roughly the same.
>Nope. The main difference is in the relations between the author and the
>public. KSP is based on some theoretical equality between the Creators
>and the Consumers. Rock (esp. Russian rock) is just the opposite.
>People come to KSP 'slioty' and 'posidelki' to listen to each other and to
>show they can do no worse than the average level. Rock people come to
>festivals and home concerts to listen, to watch and to experience.
KSP people came to festivals and home concerts to listen, to
watch and to experience. This is just that there were
less rock 'slioty' and 'posidelki' than KSP. Still, mass
participation in the rock movement was habitual: almost
every hippie I knew had his own rock group
or several groups. Even I had one and also did
a solo recording titled "Toska Veroniki
Figulinoi" (note the cute allusion to Fassbinder)
>The same difference shows in the critical approach. KSP-'panibratstvo'
>towards the Creators is unimaginable in rock culture.
Every hippie I knew told everyone about his drinking
with BG. Hippie "panibratstvo" towards the Creators
of the rock culture is much more gross than
KSPmen "panibratstvo" towards the Creators
of KSP culture (there was no "panibratstva"
towards renowned authors in KSP actually).
>Some branches of rock-n-roll (i.e. pop-metal) are more or less 'democratic'.
>But we weren't talking about those particular ones, we were talking about
>BG, GO, etc. Those people are deities to their fans, and it would be
>considered in extremely bad taste in Russian r-n-r community to sing
>'Elektricheskij pios' or 'Zhioltaja pressa' u kostra :^)
Actually, I spent a lot of time besides hippie
bonfires where they merrily sang all or most
of GO songs. When it went to bonfire singing,
GO (and Uriah Heap) was their group of choice.
Misha.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
> Mochi net vse ETO bol'she VYDERZHIVAT'!!!
Please write in English or indicate stress: noone
can actually tell where did you mean to put the stress
in your first word.
> >A second thing left out Telephone, Mirazh, Loza, Bananovye
> >Ostrova, Mashina Vremeni.
> A knizhonka to y Mishi staren'ka:
> Nevest' s chem prishel "Sektor Gaaza"(menya igla pronzit pryamo v sertse...),
>Technologiya"( rus. variant of Depish Mode),
>ne is etoi opery-" Duna"- s rozovo-limonnymi mechtami v stile stydencheskogo
>marazma ( Rastyt limony na vysokih gorah- i ya sorvy limon i bydy rad - no ya
>tebe ne dam, ne smei menya o tom prosit'...),i- voshititel'neishii armyano-
> evreiskii dyet "Akademiya". Potom ybili patriota Goshy Tal'kova, Aziza sorvala
>Kar'ery, Malikov i Presnykov (yzh koli Mirazh vnesli v spiski "roka"- im to
>tozhe mozhno) eshe peli( i pout,), Malinin yglyblyalsya v Romansy...
> Za "Mirazhom" poyavilas' "Kombinatsia", "Karmen",Titamir ostalsya odin.
> A ved' zabyli vy "Chaif" da i Vorobeffa s metallostar'em spisali...
You lost my point there: I wrote about garage bands
with garage aesthetics (Telephone, DK, DDT of "Peripheria")
and you are writing about big stars of Soviet pop.
Mirazh was a provincial act with limited appeal
and very sincere in all its silliness, while Kombinatsia
are cynically milking post-Soviet public for money
and despise themselves in whatever they do.
> PS: Is anyone by the chance brought tapes of Al.Bushlachev???
I have several of his tapes but I haven't listened
to all them yet. They just lay there waiting for me
to listen. Too bland, to my taste. Still, I like
his music, just it's too difficult to fight
boredom even if the songs are good. Yanka
Dyagileva is much more uplifting.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>> >> ..."Babel'mandebskij proliv..."
>> >
>> >The cited (and misspelled) song is one of his <Scherbakov's> earliest.
>>
>> Ha-ha! How am I supposed to spell it here then? :^)
>
>Zak, do me a favor - just open a World Atlas and look it yourself (near
>South America, to save you some time which you can later spend on listening
>Zappa).
Actually, the proliv, however it's spelled, is in
Middle East.
>He was making his career as a physicist. As to Brodsky's poems, Mr. J.
>Brodsky likes Mirzoyan's performance of his texts.
>Oh, now I'm impressed! Now I believe you that you know Zappa in person.
>Sure enough he devoted the cited text to his best freind, Zak May.
BTW, Mirzoyan is a devoted Zappa fan (jerks like
other jerks, hi ho). IMHO, Zappa's only claim to fame
is his politics and may be that he was a classmate of
Don van Vliet and produced Trout Maska Replica.
Misha.
Zak May
> Actually, I spent a lot of time besides hippie
> bonfires where they merrily sang all or most
> of GO songs. When it went to bonfire singing,
> GO (and Uriah Heap) was their group of choice.
:)
___
Zak.
Zak May
>GL>Oh, now I'm impressed! Now I believe you that you know Zappa in person.
>GL>Sure enough he devoted the cited text to his best freind, Zak May.
>
>MV> BTW, Mirzoyan is a devoted Zappa fan (jerks like
>MV> other jerks, hi ho). IMHO, Zappa's only claim to fame
>MV> is his politics and may be that he was a classmate of
>MV> Don van Vliet and produced Trout Maska Replica.
If you don't stop this, I'll direct the follow-ups to alt.fan.frank-zappa
(or, better yet, talk.bizarre) and they will skin you alive :^)
I personally can't understand this abuse, so I won't try to fight it.
As far as facts go, Zappa didn't get into politics until 1985. And "Trout
Mask Replica" can't really be a 'claim to fame', since it's not that famous -
it never charted (while some Zappa albums made the Top 30!) and only musicians
and rock writers ever listen to it.
___
Zak.
Boris A. Veytsman
ver...@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) says:
>
>In article <93224.16...@psuvm.psu.edu> Boris A. Veytsman
><BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>If you launch a completely new style (say, play on beer cans
>>with Dinosaurus urine) you'd have a couple of talented players
>>and a thousand of second-hand ones. The universal law.
>
> This is not exactly true. As it was often said,
> rock music is not a music - it is a lifestyle.
> So it does not actually count how you play etc:
> what counts is your attitude. Noone actually cares
> what (or how) punk rock musicians play (I can say
> this as an afficionado of the genre :) what counts
> is the philosophy, attitudes, consistency of both
> with the actual music. Music is sort of important,
> but not as much as these.
KSP is also a lifestyle (just look at those on the
Grushevka).
>
> So KSP is very much different with rock music.
> The difference is basically the same as between
> traditional art and modernist art, especially
> Surrealism. Tristan Tzara (a Surrealist) proposed
> (in 1920-ies) the following methode of writing poetry:
> you put cards with words in the hat and pull the
> cards one by one. He meant that in Surrealist
> view the poems don't count anymore. He was
> expelled from Surrealists by his more
> traditionally-minded colleagues, but now
> his ideas prevailed (in modernism). For
> example, most of compositions of John Cage were
> "written" via some algorithm based on
> random choice, and he's considered to be
> one of the most important figure in the modern
> music (along with Stockhausen who also used
> random/arbitrary composition technique).
>
Well, some of the KSP songs look like written in this technique.
(Not that I like it). Dear Misha, nothing is new under the moon.
Good luck
-Boris
Boris A. Veytsman
>
>Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>>I don't wish to start a flamewar, but the ratio talent/epigon
>>(like signal/noise) seems to be a universal constant. My
>>impressin that for KSP & rock it is roughly the same.
>
>Nope. The main difference is in the relations between the author and the
>public. KSP is based on some theoretical equality between the Creators
>and the Consumers. Rock (esp. Russian rock) is just the opposite.
>
>The same difference shows in the critical approach. KSP-'panibratstvo'
>towards the Creators is unimaginable in rock culture.
>
>Some branches of rock-n-roll (i.e. pop-metal) are more or less 'democratic'.
>But we weren't talking about those particular ones, we were talking about
>BG, GO, etc. Those people are deities to their fans, and it would be
>considered in extremely bad taste in Russian r-n-r community to sing
>'Elektricheskij pios' or 'Zhioltaja pressa' u kostra :^)
>
>
>You're right in general, but it doesn't apply to KSP directly. In KSP the
>audience *is* the multitude of 'second-hand players'. It's more like an
>insurance salesmen convention than an art movement :^)
>
Why insurance salesmen convention and not, say
gathering of chess club where there is a place
both for Grossmaster and an amateur who will
never play like the former but enjoys his
ow play together with his friends?
It is amusing that the same argument you are
using against KSP (no gap between Creator & Consumer)
I have heard from KSP fans, but in that case it
was considered as a KSP advantage. They said that
rock is a consumerist culture, pre-digested
spiritual food. KSP, oriented on creation,
self-expression, helps one understand Master
through his own feeble achievements (Who understands
Einstein better, his less talented colleague or
a layman?)
In fact I see nothing terrible in amateurish
poetry. There were times when any educated peron
was supposed to write poems on occasion (and
actually wrote them). If an art movement
declares its aim to induce creative efforts
in its listeners/participants, it is ok.
[Side comment for Misha Verbitsky: Zri v koren'!
KSP with its active participation of audience
in the creation process is more post-modern
than rock. The main component of the post-modern
literature is the explicit participation of
audience. A post-modern text is dead without
its reader and the unpredictable interpretation.
Rock relations between reader and writer are
rather traditional. Even the deification of the writer's
lifestyle is by now means a new idea]
There is nothing wrong in Tyut'kin writing
songs, provided that he has the scale and understands
the difference between Pushkin and Okudzhava, and
Okudzhava and Tyut'kin. By the way that is why I
don't like BG fans. As Zak correctly says, they
consider BG as a deity and forget the scale.
The last remark. The gap between creator & consumer
turned out to be a bad barrier against second-rate
'creators'. Once again: signal/noise ratio = const.
Good luck
-Boris
Zak May
>It is amusing that the same argument you are
>using against KSP (no gap between Creator & Consumer)
>I have heard from KSP fans, but in that case it
>was considered as a KSP advantage.
I have nothing against this fact - I don't like some of its applications.
Particularly, the situation in which any Consumer gets a right to judge
the Creators *professionally*, although he/she doesn't always have the
skill/level of *professionalism* to do that. Greg Landsberg's postings are
good proofs of the weakness of this approach.
>They <KSP people> said that rock is a consumerist culture, pre-digested
>spiritual food.
So is any other religion. Nothing wrong with that.
>KSP, oriented on creation, self-expression, helps one understand Master
>through his own feeble achievements (Who understands Einstein better, his
>less talented colleague or a layman?)
Who *appreciates* Einstein better? That would be the appropriate question.
The layman uses the results of Einstein's work in everyday life. The 'less-
talented colleague' will always suffer from being 'less-talented' and that will
(as it did many times in Einstein's case) affect his/her judgement.
>In fact I see nothing terrible in amateurish
>poetry. There were times when any educated peron
>was supposed to write poems on occasion (and
>actually wrote them). If an art movement
>declares its aim to induce creative efforts
>in its listeners/participants, it is ok.
Once again, if there's no audience outside the movement, the movement is
'unhealthy'. Pop-applications of KSP are too often rejected by the movement
(Nikitin/Berkovsky, Suhanov, Rosenbaum, etc.), while rock always welcomes and
craves the pop audience. The difference between a 'chess masters convention'
and an 'insurance salesmen convention' is in the amount of useful applications
outside the subculture.
>The last remark. The gap between creator & consumer
>turned out to be a bad barrier against second-rate
>'creators'. Once again: signal/noise ratio = const.
I really don't think so. The cost of electric guitars in Russia is an
effective enough barrier in itself :) It was very difficult to be a rock
musician in Russia in the Eighties (not just to write/sing songs, but to
tour, record, etc.). We didn't have that many 'prihlebateli'.
___
Zak.
Sandeep Mehta
> ver...@coolidge.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
> The most important question is availability
> of this stuff. All their records are supposed
> to be put out by Leo Records in London, managed
> by Leo Feigin (?). Does anyone know the address/
> US distributor for Leo? Did this label vanish
> alltogether? I never saw any of Leo records
> even if I spend 5-15 hours in various record shops
> weekly.
I don't know about recent releases but Leo Records is alive (and
well?). Cadence is their US distributor. As for the Ganelin Trio they
have quite a few records in print. Here's what I have (most of this
are in print or fairly easy to find in used record stores):
Ganelin Trio, The - Poco-A-Poco (Leo 1988, CD)
Ganelin Trio, The - Strictly For Our Friends (Leo 1984, LP)
Ganelin Trio, The - Con Affetto - live in Moscow (Leo 1985, LP)
Other record by Ganelin members that well worth getting are:
Chekasin, Vladimir - Anti-Show (sketches of everyday life) (Leo 1988, LP)
Cyrille, Andrew - and Vladimir Tarasov - Galaxies (Music & Arts 1991, CD)
The Leo LP was limited ed and is probably out of print but one never
knows what Leo Feigin's definition of limited edition. The
Cyrille/Tarasov CD is an all percussion live from the Vancouver Jazz
Fest in 1990. An excellent record.
While I am plugging Lithuanian jazz I should mention another Russian
(??) Anatoly Vapirov. I have just one record but it is worth hunting
down esp for the first piece dedicated to Alban Berg.
Vapirov, Anatoly - De Profundis (Leo 1988, LP)
Long listings are attached.
/sandeep
Ganelin Trio, The Leo LR 101 (CD)
Title: Poco-A-Poco
Recorded: 2/1978 at Novsibirsk, USSR
Released: 1988
With: Vyacheslav Ganelin (leader), piano, basset
Vladimir Chekasin, reeds
Vladimir Tarasov, drums
Contents: 1) Poco-A-Poco
Purchased: 1991
Comments: prod. IACP.
Ganelin Trio, The Leo LR 120 (LP)
Title: Strictly For Our Friends
Recorded: 3/1978 at Moscow, USSR.
Released: 1984
With: Vyacheslav Ganelin (leader), piano
Vladimir Tarasov, drums
Vladimir Chekasin, reeds
Contents: 1) Poco-A-Poco (suite)
2) side A ( 22:07)
3) side B ( 25:34)
Total: ( 47:41)
Purchased: 11/1991
Comments: prod. Leo Feigin. suite played in eight heads separated by
applause only.
Ganelin Trio, The Leo LR 137 (LP)
Title: Con Affetto - live in Moscow
Recorded: 11/20/1983 at Moscow, USSR.
Released: 1985
With: Vyacheslav Ganelin (leader), piano, basset, Casio, wooden flute,
horn, percussion
Vladimir Tarasov, drums, percussion, horn
Vladimir Chekasin, saxophones, clarinet, wooden flute, percussion
Contents: 1) Semplice ( 20:32)
2) Semplice (contd.) ( 07:35)
3) 1st encore - Mack The Knife ( 05:23)
4) 2nd encore ( 06:24)
5) 3rd encore ( 04:50)
Total: ( 44:44)
Purchased: 12/1991
Comments: prod. Leo Feigin.
Chekasin, Vladimir Leo LR 165 (LP)
Title: Anti-Show (sketches of everyday life)
Recorded: 6/19/1988 at Munster Jazz Festival, Munster, Germany.
Released: 1988
With: Vladimir Chekasin (leader), reeds, synthesizer, percussion
Oleg Molokoedov, piano, synthesizer, trumpet, percussion
Vitas Labutis, reeds, synth.
Joffe Arvides, drums, percussion
Contents: 1) side A ( 27:30)
2) side B ( 26:55)
Total: ( 54:25)
Purchased: 12/1991
Comments: prod. Leo Feigin. limited ed. of 750.
Cyrille, Andrew Music & Arts CD-672 (CD)
Title: and Vladimir Tarasov - Galaxies
Recorded: 6/1990 at Vancouver Jazz Festival, Vancouver, B.C.; DuMaurier
Jazz Festival, Toronto, CA; Koncepts Kultural Gallery, Oakland,
CA.
Released: 1991
With: Andrew Cyrille (leader), percussion
Vladimir Tarasov (leader), percussion
Contents: 1) Galaxies & Action V (Tarasov) ( 26:14)
2) No. 11 (Cyrille) ( 11:36)
3) Summit (Tarasov) ( 05:48)
4) One Up, One Down (Coltrane) ( 02:19)
Total: ( 45:57)
Purchased: 1992
Comments: 1 & 2 rec @ Vancouver, Jun 90
3 rec @ Toronto, 1990
4 rec Koncepts, Jun 90
prod Paul J. Hoeffler.
Vapirov, Anatoly Leo LR 159 (LP)
Title: De Profundis
Recorded: 1981, 1985 at Leningrad, Tallin, USSR.
Released: 1988
With: Anatoly Vapirov (leader), tenor sax, soprano sax, alto sax, bass
clarinet, double sax, flutes, prepared
piano, percussion, drums (saxes only on
1.)
Vladimir Hentzelt, violin (w/ String Quartet, Symphony Orchestra,
Leningrad State Philharmoni; on 1 only.)
Irina Fyodorova, violin (w/ String Quartet, Symphony Orchestra,
Leningrad State Philharmoni; on 1 only.)
Leonid Sheidman, viola (w/ String Quartet, Symphony Orchestra,
Leningrad State Philharmoni; on 1 only.)
Alexander Oratovsky, cello (w/ String Quartet, Symphony Orchestra,
Leningrad State Philharmoni; on 1 only.)
Sergey Kuryokhin, piano, prepared piano, flutes, percussion (on 2
only.)
Alexander Alexandrov, bassoon, flutes, percussion (on 2 only.)
Contents: 1) Lines Of Destiny (dedicated to Alban Berg) ( 17:30)
2) De Profundis ( 25:00)
Total: ( 42:30)
Purchased: 12/1991
Comments: 1 recorded in Leningrad, 1985; 2 in Tallin, 1981.
prod. Leo Feigin. notes by Norman Weinstein.
limited edition of 500.
--
Sandeep Mehta sme...@nynexst.com
Greg Landsberg
> In article <24ceqj$6...@fnnews.fnal.gov> LAND...@d0gs05.fnal.gov (Greg Landsberg) writes:
>
> >First of all it's funny to put Kim in the same row with Galich.
> >
> >Luferov, Scherbakov, Mirzoyan are the people of the next generation and
> >their songs putted KSP on the higher level. But not Kim's sorry.
>
> Note that both Luferov and Shcherbakov rate Kim
> amongst the very best KSP authors (Luferov's
> favourite authors are Matveeva, Galich, Kim, Okudzhava,
> Vyssotsky. Kim's all-important influence on Shcherbakov
> is widely acknowledged). From all Luferov's
> top 5 I can actually listen only to Kim (sometimes)
> and Matveeva (she's in *my* top 5 :). Others
> are bland, boring, un-adventurous.
Misha, I agree that Kim was not bad the time he started. At Galich's times.
But it was 30 years ago! And now he sing almost the same songs he did it
back to sixties. Toska po shestidesyatnichestvu???
Yeah, he influenced KSP very much. But Gorodnitskij, Visbor et al. also
influenced it. What I was trying to say is that the level of the late 80th
KSP was drastically changed by another generation whose music and
especially lyrics was at the much higher level.
Originally it was a rock music discussion, so let me use this simple
example - the rock music which Beatles wrote 28 years ago is very different
from the rock of, say, P.F. If they play "Please, please me!" type of songs
now - who would listen them?
As to Matveeva, I hope you mean Novella Matveeva! :-)
> >As to Galich, he doesn't belong to KSP directly, but affected KSP lyrics
> >very much, and the people who do the best in KSP right now grew up under
> >the influence of his songs. So, he contributed to KSP implicitly.
>
> Well, Kim, Galich's friend and "colloborator"
> (he co-wrote "K Galichu v Dubnu" :) believes
> that Galich *does* belong to KSP and it seems
> that almost everybody thinks so.
It's an arguable point - Galich was very different from those
lyrics-romantics who created KSP. The "stylistical opposition" between
Okudzhava and Galich, for example, (it was fed by Galich's "fans") is well
known. And I see nothing strange in Galich's cooperation with Kim on that
particular song - after all they were friends and the song was finally
written in Kim's style. Back to my example - Kukhel'becker also was
Pushkin's friend, one of the best friends, but it does not mean that they
were equally talanted. All in all, I'd say that Galich belongs to KSP of
80th much more that to KSP of 60th, which he witnessed.
> Misha.
>
> P. S. Shcherbakov colloborated with Kim on his LP
> and (as the story goes) took lessons of guitar
> and songwriting from Kim.
So, he finally issued that LP which he was trying to make last 5 years?
Yeah, I know that story about Scherbakov taking guitar lessons from Kim,
however, it was propagated as a sort of rumors all the time. Scherbakov
himself never approved or disapproved it (to the best of my knowledge). His
only mentioning of Kim in his lyrics "...on vse pesni pozabyl krome
Kima..." can be interpreted in both ways :-). Well, his early songs, like
"Exotic," "Eto ya I Sebast'aynov" sounds rather similar to Kim's, so may be
he really took the lessons from Kim. In this case the student obviously
overdid his teacher.
Greg
Greg Landsberg
> I am basically tolerant but when it comes to Ivashchenko
> and Vassiliev I become furious. I mismanaged to listen
> to these two several times (they often sang on various
> KSP sessions). I never listened to anything as
> stupid, full of pseudo-political "figa v karmane"
> reminiscences and pretentious in the worst sense.
>
> Funny enough, half of my acquaintances are avid
> I&V fans and they are exactly those amongst my
> acquaintances whom I believe to be complete idiots.
> Speak about coincidences.
>
> Misha.
I have to confess... It is the FIRST time in my life when I COMPLETELY
(literally!) agree with Misha!
Greg
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>KSP is also a lifestyle (just look at those on the
>Grushevka).
KSP does not define a lifestyle. These on Grushevka
are ordinary Soviet intelligentsia who spend vacation
in the forests.
>Well, some of the KSP songs look like written in this technique.
>(Not that I like it). Dear Misha, nothing is new under the moon.
I was speaking about Stockhausen and Tzara, not about
an anonymous KSP jerk. One of ideas of avangarde/rock
music (as well as other parts of the modernist culture)
was that the product of art is not important,
the important thing is philosophy behind this
product. I see many things in KSP, but I don't
see anyhting resembling indigeneous philosophy,
or any philosophy different from the general
intelligentsia attitude.
Misha.
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
>>Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> wrote:
>>>I don't wish to start a flamewar, but the ratio talent/epigon
>>>(like signal/noise) seems to be a universal constant. My
>>>impressin that for KSP & rock it is roughly the same.
>>Nope. The main difference is in the relations between the author and the
>>public. KSP is based on some theoretical equality between the Creators
>>and the Consumers. Rock (esp. Russian rock) is just the opposite.
>>You're right in general, but it doesn't apply to KSP directly. In KSP the
>>audience *is* the multitude of 'second-hand players'. It's more like an
>>insurance salesmen convention than an art movement :^)
>It is amusing that the same argument you are
>using against KSP (no gap between Creator & Consumer)
>I have heard from KSP fans, but in that case it
>was considered as a KSP advantage. They said that
>rock is a consumerist culture, pre-digested
>spiritual food. KSP, oriented on creation,
>self-expression, helps one understand Master
>through his own feeble achievements (Who understands
>Einstein better, his less talented colleague or
>a layman?)
KSP is an ultimate consumerist culture -
prepackaged in forms best understood by its
public and never expressing anything besides
the common "gitara-elektrichka" and
"milaya moya, solnyshko lesnoe" sentiments.
It does not matter that this culture is basically
anonymous because the mentality which
it is oriented to is also anonymous. The
bubblegum pop was anonymous, too.
>[Side comment for Misha Verbitsky: Zri v koren'!
>KSP with its active participation of audience
>in the creation process is more post-modern
>than rock. The main component of the post-modern
>literature is the explicit participation of
>audience. A post-modern text is dead without
>its reader and the unpredictable interpretation.
Though I try never to use the misleading
term post-modern, I don't see what is
necessarily postmodern in audience participation.
Any cheerleader from the beginning of time
when cheerleaders start cheerleading
tries to make the audience to participate -
so that they are postmodern? Don't be
ridiculous.
>The last remark. The gap between creator & consumer
>turned out to be a bad barrier against second-rate
>'creators'. Once again: signal/noise ratio = const.
Not exactly constant. To be a rock musician
in pre-1985 Russia you have had to drop your
work, grow long hair and become a target
of ritual checking of documents/harassing by
*every* cop who sees you. Of course
this ensured that there are not many
rock musicians around and ones who are
are devoted and so the signal/noise
was *much* higher than in KSP.
Misha
Zak May
> KSP is an ultimate consumerist culture -
> prepackaged in forms best understood by its
> public and never expressing anything besides
> the common "gitara-elektrichka" and
> "milaya moya, solnyshko lesnoe" sentiments.
One of my most memorable KSP experiences was at the final show of the
Vsesojuznyj Sliot KSP Eshar-87, where at the end all the "laureats" had to
come on stage and sing "Milaja moja, solnyshko lesnoje". Having just won
the fucking festival with a rock song, I was obliged to do the same.
Man, did I look stupid mumbling those words!..
:^)
___
Zak.
Boris A. Veytsman
>One of my most memorable KSP experiences was at the final show of the
>Vsesojuznyj Sliot KSP Eshar-87, where at the end all the "laureats" had to
>come on stage and sing "Milaja moja, solnyshko lesnoje". Having just won
>the fucking festival with a rock song, I was obliged to do the same.
>
>Man, did I look stupid mumbling those words!..
>
Zdravstvuy, plemya mladoe, neznakomoe...
Good luck
-Boris
Mikhail S. Verbitsky
I just want to draw your attention to the line
> Sergey Kuryokhin, piano, prepared piano, flutes, percussion (on 2
> only.)
> Alexander Alexandrov, bassoon, flutes, percussion (on 2 only.)
where Kuriokhin doesn't need introductions, and
Alexandrov is the infamous "Fagot Fagotov" who
played with Aquarium on _Electrichestvo-Live_
and also mentioned in Istoriya Aquariuma.
Misha
Greg Landsberg
> >KSP, oriented on creation, self-expression, helps one understand Master
> >through his own feeble achievements (Who understands Einstein better, his
> >less talented colleague or a layman?)
>
> Who *appreciates* Einstein better? That would be the appropriate question.
> The layman uses the results of Einstein's work in everyday life. The 'less-
> talented colleague' will always suffer from being 'less-talented' and that will
> (as it did many times in Einstein's case) affect his/her judgement.
Well, still to understand and to properly appreciate something one at least
should be INTO it. Yeah, to have some level of professionalism, if you
want.
> Once again, if there's no audience outside the movement, the movement is
> 'unhealthy'. Pop-applications of KSP are too often rejected by the movement
> (Nikitin/Berkovsky, Suhanov, Rosenbaum, etc.), while rock always welcomes and
> craves the pop audience. The difference between a 'chess masters convention'
> and an 'insurance salesmen convention' is in the amount of useful applications
> outside the subculture.
I disagree with the word 'unhealthy' here. Yeah, KSP culture is more
snobbish than rock culture which accepts anything from punk rock to Philip
Glass. So what? Any culture has a right to defend itself! If it doesn't use
that right it doesn't mean that it is so strong that it can survive
anything. The culture is degrading if it is not defended!
Greg
Dmitri Manin
Just some personal impressions... I've had strangely similar
experience with I&V and Scherbakov: After hearing a song (sung by a
friend of mine), I was eager to hear more. Then, after getting my
hands on a tape I was cutely disappointed. Nice performace, pretty
tunes, pityful lack of... sense? sense of humor? genuineness?
sincerity? What is there in Galich's "Lenochka the
Militiawoman" (if somebody doesn't like Kim's "Lyudi vse kak sleduet")
which makes the song not just a senseless zuboskal'stvo? Don't know.
- DM
Michael Kagalenko
>In article <1993Aug11.1...@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu> mkag...@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
>>There was interesting yet virtually unknown to the general public acoustic
>>group "Derev'annoe koleso". Anyone heard them ?
>>
>> "Plahudra letit na jug ...
>> Pejzazh obuknovennyj
>> Izr'adno raduet ej glaz .."
>>
>
> I never heard this group, but one of my hippie
> friends raved a lot about them (this was in 1988-89).
> He said, basically, that they are three guys who
> sit around a table and
> pass instruments clockwise so that everyone plays
> everything. I though that's cool and should sound
> like Ganelin Trio's _Simplicita_.
Well, I've never seen them doing that, but than again, I've seen them only
few times.
Michael Kagalenko
>One of my most memorable KSP experiences was at the final show of the
>Vsesojuznyj Sliot KSP Eshar-87, where at the end all the "laureats" had to
>come on stage and sing "Milaja moja, solnyshko lesnoje". Having just won
>the fucking festival with a rock song, I was obliged to do the same.
>
>Man, did I look stupid mumbling those words!..
I bet you enjoyed it very much,eh ? Judging by some of your
postings, sining "solnyshko lesnoje" is something you're "in" for ;-)
Michael Kagalenko
Dmitri Manin
> rock music is not a music - it is a lifestyle.
> So it does not actually count how you play etc:
> what counts is your attitude. Noone actually cares
> what (or how) punk rock musicians play (I can say
> this as an afficionado of the genre :) what counts
> is the philosophy, attitudes, consistency of both
> with the actual music. Music is sort of important,
> but not as much as these.
>
> So KSP is very much different with rock music.
On the contrary, in this respect (lifestyle rather than music) KSP was
exactly the same as rock (as you put it above).
> The difference is basically the same as between
> traditional art and modernist art, especially
> Surrealism. Tristan Tzara (a Surrealist) proposed
> (in 1920-ies) the following methode of writing poetry:
> you put cards with words in the hat and pull the
> cards one by one. He meant that in Surrealist
> view the poems don't count anymore. He was
> expelled from Surrealists by his more
> traditionally-minded colleagues, but now
> his ideas prevailed (in modernism). For
> example, most of compositions of John Cage were
> "written" via some algorithm based on
> random choice, and he's considered to be
> one of the most important figure in the modern
> music (along with Stockhausen who also used
> random/arbitrary composition technique).
>
> Misha.
Well, this is not about KSP or rock; I just want to point out that
"random" composition (either of poetry or music) is _not_ what it
seems to be. Otherwise why John Cage would be 'one of the most
important figures' if everybody can write random notes on a paper? (1) The
composer _selects_ from what chance yields, and (2) innovative creator
like holds a patent for what he invents. Everybody can paint a black
square, but there is only one Black Square by Malevich.
- DM
Igor Belchinskiy
: I am basically tolerant but when it comes to Ivashchenko
^
you forget at least a smiley here
but anyway i have a serious question to all you knowledgeable people
what bards/rock/records are good for long rides (200-400 mi and more)?
i found that classics is unsuitable
the same time records that I'd never agree to hear in normal
life, are perfect when i need to drive an hour after hour
(early Dol'sky, partly Vysotsky, Mashina vremeni).
who else may is good for this utilitarian purposes?
: Funny enough, half of my acquaintances are avid
: I&V fans and they are exactly those amongst my
: acquaintances whom I believe to be complete idiots.
: Speak about coincidences.
btw, what are other reliable idiocy criterias?
: Misha.
--
Igor Belchinskiy bil.w...@xerox.com Opinions are mine and strong.
Greg Landsberg
> but anyway i have a serious question to all you knowledgeable people
> what bards/rock/records are good for long rides (200-400 mi and more)?
>
> i found that classics is unsuitable
> the same time records that I'd never agree to hear in normal
> life, are perfect when i need to drive an hour after hour
> (early Dol'sky, partly Vysotsky, Mashina vremeni).
> who else may is good for this utilitarian purposes?
>
> Igor Belchinskiy bil.w...@xerox.com Opinions are mine and strong.
I usually listen a mixture of bards and rock composer on a long rides.
Having travelled from NYC to Chicago by car at least 20 times one way I
dare to say that I really have a huge experience of optimal (for my needs,
of course) tape selection. Usually I arrange 10 tapes (exactly 15 hours -
my usual timing) trying to mix bards and some classic rock. When I listen
only bards I usually become rather sleepy after 4th tape :-), so mixture is
really good to keep you awake. My favourites are Kochetkov, Pevzner,
Mirzoyan, some of Scherbakov. Galich is kinda tough for a long trips :-) -
I prefer to listen him during shorter rides or at home. As to the rock, I
usually mix bards with P.F., Genesis, Tom Waits and some jazz. It's just my
experience, so no flames, please.
Don't drive drunken! :-)
Greg
Victor Prupis
>In article <93225.10...@psuvm.psu.edu> Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>
>>KSP is also a lifestyle (just look at those on the
>>Grushevka).
>
> KSP does not define a lifestyle. These on Grushevka
> are ordinary Soviet intelligentsia who spend vacation
> in the forests.
>
Does too. _Real_ KSP fans ("movement" vs "audience") spent whole their
lives in the forests :).
>>Well, some of the KSP songs look like written in this technique.
>>(Not that I like it). Dear Misha, nothing is new under the moon.
>
> I was speaking about Stockhausen and Tzara, not about
> an anonymous KSP jerk.
Say Bachurin? Not quite anonimous... just stupid.
> One of ideas of avangarde/rock
> music (as well as other parts of the modernist culture)
> was that the product of art is not important,
> the important thing is philosophy behind this
> product. I see many things in KSP, but I don't
> see anyhting resembling indigeneous philosophy,
I am completely rock ignorant, so could you please be a bit more specific
about phylosophy?
> or any philosophy different from the general
> intelligentsia attitude.
>
> Misha.
--
Victor: prup...@ntmtv.com
Eugene Tyurin
BV> If you launch a completely new style (say, play on beer cans
BV> with Dinosaurus urine) you'd have a couple of talented players
BV> and a thousand of second-hand ones. The universal law.
Oh wow! The famous 'what is the sound of shit happening?' acqures new
shape, meaning, and (let me dare to suggest) whole new taste (Gotta
have it! Uh Huh!).
But who are those mighty _talents_?
What is better: to be an ordinary citizen in Rome or a senator in province?
--
-- MIME mail is welcome.
Eugene N. Tyurin (ITP SUSB ; HOST = insti.physics.sunysb.edu)
Internet: gene@HOST ; NCSA Mosaic: http://HOST:80/hyplans/gene.html
**> Two wrongs don't make it right, but three lefts do.
Michael Kagalenko
>: Funny enough, half of my acquaintances are avid
>: I&V fans and they are exactly those amongst my
>: acquaintances whom I believe to be complete idiots.
>: Speak about coincidences.
>
>btw, what are other reliable idiocy criterias?
Habit to post articles to soc.culture.soviet and talk.politics.soviet, of
course.
Eugene Tyurin
IB> but anyway i have a serious question to all you knowledgeable people
IB> what bards/rock/records are good for long rides (200-400 mi and more)?
Just this Friday I returned from trip that amounted to 2x6hr drive and
my opinion is that music style doesn't matter -- all you need is a
good _zhizneutverzhdaiuschii_ beat to keep you aggressive.
I don't give a damn if I start whatever, but for me Donna Summer (sp?)
worked better that Pink Floyd.
--
-- MIME mail is welcome.
Eugene N. Tyurin (ITP SUSB ; HOST = insti.physics.sunysb.edu)
Internet: gene@HOST ; NCSA Mosaic: http://HOST:80/hyplans/gene.html
**> O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
**> Murphy was an optimist.
PETER VOROBIEFF
>In article <24cipm...@umbc8.umbc.edu> cs42...@umbc.edu (Zak May) writes:
>>both Scherbakov and Mirzojan suck big time.
>
>Ivashchenko & Vasil'ev seem to be OK, though. At least they don't sound
>like Dolina or Mityaev, also purportedly "new generation."
I&V are not KSP. Nor is Dolina, not to mention that she's been around for
quite a time.
--
---
Thus spake Kalmoth the Vile, Slayer of the Seven Pigs of the North.
DISCLAIMER:
This article doesn't represent anybody's views. In fact, it doesn't
represent any views at all.
PETER VOROBIEFF
>In article <1993Aug13.1...@husc14.harvard.edu> ver...@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
>>In article <93225.10...@psuvm.psu.edu> Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>
>>>KSP is also a lifestyle (just look at those on the
>>>Grushevka).
Yep, and it's a damn lousy lifestyle.
>> KSP does not define a lifestyle. These on Grushevka
>> are ordinary Soviet intelligentsia who spend vacation
>> in the forests.
>Does too. _Real_ KSP fans ("movement" vs "audience") spent whole their
>lives in the forests :).
It shows.
>> I was speaking about Stockhausen and Tzara, not about
>> an anonymous KSP jerk.
>
>Say Bachurin? Not quite anonimous... just stupid.
Oh yeah.
>> product. I see many things in KSP, but I don't
>> see anyhting resembling indigeneous philosophy,
Aye.
>
>I am completely rock ignorant, so could you please be a bit more specific
>about phylosophy?
Read _Stranger in a Strange Land_ by R.A.Heinlein.
>> or any philosophy different from the general
>> intelligentsia attitude.
>>
>> Misha.
Misha's just produced another oxymoron: eggheads don't have a general
attitude to anything.
Eggheads STINK!
Dale A. Smoak
By the way, what is with Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin nowadays?
Ganelin emigrated to Izrael ~85 - do you guys know anything
about him upon the emigration? Chekasin played with Aquarium,
The Ganelin Trio made a swan-song tour of North America in the summer
of 1987. After that Ganelin emigrated to Israel. There is now a new
Ganelin Trio based in Israel.
They made about fifteen to eighteen albums all told, including at
least three for the Soviet state label Melodiya. One of the
Melodiyas was reissued by the short-lived US-based label East Wind.
The majority of their albums, though, were on Leo.
It seems doubtful that Leo ever pressed more than 500, or in some
cases, 1000 copies of any of his albums.
Certainly the *Catalogue* album on Leo, later reissued by Leo as *Live
in East Germany*, is one of the great jazz records. Indeed, the
Penguin guide chooses this as one of the forty or so five-star jazz
records. The opening minutes of the concert, with Chekasin on two
saxes simultaneously, Ganelin on a keyboard and guitar array, and
Tarasov on percussion, is a virtual firestorm.
Also notable is *New Wine* (Leo). This is the second half of the
suite partially documented by the three *Ancora Da Capo* albums. *New
Wine* is actually an extrapolation of the pop tune "Too Close for
Comfort." Personally, I imagine Ganelin basing this suite on the
Herbie Nichols reading. The melody is never overtly stated until the
final, hard-swinging minutes of the performance, spotlighted by a
swaggering Chekasin tenor solo.
Leo Feigen compiled an interesting book, *Russian Jazz: New
Identity*, where several of the writers discuss folkloric elements in
the music. Others discuss political implications.
(At least one other book covers an earlier epoch in Soviet jazz music:
S. Frederick Starr's *Red & Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet
Union*.
(A personal note: when the Ganelin Trio were in the states, I
presented them, on behalf of WMFO-FM at Tufts University, with about
forty jazz and new music albums. Vladimir Tarosov looked through the
stack and paused on the copy of the Milford Graves/Andrew Cyrille
album *Dialogue of the Drums*. A year later I was pleased to read in
Coda Magazine that Tarasov and Cyrille were playing percussion duets
in Eastern Europe.)
Kruyokhin toured the states in 1988. During that tour he recorded a
CD with Henry Kaiser.
Columbia Records signed Boris Grebenshchikov of the rock group
Aquarium a few years ago, and released at least one album with little
to moderate advertising.
In 1991, Columbia released an album by the pianist Aziza Mustafa
Zadeh, a fine player, daughter of the late pianist Vagif Mustafa
Zadeh, of the Baku, a fine pianist whose East Wind album is worth
hearing.
Leo Records is still active. They're distributed in North America by
North Country (Cadence). They may even have a few of the East Winds
still available.
Anyone who is a fan of these musicians is welcome to email me.
Thanks, Dale
Igor Pankevich
PETER VOROBIEFF <pv...@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> wrote:
>In article <1993Aug14.002954.21169@ntmtv>, prup...@ntmtv.com (Victor Prupis) writes:
>>In article <1993Aug13.1...@husc14.harvard.edu> ver...@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
>>>In article <93225.10...@psuvm.psu.edu> Boris A. Veytsman <BA...@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>>
>>>>KSP is also a lifestyle (just look at those on the
>>>>Grushevka).
>
>Yep, and it's a damn lousy lifestyle.
Well, Peter, you have to give it some credit: at least, KSP'shniki
breath clean air, and "samye luchshie knigi oni v ryukZAKah hranyat".
:)
--Igor
Leonid Andreev
> I agree with Leonid's posting. One thing though:
>
> >Well, he had some obvious failures during the
> >later period of his work when he produced some
> >overexplicit political stuff -- i would name
> >2 songs: "Poezd v ogne" i "pokolenie dvornikov".
>
> On the contrary - I think it was really majestic of him to suggest an opinion
> on our earthly affairs.
Zak,
I didn't say it's bad to suggest an opinion on our earthly affairs. "Rock'n'Roll
Mertv" is perfectly about earthly affairs as well as "10 let". He just found
some new and interesting words to say about them. And I still think that he
failed to do that in case of "Pokolenie Dvornikov".
"My molchali kak cuciki
Poka shla torgovl'a vsem,
Chto tol'ko mozhno prodat'..."
is kinda trivial. No magic here.
> From my point of view, his recent songs ("Do chistoj
> zvezdy", "Kogda projdiot bol'", "Nikita Riazanskij", "Bozhe hrani poliarnikov")
> are actually a big step forward for him and his loyal listeners.
Well, "Pol'arniki" is already better. (even though I am not a fan of the song)
The point is, he is just getting old. So you should not expect his songs to
get better and better...
-L.
> ___
> Zak.
Sergei Lubich
>Self-education is a cool thang. Nothing embarassing about it. Lately I've
>read some interesting references to Russian rock music of the last several
>years and I was fascinated by them. So here's some questions for the
>knowledgable ones.
>
>In 1988 the situation I was leaving behind was close to this: BG was finally
>living out his sick fantasies, Tsoi was on a sure track to superstardom and
>imminent death, Nautilius Pompilius were the top pop band in Russia, Alla
>Pugatchova got mature, Zhanna Aguzarova sold out, Vyssotsky was still dead,
>GO were still underground, DDT paved a way for nationalistic bands from Sibir'
>and Ukraine, and Moscow was flooded with pseudo-decadent acts like Zvuki Mu,
>Obermaneken, Krematorij, etc.
>
>From then on the picture is not that clear. Liube and Laskovyj Maj appeared
>from out of nowhere and were the first to establish white-trash pop for mass
>consumption. An endless stream of Modern Talking soundalikes was slowly
>replaced by an endless stream of American R&B soundalikes and dissappeared
>altogether. Massive pop-outfits started using good keyboards and sampling
>collections. A new industry of fly-by-night Tin Pan Alley producers overrun
>the radio and TV airwaves. To sum it up - the Fifties almost ended :)
>
>And we all know what comes after the Fifties. And if takes a presidential
>death for the turn to occur (as it did in the U.S.), then - so be it. What's
>more important, after all? :^)
>
>My question is - what did I miss?
>
>And where am I wrong?
>
>___
>Zak.
>
>P.S. 'Subtle' is the keyword here, KtA, 'subtle'.
>
The summary was quite good and since you included Alla Pugacheva (Pop), I will
expand the topic to add the whole array of retouched "White" songs and old
russian romanses sung by Manilin, Dobrynin, etc. Plus the imports from the
Soviet diaspora, Gol'ko, Shufutinsky, itd.
Moi 20 kopeek,
SErgei
Dmitry Goldenberg
In article <1993Aug11.0...@husc14.harvard.edu>, ver...@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
|> In article <248i9l...@umbc8.umbc.edu> cs42...@umbc.edu (Zak May) writes:
|> >Igor Pankevich <ig...@news.cs.columbia.edu> shamelessly plugs Yuri Naumov:
|> >
|> >> Well, you definitely missed the phenomenon of Yurii Naumov and
|> >>his "Prohodnoi dvor"...
|> I completely agree with Zak. Just recently
|> a sporadic scs reader whom I got to know through
|> the net gave me a tape (90min) by Naumov.
Howdy, Misha, the sporadic guy is here...
I kinda regret the fact that I gave you those tapes cause
what I should have done is make a compilation of good songs
from all the tapes I got. I have to admit there are quite
a few pretty cheesy compositions on those albums. However, having been to
a Naumov's 'apartment session' in New York relatively recently, I must say
he's grown a great deal, especially melody- and technique-wise.
|> This is something incredible. Bad Hendrix-wannabe
|> guitar licks, supercheesy drum machine and synths
|> and KSP-like infantile lyrics.
C'mon, man, give the guy a break and don't be judgmental just
for the heck of it! How about a theory that it was coming out
of the eggshell?
Two other things I might suggest:
1) listen to Naumov some more
2) plug out the Western rock data processor in your brain
while listening...
|> My wife died out
|> after 10 minutes, I had guts enough to sit through
|> about 70. I clearly understand his appeal, though.
|> His lyrics are like KSP (only less professional),
|> but to regular Soviet intelligent it's naturally
|> easier to understand this stuff than Aquarium or
|> (shudder) GO. If someone likes KSP, but did
|> not listen to KSP much and don't have discerning
|> taste in this domain, he could buy on Naumov.
I didn't exactly "buy on" Naumov, I fucking hate KSP, and
kinda flatter myself for being able to dig Aquarium.
A "regular Soviet intelligent" I hope I ain't, yet for some
reason I don't think Naumov should be thrown off "the steamer
of the modern times." I don't think he's a genius (rather,
he's kind of like a Jewish Wonderchild in the Rock'n'Roll Jungle),
but he sure does deserve attention.
|> Naumov's music is just regular radio drivel,
|> slightly less professional, but it's OK
|> for someone who is hungry to mass-appeal
|> music with "profound" texts.
Well, I may be hungry, sort of like a hyena searching for meat
on a dairy farm. Then you begin to appreciate and cherish any scrap of
bologna (or baloney, sometimes) that you can find.
Fuck the mass appeal part, though. As far as the texts, profound or
profane, pretentious or perversive, who gives? - as long as they are to
the point and strike a chord (or two) in the listener? This is the case
with (best of) Naumov's lyrics.
|> Of course, for someone with a little experience
|> in listening to either KSP or rock
|> Naumov is just this - silly mass-appeal
|> wannabe music with nonsense KSP lyrics trying
|> to look profound without a gram of poetry
|> or intelligence.
Not that I'm taking this personally (I'm not a Naumov's fan, though
I respect what he does) - Misha, you gotta stop writing this bull about
KSP etc. and finally get a band together. Aintcha sick of screwing around?
Seriously, I mean it!
'Nuff said. Now you may shoot the little-brat-me.
- Dimon.