Part III of the Soviet rock underground: AlisA & Kino

Kino - Gruppa Krovi, 1988

Kino - Blood Type

Part III continues with two of the biggest bands who got their start at the Leningrad Rock Club, Kino and AlisA:


Play List for Part III:

Кино (Cinema) - "Ночь" ("Night")

Кино - "Мама анархия" ("Mom is Anarachy")

Кино - "Место для шага вперёд" ("Place for a Step Forward")

У меня есть дом, только нет ключей,
У меня есть солнце, но оно среди туч,
Есть голова, только нет плечей,
Но я вижу, как тучи режет солнечный луч.
У меня есть слово, но в нем нет букв,
У меня есть лес, но нет топоров,
У меня есть время, но нет сил ждать,
И есть еще ночь, но в ней нет снов.

И есть еще белые, белые дни,
Белые горы и белый лед.
Но все, что мне нужно
Это несколько слов
И место для шага вперед.

I have a home, only I've got no keys,
I have the sun, but it's between the storm clouds,
I've got a head, but I've got no shoulders,
But I see how the rays of sun slice through the clouds.
I've got words, but they've got no letters,
I've got a forest, but have no axes,
I've got time, but not will to wait,
And I've also got the night, but no dreams

I've also got white, white days
White mountains and white ice,
But all I need
Are a few words
And a place for steps forward

Кино - "Троллейбус" ("Trolleybus")

АлисА (Alisa) - "Спокойная ночь" (В. Цой) ("Good Night") (words by Viktor Tsoy)

АлисА - "Экспериментатор" ("Experimenter") [Video directed by Joanna Stingray - who has a cameo appearance at the beginning and end. I would also wager that she supplied the "Cats" t-shirt worn by Kinchev]

АлисА - "Мое поколение" ("My Generation") [NOTE - not a cover of the Who song by the same name]

Since putting together the radio show, I found the first AlisA record officially released on Melodiya - the only Soviet record label - in 1988. Titled Энергия (Energy - cover featured above) - the record features some of AlisA's early hits, including "Мы вместе" - the video of which is included below:

The initial impulse - the ball's in play
A search for contact, searching of hands
I've begun to sing in my own language
I'm certain that didn't happen suddenly
I write verses for those who
Don't wait for answers to today's questions
I sing for those who follow their own way
I'm glad if soneone understands me
We're together! We're together!

[On a personal note, this has become my two year old son's favorite song. His dance moves are eerily similar to those of the band in the video (though Cyrus adds more twirling in circles). He loves yelling "My vmeste!" ("We're together!") along to Kostya Kinchev and has had trouble accepting that any other song could be considered rock and roll.]

Kostya Kinchev continues to perform. Though from Moscow, he did not break onto to the scene until he hooked up with the Leningrad Rock Club band AlisA (as in Alice from "Alice in Wonderland"). Artemy Troitsky, a pioneering rock critic in the Soviet Union, describes him as follows: "Kostya has fluid and expressive gestures, a large mouth and bulging eyes....He spooked and sanke-charmed the audience, stetched his black-gloved hands to the crowd, moaned, whispered and parodied in rap style. But above all, he was sexy." And yet Kinchev's songs were not sexy, instead rife with social commentary.

And speaking of sexy, check out the man himself in the short shorts, boots and no shirt, telling the police to back off his fans:

There is much to write about Kino. Troitsky writes that "the dominant mood of [Tsoy's songs] was solitude and an incessant thirst for contact and love....Tsoy was still a teenager only yesterday and at heart remained one still." According to Troitsky, Grebinshikov became Tsoy's main benefactor in the Leningrad Rock Club, noting that "no one's songs had so much tenderness and purity." The first song in this week's segment of the radio show exemplifies that spirit. Tsoy sings of his love affair with the night, his love for the kitchen, "because it guards secrets," and wonders "how he can make it through the next day" before night falls again. Tsoy, even in death, remains the greatest legend of the Soviet rock scene.

By the time of this cameo appearance in the last scene of the movie Assa, Tsoy's band Kino had already recorded five full-length records:

Tsoy disputed that this song "Хочу перемен" ("I Want Change") had any political overtones, but the refrain, "Our hearts demand change, our eyes demand change/ In our laughter and our tears, pulsing through our veins/ Change! We are waiting for change" is a perfect compliment to the USSR in 1986, then on the cusp of what would turn out to be irreversible change.

August 15 marked the 19th year since Tsoy's death in a traffic accident. And yet, "Tsoy Lives!"

Viktor Tsoy's last resting place

Ahistorical analogies taken too far...

Says who?

The fear-mongering over health care reform gets stranger and stranger. As I wrote in May, the crazy conservatives and the business interests who are actively working to incite them are delving into the cold war archives. Who needs debate when you can shout down your local Congressmen with cries of "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!" It has become clear that neither Republican leaders in Washington nor the rabble they are deploying in a desperate bid to derail reform pay any attention to facts. Republicans have determined that their best hope is to scare their base with lies.

As the picture above illustrates, many of the tea-baggers who have joined the fray are ignorant of the history they would cite to make their case. Stalin was no charismatic speech-maker. I doubt if he would make anyone's list of the 100 greatest orators of the twentieth century. If you have any doubts, listen yourself as he commemorates the end of the Great Patriotic War (World War II). But who knows, maybe he could give a stirring speech his native Georgian.

More to the point, the accusations flying from the Republican right continue to baffle. Is Obama now supposed to be a communist or a fascist? Or some crazy new commie-fascist hybrid? Or a closet Islamic fundamentalist secretly born in Kenya? There is no doubt that there were those on the left who paraded reckless comparisons of Bush to Hitler. What's different is that the Republican leadership and AM radio circuit gleefully celebrate their crazies and warn of a socialist takeover of government.

Leaders of the Republican party have teetered into dangerous territory with their hyperbole. The more they say that the President wants to establish "death panels" to kill off "unproductive members of society," (see Gov. Palin's Facebook posts) the more likely that some ignorant, crazy person will believe that it is permissible to stop the President by any means necessary. The more that they call his reform agenda "evil," the more likely that some unhinged Glenn Beck viewer will pick up his gun and take matters into his own hands. There are already reports that right wing opponents of reform are advocating bringing firearms to townhalls and using violence against SEIU or ACORN volunteers. ProgressNow reports that the car of one of its staff members - with visible pro-health care reform paraphernalia - was vandalized after a right-wing protest against the reform effort.

Back in April of this year, a group of students at UNC Chapel Hill were arrested for attempting to interfere with a speech by former Congressman Tancredo on immigration. Conservatives, such as Fox regular Michelle Malkin, were appalled at the students' lack of regard for First Amendment principles on campus. But where is Malkin now that right wingers are shouting down members of Congress at public forums? She is proud to say that she is part of the mob. And she is not alone. Red State was equally aghast at the student protests of Tancredo and is now furiously whipping up the "I am the mob" mentality.

Maybe the best hope for passage of the President's health care plan is for truly independent, middle of the road voters to react against those who are shutting down town hall meetings by shouting down elected officials. Organizing and protest are essential ingredients of a democracy - nobody is saying otherwise - but hostile intimidation and jeering at your opponents are not.

It is one thing to lie to the people about what is in the bill. It was predictable that those with something to lose in this debate would not attack the bills on their merits, but would instead make up slogans untethered to reality. In place of a debate on the merits, we get warnings of "government takeover," "rationing," "forced euthanasia," and the most quaint, "Keep The Guvmint Out Of My Medicare!"

These lies are dishonorable, but the Republicans have shown no hesitance to lie in order to advance their agenda (see Iraq). Working overtime, however, to convince people on the fringe that the President wants to kill American citizens is a new low. Let's keep working to reach reasonable people out there who will not believe the hype.

And let's hope that fair reporting of this rotten campaign will keep reminding voters that the Republican party is not run by reasonable people.

Rocking the Russian Underground, Part II

Akvarium - the Blue Album

Below is a link to the second installment of my radio show on the history of rock in the Soviet Union:



Part II continues with the grandfathers of Russian rock - the Moscow band Mashina Vremeni - introduces Akvarium (Boris Grebenshikov's band, discussed more in this previous post) and the album Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the USSR.

Playlist for Part II:

Машина Времени (Time Machine) - "Я Сюда Вернусь" ("I will return")

Аквариум (Aquarium) - "Великий Дворник" ("The Great Street Sweeper")

Великий дворник, великий дворник
В полях бесконечной росы,
Великий дворник, великий...

Они догонят нас,
если мы будем бежать,
Они найдут нас,
если мы спрячемся в тень.
Они не властны
над тем, что по праву твое,
Они не тронут тебя, они не тронут тебя...

The great street sweeper, the great street sweeper
In the field of endless dew,
The great street sweeper, the great....

They will catch up to us,
if we will run,
They will find us,
if we hide in the shadows,
They have no power,
over those, that as of right are yours,
They will not touch you, they will not touch you...

Аквариум - "Поездь в Огне" ("The Train is on Fire")

Аквариум - "Рок н Рол Мёртв" ("Rock and Roll is Dead")

Какие нервные лица - быть беде
Я помню, было небо, я не помню где
Мы встретимся снова, мы скажем "Привет", -
В этом есть что-то не то
Рок-н-ролл мертв, а я еще нет,
Рок-н-ролл мертв, а я
Те, что нас любят, смотрят нам вслед.
Рок-н-ролл мертв, а я еще нет.

What nervous faces, trouble's on the way
I remember, there was a sky, I don't remember where
We'll meet again, we'll say "hello"
In all this something's not right
Rock 'n roll's dead, but I'm alive
Rock 'n roll's dead, but I
Those who love us, follow us with their eyes
Rock 'n roll's dead, but I'm alive

Странные Игры (Strange Games) - "Метаморфозы"("Metamorphosis")

There is always more to write about BG. But for now, I will simply share an article from the New York Times archives about the emergence of rock in the Soviet Union. In April of 1987, Bill Keller of the Times wrote about Akvarium and the explosion of underground and officially sanctioned rock and roll under Glasnost. Anxiety about becoming a sell out must be a universal experience for rockers the world 'round.

The band Strange Games, featured on the compilation Red Wave, perform ska to translations of modern European poetry. Of the four bands featured on Red Wave, they are the least well known today, having disbanded in the mid-1980's after the death of one of the group's leaders, Aleksandr Davydov, in 1984. In contrast, the other groups featured on Red Wave -- AlisA, Akvarium, and Kino -- are all well established legends in the pantheon of Soviet rock.

Joanna Stingray, a 23 year old new wave rocker from Los Angeles, went to the Soviet Union in 1984 and was quickly introduced to BG. Stingray was moved by the music and developed close relationships with many of the artists then performing at the Leningrad Rock Club. She decided to share the music with an audience back in the U.S., and thus began the process of recording songs in Leningrad and smuggling the tapes back home to produce the record. The resulting 2 LP compilation caused an international stir and was one of the reasons the Soviets moved to accept (and attempt to coopt) Rock.

For more on Joanna Stingray's incredible journey to the Soviet Union, her marriage to a member of the band Kino, and her production of the album Red Wave, check out this article in the St. Petersburg Times and the following two part documentary:





Finally, here is a lovely clip of Stingray and BG performing an English duet of "Rok n Roll Myortv" on a roof in Leningrad: