Alexander Gradsky - Unofficial site
BELL TIME
(excerpts from the book)
Read more ...Instead of an epilogue
M. Timasheff, A. Sokolyansky:
FACES OF RUSSIAN ROCK
In contrast to the young rebels of Europe and America, the domestic "sixties" - quite a generation of adults (or until the time of matured), and relatively quiet people. Rollicking riot of rock 'n' roll, they all prefer a thoughtful vigilance "bards": the first protest songs we were smart and quietly. Looking back at his terrified brothers, rockers first imbibed the respect by the way, the more that play them, for lack of electric guitars, often had to "acoustic" to compensate for the weakness of the intensity of sound mind. By age under our rock world for a decade, but he grew up with surprising speed ahead in the sense of the word, and available technology features.
Man, as well beloved by two generations, linking two generations, named Vladimir Vysotsky. It would be foolish to squeeze it into the "rockers", despite the fact that many of his songs (such as "Sail" / "And the dolphin's belly cut up a screw" ... /) is much closer to the rock canon, rather than to the bardic tradition. But to say that without Vysotsky home grown rock would have been different and much slower - only fair.
"... poets go on a knife blade heels, and cut into the blood his bare soul" - Vysotsky sang.
"... poets in the world after the lines put a sign of bleeding. To them God is on the threshold - but they knowingly have a true shame," - responded Bashlachev.
The concert at Luzhniki stadium rock of our Patriarch Alexander Gradsky sang a song dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Vysotsky: it did not seem strange.
man in fashionable patent leather boots, dark glasses, pointed casually dressed. Some incredible guitar sound with the power of authority. How lovely! And how good the former hippies - a happy owner of it. What a rich expressive voice, which shows Gradskij as casually as suit ...
Young rockers won fame are the first generation of leaders is not much better than the young poets of Voznesensky and Yevtushenko: you are someone, stariche? Not too much Do you have a formal merit? Trust every time you have to defend again - maybe that's why, recalling the power of his voice and the virtuosity of the game, Gradskij moved to an almost ingenuous, three chord songs ranked. And sounded bitter autobiography, holler songs of Vladimir Vysotsky, "The hour of conception ... I remember accurately." And a flurry of comments on the room biting parable of the exploration party:
"And where we keep the way - this is not the main thing,
main thing - to keep it and not know - where ... "
to singers, ceased to be role models, comes maturity - and they are worth it. Perhaps only the former can be romantic and with absolute sobriety assess what is happening, including his own glory permitted, which came a spent youth, at the turn of fate.
Andrei Makarevich on all counts was supposed to be on tour in Leningrad. He paused to sing one song - the eternal romantic who once punched a wall, and first published in the people. Met him a few cautious: perhaps, if the leader of the TIME MACHINE mechanically-played something nice, do not hesitate to ovistat. Crystal Castles and sunny island is really too long ago disappeared into the mist.
singer tricked out and won. The song it was quiet (but twice as strong because) indictment: speech that allowed air to breathe ashamed that "barking after the train departed" - a silly and small dog's delight ", Armenia, Estonia is already reeling in the open, and we all laugh on Leneyu, ridicules Nikita ... ยป
amazing, how the new Makarevich and intonation and rhythm of line reminiscent of Alexander Galich. Not a parody, but really looked like: a full understanding that repeats someone else's, but that must be repeated. He was applauded, but he did not sing more tempted by all that need be said, has already been said.
Thank you, "fathers" of Russian rock - you are not cheated of our devotion.
At the turn of the 70-80th in the national rock music there were dramatic changes. Rock was tough is social: he returned to the world, to tell him "no." Singing beautiful songs I suddenly found worthless and almost shameful thing.
first man, played new rock music in Moscow, Sergei became Ryzhenko - violinist who was expelled from the conservatory in partnership with time machine and an outstanding vocalist.
Only a man who knows firsthand the beauty of pure sound, can make fun of the music as Ryzhenko early 80's. In the group of "Football" and his voice bleated squealed, overlapping rollicking slaughter instruments (by the way, very subtly and complexly organized.) The world around him was unpleasant and toshnotvornoodnoobrazen:
"At half past six every morning to get up. Crowded trams - in three words ... Just like always".
world in general, not very handsome. There is still no stars shine at night, and the eyes of cats, with zyrkayuschih pomoechnyh tanks, as before, "Georgian rock 'n' Roll" hammered, "Be like Stalin! Be like Stalin!" But to replace the cheek mockery came vchuzhe tough self-esteem, and a voice, proud of its duty to make, sounded in full force: the evil, but not maliciously, without any hurt therewith -
"The fact that we took a break, turned into a trench war. We sit entrenched in the mud, crazed lice. And over the years of isolation has become so dull narrow our range, you're with see horror that was left alone. we - disabled people rock ... "
and violin, the violin otfutbolennaya Ryzhenko, learned to meow and scream, sing in this concert. She started it and the theme of the ballad A. Bashlacheva "Vanya", to grow together rock music with folk poetry:
"It went along the river bank Vanya blue river as the sun drove Vanya on a golden bridle ... walking soul, the soul is flying, the soul was walking in a white shirt, but in an open field - all right , right ... And kololchik was higher than the church ... "
it possible to predict the time it is "bad songs"?
Probably, yes - if only because with all the bitterness and ernichestve, with the declared permissive rock set himself the only ban: a ban on violence. You can make trouble, pressure - no.
"Come to me soon, hit me braver face, stamping my feet",
- Oral Ryzhenko complacent "life owner".
"... And if you want - you can kill me",
- spoke in unison from Leningrad brother FOOTBALL - ZOO.
in the Luzhniki Stadium, they played together a couple of songs. But that was enough to voice yelled from the stands: "And where is Mike?" And Mike came out.
Michael ("Mike") Naumenko, leader of the ZOO, like the agitated bird is most anxious to find a way to hide their anxiety. He - piterets to the bone, and is therefore knows that life is unbearable in its concreteness, in the whole set of gestures, words, and the collision is not outside, but inside the person. The fact that the "outside" can be funny, but a life choice and output - internal tragic.
"Every day - is shot, a shot in the back, shot point-blank".
At the time, of course, you can laugh it off, but it does not change anything.
ZOO plays rock 'n' roll and blues, played great. So delighted, however, becomes less and less reckless and more fun nostalgia. Alas, the group called "ageless" You can only order a compliment. Proud clever Mike Knight of rock 'n' roll: his knights have haunted quixotic flavor.
In one of the earliest things ZOO - the parable of "The County town of N" - sung about the paradoxes of time. "Napoleon to sell the tray of the Order ..."
Naumenko unlikely to forget this song, but now does not sing.
Only once ZOO turned on full blast and burst into today with his old invincible. Mike sang about those who "prevents us from living" - a herd nabychennom fools and tyrants, heroes "rocking", the organizers of the fights "area on the district." He minced no words: "Who has cool friends, for whom do not give a ruble? Who can not put two words together without taking a note between the" A "?" ZOO had just returned from Kazan. The song was written long before, but, perhaps, with such passion was sung for the first time.
older generation of "new wave" cherishes his honest and violent youth. The younger, it seems it just does not remember - maturity has come to him immediately, "they look closely, and sometimes colder" (this does not mean that it is deeper). I must say that in the Leningrad school - as long as the strongest in the national rock - a change of generations was without pauses, overlap, and confused, any speculative distinction.
Yet the difference is palpable enough. For example, you can not say that the "senior" unfamiliar feelings of loneliness, but it never became a vital issue, not obliged to make an immediate choice between isolation and unity between the will to freedom and will to win.
Loneliness, rejecting fear, but devoid of hope - a choice of Viktor Tsoi, the leader of the group MOVIE. He says, "we", "our" ("We are waiting for a change!"), But sometimes it seems that "we" for him - the only way to hide from the "you" from the context, which requires a dedication. World Choi - Singles Fellowship, the lack of a cohesive function.
"We wanted to drink - there was no water, we would like the world - was not the star.
We went out into the rain and drinking water from puddles.
We wanted the songs - there were no words. We wanted to sleep - no dreams.
We wore mourning - the band played us carcasses ".
In this world, without thinking, will give their lives for the most distant, but also pull up next: "Do not touch my soul."
No matter how incendiary speech, Choi impassive, almost melancholy, translates them into the hall, holding out a little muffled vowels. He moves around the stage with a gloomy, easy grace, as if overcome the resistance of the medium: as the fish swam in a pudding. Choi's voice more metal than in the "heavy metal", taken together, he knows that the blade is more dangerous than a sledgehammer.
"Our heart is like a new engine! We know all the fourteen years that we need to know!"
- but neither strength nor knowledge does not bring happiness.
"We will do whatever we want - and now we want to dance!"
- but he did not want to dance. Words are falling steadily, evenly, and exciting exclamation point fall in the dots ...
response to the desperate loneliness of film was the battle cry of Alice: "We are together!" The leader of the leader of the second generation of "new wave" of Constantine Kinchev the word "we" carried like a banner. The question "In the name of which together?" assumed to be incorrect.
hard, energetic, extremely showy showman Kinchev offered the audience his own image as a collective, "My Generation" - and gradually, almost imperceptibly moved the emphasis on the word "mine." Position Stand escalated into a pose of a conqueror.
Habituated to perceive themselves as the creation of Kinchev thing, the audience happily submits to the singer today, when the underlined collectivism "we" proudly ousted the "I", "There go I," "I need air." The condition of unity Kinchev puts its monopoly on the statement. There are no words - it's worth it: ALICE performance - perhaps the strongest in the concert. The musical power of color, light, plastic - all subordinated to all the charms and demands an answer: but no dialogue, and echo. Consistently the declared antitotalitarizm ALICE gets weird with this very authoritarian and prudent management of the senses of the hall.
"Totalitarian rap - it's an aquarium for those who once loved the ocean.
totalitarian rap - it's a zoo when you're behind bars himself.
totalitarian rap - this is an auction where you buy, you sell ... "
- Kinchev singing, playing with the names of the Leningrad rock groups. You can add a totalitarian rap - it's Alice Through the Looking Glass no.
Glory (Alice) retarded once gave the group its nickname - as the title. While Alice was playing Alice - a guitar, then drums, - behind a beautiful demon Kinchev loomed, and the small mischievous grimacing devil, the power gestures parodied in a distorting mirror. Retarded left, the image has lost its depth and irony, and vzyskuemaya Kinchev integrity became more noticeable to turn around mid-flight rhythms and a very resolute slogans. Kinchev sees the world in black and white (including "corporate colors" group, we ought to say, "black and red") and his romance of the monolith and the belief in a strong personality is somewhat like the heroes of the stories pre-revolutionary Maxim Gorky. It is the color and the like - remember: "In the red sky, black tresses floated glad ..."
second generation of "new wave" offered a choice between chilly rootlessness, power-loving victorious and more painful irony that leads to the absurd world and tumbles to its sharp fragments (group AUCTION, AIR, PLAY, etc . etc. - they are quite a lot). To take one of the positions needed considerable courage. But perhaps more needed to opt out of such a choice.
Thank retarded - a soft plastic cat, sly smile - appears with his new band Nate. The role of the leader of the alien to him - he wants the audience of freedom and is willing to pay for this neglect. All methods to subdue the audience rejected in advance the right to leadership in doubt: Nate prodelyvet like the way ALICE in the opposite direction. Kinchev says the hall from the top down - gently offering retarded equality. The answer to the rigid alignment of thought - a capricious abuse of the body. Songs of Nat ironic and even frivolous, but they set off in the sensuality of shyness.
retarded looking out of the erotic in love. While he tries to open the door strangers, donated his keys. Nate is a quiet song Bashlacheva plays insecure prislaschivaya musical play of the sincerity of conversation.
"platinum dresses, pants lead only to stifle those who do not risk breathing. But we so easily - we finally dropped all that we could stop ..."
retarded missed the first few lines, only meant a loss. But liberated audience, the singer himself freed from the taboo on pryamoskazaniya. "I think I love you" - he finally decided to say it. With some difficulty, but decided.
may be the leader Nate more professionalism, it would facilitate its path. But bet on professionalism in the rock is somewhat doubtful. For the time being the problem of excess masterovitogo from rock musicians just did not have: the level of play was determined by the terms engineering and general life. She is now recognized as one of the cardinal: the subordination of a technology, the temptation to push the rock in the subtlety outstretched arms of the pop industry.
to Leningrad rock bard Yuri Naumov these words are not directly related. Yet his speech - a very beautiful and unusual technique of guitar ownership, outstanding talent - smacked a little intellectual Equilibre. Externally, the song Yu Naumov, similar to the songs Bashlacheva - conjugation distant meanings, richness of internal rhyme, sophisticated interweaving korneslovy. However, a play on words, the former for Bashlacheva flour for Naumova is a game. Roots that grow and feed - not a couple cleverly extracted roots: even the second, though the tenth power.
Today's rock carefully and passionately seeking a foothold: I think he really intends to turn over the land. Reliance is acquired in the sincerity of the released, which allows to express themselves in full of virtuosity and, perhaps most importantly - in search of undoubted, refutable authenticity beyond the present day. Rock is looking for direct links to folk poetry and music. A reference primarily to the work of A. Bashlacheva here is natural and obligatory.
difficult to decide whether the singer was aware of the deep rootedness of their songs in Russian poetic tradition. "The fact that I was in these songs do not lie - probably can not." It is the inability to lie led to the tragic contradictions of consciousness, to a depth of self-reproach, and pride.
he could bring "outsiders" from:
"Through the deck passed the tree stump so the window bars were baptized - you have to have forged horseshoes, we paid a great price. You were removed from the wood chips - we let the roots of the new ..."
But with "their" fault is not removed:
"If you wander who is supernatural, hit the poor living creatures, our strength has thrown so rare in our foolishness - the evil, the reserve ..."
name of the Novosibirsk group Kalinov most - one of the most interesting group of new generation - the most that on is epic. At Kalinov Most Russian heroes fought to the death with the evil spirit - and, as usual, won. In melody, in poetry and vocal intonation, the very appearance of vocalist Dmitry Revyakina obvious desire for national identity - not to the stylized, but to vsamdelishnoy. Revyakin good as Prince Ivanushka, and the songs he heard genuine pain "for the Russian land".
"How long has the land of my suffering, stupidity gasp, sweat and tears to swallow, spit plait pestilence and quiet, cover the ulcer Moscow but Leningrad ..."
Paphos is quite sincere, but in the most pretentious seen as a threat.
Any declaration of ideas - especially when it comes to the "Russian idea" - it makes sense to linear and flat. Nationalism threatens to turn popular prints, the word "Russian" - not naming ethnic group, but a call to action. If the mental torment coming forth gloomy intolerance - in the struggle to "Kalinov Most" good, perhaps the first time defeated.
entirely different image of the "Russians" offers Sverdlovsk TEA-F - wholesome, cheerful, simple and sturdy. He states that he was tired of the general fatigue and neurasthenia frills.
He is the younger brother of St. Petersburg man ZOO does not claim to kinship with the intelligentsia: a working guy with a cocky Urals. This is one of the few groups that have preserved a cheerful irony and are not shy of a tease:
"return to work - we are the guys from the plow
- and around reading "Tao." What's going on, guys!
And we breathe in free air, our souls are so easy!
And while we are not in Shanghai, we have all this with your hands ... "
Simplicity is not built TEA-POF to the rank of civic virtue, but it remains a natural lifestyle. And even the mysterious "Chinese" is the name stands for discouraging simply: "Tea Factory ..."
dispute between Kalinov Most, and TEA-FOM, between the statement of the bruised and the will to wholeness, between painful "yes" and a cheerful "no" is solved in the uppermost floors of today's rock culture . Again we must say that with great sharpness and brightness, he goes to the "northern capital" - in Leningrad.
Easy? Integrity? These words of Michael Borzykin, the leader of TV, elegant athlete, a hypochondriac does not seem to know at all. He looked like Superman would be if it were not limply dangling hands. He seemed to be handsome, if not frozen expression of distaste on his face fright. "Toothache in the heart" - oh, that's about it, twist your body in spasmodic pirouette, and drew back from the besieging him invisible.
turn away, hide in the highlighted patch, at the very least close the face with his hands - if only to give a thought to think out yazvyaschuyu inside. He seemed to be a force pushing the words out of his mouth fierce and sick. Each vowel is streaked with a groan, protest becomes a plea for mercy - pleading strong, but utterly harrowing man.
Music TELEVISION - explosions and viscous decay of synthetic emotions: sweet-sour chords, percussion-old stuffing. Word of beating up a backhand, but the singer did not feel any anger or excitement fight. He was nasty, he was scared:
"... He can drive, it can kill. Your dad - a Fascist! Do not look at me like that".
"Do not look" - not a threat, but something like "do not hit me!"
Perhaps the TV - the most sophisticated in our rock rhythm song, the most finely honed syncopation and pause, giving an exceptional organization looks ragged and disconnected text. This is typical: the role of ligaments shall accomplish that which is designed to split and break up a balanced speech.
"... I open my mouth, I hear you cry - yes, the old man,
- this machine will crush us all - sleep well, Stalin!
- The beast is still alive. - But we must hurry on this road ... "
And you have to dry yourself entirely to long to think here about the pauses and syncopation ...
"over our northern Palmyra rises Russian rock star" - prophetically wheezed in the eighty-third year leader of the group of DDT Yuri Shevchuk. And the rock "ascended": constellations, the Pleiades, star clusters. Shevchuk had the enviable fate: to take an active part in the performance of their own predictions, and - moreover - their songs to identify many of the main features of the current rock culture.
He - the brightest "star" of the capital and the pride of the periphery. It is very-very: the most honest, most violent, coolest, most beloved.
Whatever singing Yuri Shevchuk, he radiates the joy of life, cheerful readiness for a major fight. His ligaments can result in a violent frenzy Symposium otolaryngologists - a man with a voice not only sing, whisper it would be necessary less often. His lyrics have repeatedly led to rampant confusion at all other institutions.
Crier, Khripunov, intelligentishe bespectacled man, in life, to put it mildly, taciturn, but issuing from the stage line, immediately outside the proverbial unknown talent whose grace, terrible foul-mouthed, a fighter for the truth to the bitter, soul wide open, completely uncontrollable personality, and you can add a lot of things ...
"Guys! All nishtyak!" - Shevchuk answer. And he will be right.
"In this world that I would like to us - no! But we believe that the power to change it - YES!"
- without a moment's hesitation, responds hall. This is important.
In between verses Shevchuk likes to portray some kind of robot stuck with stiff limbs. Ceased to sing, he seemed to lose the liberty and natural gesture. How to return to the microphone - again a lively, normal. Concert DDT - demonstrations for the emancipation of the will.
Shevchuk can sort things out on an equal footing with the rest of the country: do not worry, the family quarrel:
"I said to the country of his love, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief dry ... gerocheskie naming names."
Peremeletsya - the flour will last. A "eyes - the names" - such is the rhyme. Who does not like, you can search for another:
"Two fingers up - it is a victory! At the same time - two fingers in my eyes. We fight to the death on Tuesday for the Wednesday, Thursday, not knowing is ..."
Well, "Thursday" - better?
Shevchuk, believes in its power so that he spit on the rhymes. He knows how to play the sound and the word is very fine:
"Hey, Leningrad, St. Petersburg, Petrogradische - Mars pasture, Winter Cemetery, a scion of Russia, unlike her mother, a pale, thin evroglazy passer ...",
but sees no such need. He was powerful and victorious - in fact, he is a convinced optimist and inflexible, and it is evident, although in the last program of DDT concentrated bitterness than daring and fun.
man who knows how to believe in, leaving the other free choice, seething force of which you can raise, but will not press down, zhiznelyubets, knowing any vital matter with the person and the inside out, the hero- ironist, for whom freedom is - is not a recognized need, and a natural affiliation: Law, if the song Yuri Shevchuk become not only the "hits", but the semantic vectors of the present rock - "all nishtyak".
Talk about a concert at Luzhniki stadium here would have to conclude, finally, a bad word pomyanuv administration of the complex, which is ignorance of the laws of professional rock concert was trying to compensate for the excessive zeal, and injection of nervousness behind the scenes, but as soon as it is a collective image generation, there are people, not to say which is impossible.
Not talking about our culture, rock, or talking about the thoughts of our young people will have no meaning if they do not hear a word AQUARIUM. Boris Grebenshchikov in the Luzhniki Stadium was not - to this day he practiced in Leningrad with visiting celebrities YURITMIKS. In the incompleteness of the picture is, however, has its own rightness.
Boris Grebenshchikov was full of dramatic discoveries of the way from duality and irony to the spiritual order, to justify the good. Each step along the way paid for: the most luminous texts Grebenshchikov is not naive. He dreamed of a train for too long, and he often forgot where the sky.
But - strangely enough - just when the world became more and Aquarium harmonious, at Grebenshchikov sounded: "Bob, you traitor!" Probably not only because the song of solemn rest helplessly drawn into commercial games. More importantly, in the depths of the collective consciousness of a rock audience rooted conviction that the rock musician has no right to be happy and calm. Grebenshchikov not changed - it changed. It would be strange and unfair to blame him for it, but you have to find it natural that a funeral wreath A. Bashlacheva rays are not intertwined or "Star of Adelaide", nor the flowers, "Ivan-tea".
in the Luzhniki Stadium was not the brightest and most barbed "stars" of the Moscow rock - Peter Mamonov and groups SOUNDS OF ME - a group of severely sarcastic and ruthless. Ernicheskaya self-parody, galvanic spasm of reptile - to such an audience that's the game involves sticky jerky and broken joints Mamonova hero. Of course, this poisonous grotesque, does not allow to hope even in tragedy - a mask: but where, where, as in rock masks are able to grow rapidly and tightly to the flesh.
There was ZERO Leningrad with the young accordionist VF Chistyakov, melancholy - a rising "star" national rock "(yes, a Russian rock and play the accordion, even as the play). Here, however, there were no dramatic inside information: it was not simple. For technical reasons.
Finally, there was no B. Butusov and Nautilus Pompilius from Sverdlovsk - the leader of all the latest charts. It seems that, in addition to the musical and poetic elegance, with dedicated leadership NAUTILUS his hero. In "Portrait of Generation" V. Butusov introduces features stradalchestva - courageous, but inactive, and hopeless.
Butusova hero - a fierce observer evil world, living inside all of its drama, but keeping the detachment. Sometimes he lost his balance, sometimes handed advice ("A Walk in the park without a dog you can become too expensive"), sometimes reproach ("Where were you when the raft was built for you and for all ...") - but not to interfere . Only when it became absolutely unbearable, he blew up a song-a desire, a song-spell: "Your name has become another. Eyes forever lost its color. Drunken doctor told me, you are no more. Fire gave me a certificate that your house burned down. But I want to be with you ... And I'll be with you ".
On the crest of a fabulous success Butusov had the courage to stop. Realize that the NAUTILUS entered a phase of self-exploitation, securing victories and whirling on the path traversed. "The game is certainly something wrong" - as said before to B. Grebenshchikov: the choice between finding a new face and a commercial triumph (honestly earned, but still deadly) was given expensive. He, however, is made and is now led the Nautilus Pompilius in the zone of silence.
All they wanted to be. It did not work. And now hardly ever get: too divergent orbits "stars" of Russian rock.
concert at Luzhniki drew a line under the whole period in the history of rock culture.
Organic its properties: the drama of world view, a conscious and often emphasized by the lack of harmony (which gives to know about yourself and then - perhaps most of all - when the declared will of a spiritual order), a fundamental lack of a sense measures, rebelliousness and nonconformity, built in the commandment of life - all these traits to a greater or lesser degree, are characteristics of social consciousness as a whole. In "protest songs" became so much responsive audience that the word "protest" is meaningless.
Can herald the "death rock"? I doubt it. But we can say with confidence: Rock performed his "life program".
That sounds convincing with respect to the ways culture can not always be applied to a living person. Search for a certain logic in the fact that Alexander Bashlachev ceased to live on the kink is the fate of rock, sinful, and loveless. Yet, overcoming shyness in front of grandiloquence, we can say that he sacrificed himself for his time. Moreover, of which he sang, in which he lived, which is dubbed "The time of the bells".
"... Every day, the times are changing.
Dome lost gold.
ringers to roam the world.
Bell knocked down and split.
What now, so go round the near
in his field as an underground?
If we do not cast the bell,
mean time here the bells ... "
bell time is over. Maybe it is not worth a regret. But remember those for whom the bell rang, it is necessary.
(December 1988)
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