ZABAVY PROSTOLYUDINA – old recordings.

Z.P. live 1997

ZABAVY PROSTOLYUDINA (very loosely translated as “commoner’s fun”) from Pskov are what I’d term a cult band.
They started playing sometime in the mid-nineties, mostly gigged around Russian North-West – with some gigs being truly great and some being truly awful. The only official release they did was a split tape with St. Petersburg’s TRIBAL in 2002 on Caravan Records. It contained some, but not all, material of the then-recent sessions at AnTrop Studios in St. Petersburg. There are also early recordings with the participation of MARKSCHEIDER KUNST guitarist Vladimir Matushkin, a three-song CDR demo done at Dobrolyot studio, perhaps assorted live materials. There’s an animated video that Misha Safronov lovingly done.
I’d first encountered them in Summer 1997 which was when I took the photo above – they blew me away, gave me a tape (which is sadly unlistenable now, being an MK-60), and I occasionally had the pleasure of keeping in touch with them.
The band has never widely popular, largely due to lack of gigs and releases, but there was a small core of enthusiasts who appreciated their poetic lyrics, idiosyncratic, angular mix of post punk, indie, Russian rock, jazzcore and alternative music (which unfortunately led to some misguided experiments with rap-metal), and the overall charisma. There are faithful who still believe that ZABAVY PROSTOLYUDINA will one day forget about their modesty and laziness and start gigging again, or that at least their old songs will be reissued one of these days. There were rumours to that effect last year – also of the band’s continued existence, but, well, perhaps with the recession the CD won’t materialise after all…
MySpace
Misha Safronov’s animated video for “Spichechnykh Korobkov Grokhotom”
Early recordings
Demo part 1
Demo part 2

Tags: indie