This year is beyond terrible. My good pal Mikhail “Mikka” Dryzlov, 24, has been found drowned in the Moika today. He went missing shortly after midnight on Boxing Day as he was walking home to his wife Kseniya and eleven-months old daugher Vasilisa. The circumstances are yet to be cleared; the desperate search didn’t yield much of anything. Most likely he’s been robbed and thrown into the river.
Mikka was a singer in local hardcore / grind band OPARYSH OSOZNAL, now defunct, keen photographer, active participant in local social movements such as Critical Mass etc., and simply the sweetest person around. I’m yet to understand what happened but I know for sure that the world is now a dreary, terrible place if wonderful people like him meet such terrible fates.
He was buried at the Alexander Nevsky Church cemetery at the village of Ust-Izhora on January 4, 2009.
Condolences to his family.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Mikhail “Mikka” Dryzlov was killed.
December 30, 2008MESSER CHUPS don’t fail to amaze…
December 14, 2008
MESSER CHUPS
I went to a MESSER CHUPS gig last night, and was much amuzed. They’re one of my favourite local bands as far as recordings go but I wasn’t sure what the live version would be like. The tour videos that one of their CDs included were kind of, whatever, two blokes and a Bettie Page lookalike playing surf music with a video screen behind them projecting horror B-movie excerpts. But, well, the lookalike in question is named Zombie Girl. The playing – that of guitarist / bandleader Oleg Gitarkin (also in NOZH DLYA FRAU MUELLER), anyway – was extraordinary, huge sound, amazing technique. Their new drummer is Alexander Belkov of CHIKISS. Finally, there was one extra bloke on stage that night – Alexander Skvortsov (DURNOYE VLIYANIYE) did a few songs now and then. They were all in rather scary-sounding English. I take it he’s gonna be on the band’s next album but I dunno when that would materialise. They’ve got the whole greaser aesthetic down.
Oh, and speaking of Bettie Page, MESSER CHUPS’ cover of “The Model” by KRAFTWERK was dedicated to her memory.
Eduard Nesterenko died.
November 17, 2008
The world seems to have an unlimited supply of bad news sometimes.
Eduard Nesterenko had died after a long illness on October 31st, 2008, at Mariinskaya Hospital in St. Petersburg. He started out as a singer / guitarist in new wave band Kofe in 1984. In December 1987 three of its ex-members formed a new post punk band, PETLYA NESTEROVA, which was Nesterenko’s best-known project. Their debut album, “Kto Zdes?”, featuring members of IGRY and KINO, is recommended most highly. He also played in Durnoye Vliyaniye for a year or so. While he wasn’t as active musically in the nineties and noughties, he kept a version of PETLYA NESTEROVA going and sometimes moonlighted with other bands, e.g. dub band SAMOSAD BEND features him on 2007’s Digun 2CD.
Nesterenko was buried on November 3 in St. Petersburg.
DURNOYE VLIYANIYE – “24 Chasa” video.
October 13, 2008
Video for the DURNOYE VLIYANIYE song “24 Chasa” (“24 Hours”) by Andrius Ventslova, cca. 1988. The band was one of the leading lights of Leningrad post punk scene of its time; the members went on to play in BONDZINSKY, SPITFIRE, BRIGADNIY PODRYAD, JUGENDSTIL and GRANDSHUTTLEBAND. In 2003 SzSS and Karma Mira reissued their debut album, “Nepodvizhnost,” on tape. I still have copies available. English translation of the lyrics follows.
24 hours
if there is a door i have to walk in
in dark rooms in ancient houses
for a long time i couldn’t pass by
nightmare dreams and horrible fear
i’d seen naked nerves more than once
but maybe i’ll do what ian curtis did
i pity your crying fading eyes
can i put them out before dying
24 hours of senseless scenes
24 hours of senseless words
walls with no windows apartments with no walls
it seems to me i’m long dead already
it seems to me that some stranger’s hand
the noose i have to put my neck through
i hear you tenderly whisper goodbye
24 hours to die
My five cents…
October 11, 2008
Lunatic Fridge
An interview with yours truly can be found here:
http://www.kobayashi-disko.org/eng/Info_StPetersburgDIY.htm
It seems that the comrades have translated their own translation of the original English-language interview back from German, alas. As is mentioned, it’s printed in the October issue of Trust zine in Germany. Another interview, conducted over email and translated into French should be in Ratcharge #14 but I haven’t seen it yet.
Ratcharge 14 cover
Antifascist Fyodor “Fedyay” Filatov has been killed in Moscow.
October 11, 2008
Fyodor "Fedyay" Filatov
I’m back, but I don’t have any particularly good things to report. Follows is a slightly edited version of the news of the death of Fyodor “Fedyay” Filatov, one of the leaders of Moscow Trojan Skinheads, most likely murdered by nazis.
In the morning of October 10, 2008, Fyodor Vasiliyevich Filatov aka Fedyay has died in a hospital from multiple knife wounds. He was only 27 years old.
Around 7:30 a.m. he walked out of his apartment block in Moscow. He was attacked by four unknown persons, armed with knives. There is no doubt that these people planned this attack. As a result, having received numerous knife injuries, Fyodor Filatov has been taken to hospital on the ambulance. Feodor has died in a hospital without regaining consciousness.
We, friends and comrades, deeply grieve over his untimely death. We remember Fedyay as the staunch friend and the fine person who could not pass by the stranger’s misfortune or leave a comrade in trouble. It was one of those people who stood at basis of Moscow Trojan Skinheads, community of apolitical antiracist skinheads from Moscow and Moscow Region. He made for development of Russian antiracist skinhead scene more than anybody else. There is no doubt that he was murdered for his believes.
Memory of him will eternally live in our hearts. Rest in peace, brother.
Never forget! Never forgive!
http://tupikin.livejournal.com/364507.html
http://piter.indymedia.org/en/node/5414
TOVARISCH KARMA – “Umri, Kapitalizm” video.
April 5, 2008TOVARISCH KARMA (“Comrade Karma”) was a short-lived anarchist hip hop project that emerged from a faction of Moscow underground in the late 1990s, recorded three tracks and made a comparable number of gigs (one was at an anti-nuclear protest camp on Kola peninsula though). The chief musical force, Pasha Shevchenko, has continued under the name TRYOP – there are three albums in existence, as well as an electronic off-shoot TRESK. He’s now a member of LISICHKIN KHLEB. Another TOVARISCH KARMA member, Vova “Jim” Korobeinikov, was also in LISICHKIN KHLEB at the time, and I’m not sure who’s the third guy (Zakhar Mukhin?). The video, made in 2000 by Andrei Stvolinskiy, is compiled from the footage of Moscow anarchist actions cca. the time “Umri, Kapitalizm” (“Capitalism Die”) was recorded. Stvolinskiy’s pretty dodgy from what I heard – he is said to have informed on his comrades during the New Revolutionary Alternative investigation (which was a lefty terrorist group in Moscow in the 1990s). Tevs. The song was issued on “Bei Po Vragu Kulturnoi Revolyutsii” solidarity CD in Germany, while the complete works of TOVARISCH KARMA ended up on some split tape in Moscow and later on a Belarussian bootleg TRYOP tape. It was covered by 777 BAKUNINA I think. What else is there? The lyrics are good.
RIVUSCHIYE STRUNY – Live in St. Petersburg.
March 30, 2008One of Russia’s top bands for me, RIVUSCHIYE STRUNY, have made a trip down to St. Petersburg this weekend. Unfortunately, I missed their gig at GEZ altogether and only caught the last couple of songs they played at Zoccolo, but it was enough to send me to crawl and convulse on the floor. I borrowed money, bought a t-shirt, borrowed a marker and had the shirt signed by guitarist Alexei Bortnichuk. Alex Volkov filmed both shows, and posted clips online.
“San Frantsysko” live from Zoccolo:
And some stuff from GEZ, with a random audience member swapping his beer for a chance to play Bortnichuk’s guitar:
And here’s what I had to say about the band’s second CD when asked to do so by Pulse magazine for its November 2007 issue:
RIVUSCHIYE STRUNY
“Maskovskaya Riznya Elektra Gitarami – Chyast #1 (1970)”
(Otdeleniye Vykhod)
I would say that this band is the closest that Moscow got to the genius that is the Stooges since “Moskovskiye Kanikuly” album by Nick Rock’n’Roll & Lolita. Some seventeen years have passed since then, garage rock is now trendy, and Iggy Pop himself has blessed Russia’s capital city with his appearances twice. Iggy and the Stooges have actually played there about three weeks before this CD was released. Anyway, the Rivuschiye Struny (Houling Strings) member with the most impressive CV would be one of their guitar players, Alexei Bortnichuk, formerly a member of Zvuki Mu and Mamonov I Alexei. His stardom, however, doesn’t overshadow the other band members. Although, like almost every record with at least a distant smell of real rock and roll, this is primarily a guitar album (the title means something like “The Moscow Electric Guitar Massacre,” albeit with a whole bunch of misspellings). But the energy, drive and imagination of the other members are impossible to miss in the raw, “simple” recording, and Vova Terekh’s poetry is rather brilliant as it is, despite the similarity of subject matter – the life of 1970s hippies / criminals – to that of Zvuki Mu’s Pyotr Mamonov and DK’s Sergei Zharikov. Well, I wouldn’t say that an attempt to imagine what “Fun House” would’ve sounded like in the Soviet Union sounds like a trendy kinda thing, but it’s defo TRUUUUUUE!
It was a five-star review, needless to say.
Deadly Nazi Attack on a Punk Gig in Moscow.
March 16, 2008
Today (March 16) around 6.30 or 6.40 pm in the Moscow city centre at the exit of Kitai-Gorod metro station a group of about 15 neonazis armed with knives have attacked 5 people who were going to a hardcore / punk gig headlined by Karelian oi band NICHEGO KHOROSHEGO at Art Garbage club. As a result of attack a punk aged 21, Alexei Krylov from the Moscow Region town of Noginsk, has died due to multiple stab wounds some 15 minutes later, before the ambulance arrived. A girl attacked in the same incident survived by a chance – the knife got stuck in her backpack less than an inch from her body. There were several nazi mobs in the area each numbering 10-15 people attacking antifascists. The gig was cancelled a few bands in after some pepper spray was used and windows broken by persons unknown. The attack appears to have been planned in advance with involvement of some FC Spartak hooligans.
Alexei’s survived by his mother and two younger sisters. The family is poor and they need material help for the funeral. (Russian residents can send money via http://money.yandex.ru, account number 4100164493592).
Nearly two years ago in Moscow 19 years old Alexander Ryukhin has been murdered by a nazi gang on his way to a hardcore gig.
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/display/20208/index.php
http://avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1648
http://maximitch.livejournal.com/289528.html
http://tank-wwf.livejournal.com/13407.html (directions on using WebMoney account)
P.S. On March 19 between 200 and 300 antifascist activists have taken part in a march in Alexei’s memory between Kropotkinskaya and Smolenskaya metro stations in downtown Moscow. They carried banners, chanted slogans and burned torches. It went largely peacefully despite being illegal and despite fascists making plans to attack the marchers.
CONFLICT OK! – Stop Madness, Stop Police.
March 15, 2008
CONFLICT OK! is an Estonian punk band that existed between 1998 and 2004 and seems to have reformed recently. They’ve released a full-length tape / CDR “Defekt” in 1999, and haven’t been terribly active with recordings since then. The later stuff, however, I consider to be better than the album, it’s livelier and sharper sounding. The lineup featured PAHA VÄRK and NOISEMURDER member Aarne on guitar and, on those early 21st century recordings, PSYCHOTERROR and ZLO member Liba on drums, while the singer Promille Promille now co-fronts J.M.K.E. In 2002 Aarne has compiled a few songs that were recorded after the album on a CDR called “Stop Madness, Stop Police”; some of them featured on compilations. Here it is, in glorious mp3 format.
1. Halb Ja Hea
2. Po-lits-ei
3. Konflikt
4. Teistest Parem
5. Võrk
6. Tallalakkuja
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