"For the first time we heard how the sampler sounds, performing as part of Pop Mechanics," recalls Tikhomirov. "And we wanted to reproduce many of the sampler sounds: the sound of pipes, super-powerful and super-deep timbres on the album."
In several places, Tsoi used the noise material of the "New Composers", who were the pioneers of the Soviet techno and acid style. In particular, a collection of their strange sounds can be heard at the end of "Passerby", where for a whole minute fragments of various melodies and noises roam from channel to channel.
... "Blood Type" turned out to be one of the most danceable albums of that time, which critics initially did not pay attention to due to the obviously non-dance content of the songs. However, later everything fell into place and the term "masculine pop" was invented specifically to identify such a blurry style. This definition was especially well suited to the composition "Mom, we've all gone crazy", which developed a number of ideas on a new level that were first heard in the song "Tranquilizer".
“The turning point and the main innovation of Blood Type was that romanticism was practically absent in it, and heroism came to replace it,” says Kasparyan. “Tsoi deliberately chose this route, along which the group moved for the next three years.”
The album, despite its fighting spirit, has only three major songs. Moreover, if "Close the door behind me", put on absolutely dance rhythm, made in minor, then "Legend", the saddest song in terms of mood, is written in major.
"Blood type" turned out to be solid and monolithic - despite the stylistic versatility. The song "War" was played on the basis of the rhythm a la bossa nova, "Try to sing along with me" - a march, "Boshetunmay" - a white reggae inspired by the concert of the British group UB40, which performed in Leningrad in 1986 . Plus the punkish "Passer-by" (in the spirit of the composition "Mother-Anarchy" from the album "Night") and the semi-acoustic "Legend in the Finale".
Despite the specific sound of rhythm boxing and the not quite mature use of the sampler, the overall sound of "Blood Type" turned out to be very modern even by the standards of the nineties.
Subsequently, the CD "Blood Type" released in America will receive high marks from the Western press - in contrast to the export albums "Sounds of Mu" and Grebenshchikov, released at about the same time. Unfortunately, on the cover of the disc, the design of which with postmodern immediacy repeated the poster for the pre-war film "Doctor Mabuse", neither the author of the poster, the artist Ilya Chashnik, nor the "sound-sump" of the album, Alexei Vishnya, were mentioned ...
A few words about texts. A mixture of karate and Neva dampness, oriental calm and St. Petersburg severity gave impressive results in the end. If on previous albums Tsoi most often acted as a philosopher-contemplator or an urban teenager shrouded in dreams, then on "Blood Type" in the leader of "Kino" a kind of Byronian spirit suddenly woke up. However, being by nature a very ironic person, he could not resist irony in this work. True, this is reflected more in the music than in the lyrics - just listen to the pathetic piano at the end of the song "Close the door behind me" or the sounds of sampled pipes in "Boshetunmai". However, the phrase that has become a household word: "Everyone says that we are together / But few know in which one" - speaks for itself.
All other features of the album are typical for the mentality of the Kino group.
This is an orientation to the sound of the most fashionable Western pop and rock bands at that time - from the "neo-romantics" to the Cure and Talking Heads. It was this kind of music that served as a source of rhythmic and arranging conciseness.
This is Kasparyan's accurate guitar playing.
These are long tails of songs - with a smooth sound withdrawal at the end. (The exception in this regard was the composition "War", in which Tsoi himself turned the knobs on the remote control, thereby joining the art of sound engineering. When Cherry wanted to redo it, Victor waved his hand - they say, let him stay.)
This is the presence on the album of the so-called "snot" - a frankly weak song. Tsoi considered Passer-by to be such a composition in "Blood Type", but he treated her no less reverently than the others.
As planned, immediately after the session, Choi flew to Alma-Ata. The master-tape "Blood Types" was sent to America, where a CD was published by Joanna's efforts. No matter how the musicians of "Kino" later justified themselves, the bright idea of releasing "Blood Type" in their homeland (at least as a magnetic album) did not visit them then.
The situation was saved to a certain extent by Cherry, who the next day after the recording was completed, he sold several copies of the album to the metropolitan "wholesale writers" at 38th speed. A week later, cassettes with "Blood Type" were sold in cooperative kiosks throughout the country.
Thanks to the promotion of songs from "Blood Type" in shallow, but heroic films, this work became the "album of the year" in a bunch of various charts for two years. Soon "Kino" turned out to be the first Soviet indie team that was really raised to the shield of Big show business. Similar precedents have already happened in the West - with Depeche Mode and U2 before them, with R.E.M. and the Cranberries after. The teens needed a new idol and new hero. And they got it.
DC Unforgivable Forgetfulness (1988)
side A
The wind of change
Comes from October
Kochet
The same dream
Letka-enka
Mu Mu
Meat, bread and fruits
Mrs Rosenblum
In memory of Ya.M. Sverdlov ( Unforgivable forgetfulness)
side B
Fish and vegetables
Muscovite
New day
Hairy Beatle
Gas strip (Play me, bro, blues)
Everything ahead
Alexey Vishnya and Sergey Zharikov, 88
Your last concert the DK group played on the day of the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in the spring of 1986. Guitarist Dmitry Yanshin, together with the new vocalist Igor Belov, formed "Funny Pictures", and Sergey Zharikov continued studio experiments under the sign of "DK".
Recording several albums a year, Zharikov managed to make them completely different from each other. Gone are the "folklore-demobilization" cycle, punk mimicry, rock and roll "burn people's hearts with the verb" and gloomy hard rock such as "akhtung, akhtung, deutsch soldaten und officer". A kind of farewell to the aesthetics of the early "DK" occurred in the album "Against the background of Lebedev-Kumach" (86), in which Soviet pop songs of the pre-war era were arranged to twist, shake and blues. The recording of this conceptual work involved the musicians of "Funny Pictures" and the avant-garde trumpeter Andrey Solovyov, later known for his collaboration with " Polite refusal and Night Avenue.
After the collapse of the golden composition of "DK" Zharikov is increasingly working with guest musicians - in particular, with Yuri Orlov ("Nicholas Copernicus") and Ivan Sokolovsky ("Night Prospect"). On the necrophilic album "Cup of Tea" (86), most of the vocal parts were performed by the Leningrad punk-blues singer Terry, in the recording "Before the foundation, and then" (87), the musicians of "Va-Bank", and in the album " This is life" (85) - a singer from the choir of the Yelokhovskaya church, who sang "pacifist hymns" like "load the clip into the machine gun" with a gentle baritone.
At the same time, Zharikov began to independently record literary and musical opuses in the genre of radio theater (claiming that this was a purely Soviet invention that appeared in the thirties simultaneously with Radio Comintern).
"The radio theater genre allows you to introduce the most diverse material into the musical fabric of a work - from authentic folklore to excerpts from the speeches of political figures," Zharikov believes. - song forms.
The DK group played their last concert on the day of the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in the spring of 1986. Guitarist Dmitry Yanshin, together with new vocalist Igor Belov, formed Funny Pictures, and Sergey Zharikov continued studio experiments under the guise of a recreation center.
Recording several albums a year, Zharikov managed to make them completely different from each other. Gone are the folklore-demobilization cycle, punk mimicry, rock-n-rolls with the verb burn the hearts of people-her-her-her-her and gloomy hard rock such as akhtung, akhtung, deutsch zoldaten und officer. A kind of farewell to the aesthetics of the early recreation center took place in the album Against the Background of Lebedev-Kumach (86), in which Soviet pop songs of the pre-war era were arranged to twist, shake and blues. The recording of this conceptual work involved the musicians of Veselye Kartinok and the avant-garde trumpeter Andrey Solovyov, later known for his collaboration with Polite Refusal and Nochnoi Prospekt.
After the collapse of the golden composition of the House of Culture, Zharikov is increasingly working with guest musicians - in particular, with Yuri Orlov (Nicholas Copernicus) and Ivan Sokolovsky (Nochnoi Prospekt). On the necrophilic album A Cup of Tea (86), most of the vocal parts were performed by the Leningrad punk-blues singer Terry, in the recording Before the Foundation, and then (87) the musicians of Va-Bank took part, and in the album This is Life (85). ) - a singer from the choir of the Yelokhovskaya church, who sang pacifist hymns like load the clip into the machine with a gentle baritone.
At the same time, Zharikov began to independently record literary and musical opuses in the radio theater genre (claiming that this was a purely Soviet invention that appeared in the thirties simultaneously with the Radio Comintern).
The radio theater genre allows you to introduce the most diverse material into the musical fabric of the work - from authentic folklore to excerpts from the speeches of political figures, Zharikov believes. - Within the framework of rock culture, such an expansion of the genre makes it possible to sharpen the journalistic potential of rock as much as possible, to bring it beyond the boundaries of banal song forms.
The first experiments in this direction were carried out by Zharikov in 1986. Already in the minefield. On March 8 and Hellfire, he tried to fit into the framework of each of the works maximum amount layers of world culture. It seemed that Zharikov selected the material based on the well-known principle of Molière: I take my goods where I find them. These audio canvases included: recitation of social quatrains to the melodies of Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, Western hits performed in a uniquely provincial manner by Igor Belov and Viktor Klemeshev, fragments from the Appassionata, Swingle Singers and Bremen Town Musicians, mournful singing of Bul-Bul Ogly and some kind of speech Brezhnev, called the hoaxer Zharikov Fragments of my speech.
Musicians of the Palace of Culture recall that Zharikov built the plots and dramaturgy of such albums immediately after watching the next Vremya program. Moreover, he quite consciously created some of his works in the spirit of caricature of this popular TV show.
Through editing, he made logically absurd collages from the speeches of party bosses. The party has done everything to ... betray ... the interests of the working class ... betray ... the interests of the working peasantry ... betray ... our youth ... betray ... the interests of the whole country, - Leonid broadcasts Ilyich Brezhnev on one of the albums.
Starting from 1987, Zharikov became disillusioned with democracy, perestroika, acceleration, etc. In discussions with friends, the leader of the DC, referring to Russian philosophers of the 19th century, increasingly says that the people are stupid, we are fed up with revolutions, and genuine art elitist.
Art, contrary to the well-known idiotic slogan, cannot belong to the people, Zharikov believed. - Culture is inherent in the people, and art is the prerogative of some separate caste, the aristocracy. And the people ... For our Russian peasant, democracy is still vodka, bread and women.
It seems that holiness and the ability to radiate light were contraindicated for Zharikov from birth. His cynicism at that time manifested itself in such ideas, for example, as putting the Mausoleum on wheels and rolling it around the country as a cooperative, setting an entrance fee of 50 kopecks. Most likely, it was a joke, but very typical for Zharikov. In the late 80s, his work becomes more and more politicized and sinister. Accordingly, the assessments of the activities of the late Zharikov acquire a contradictory character - even among rock musicians.
DK is not art, it's snobbish banter, - said Yuri Shevchuk in an interview of that time. - Zharikov has no love for a peasant. He puts it in cancer, pokes it with a stick and waits for what will happen next.
At some point, Zharikov's musical ideas automatically coincided with certain social moods. In his works, he begins to criticize Gorbachev's reforms more and more sharply, exposing the pro-American sentiments of the perestroika mafia. In the album Mirror - souls (88), consisting of poems set to music by Sergei Prokofiev, the idea of the revival of Russia prevails. Being a person not always consistent, Zharikov, on the one hand, condemns the views of populist writers, and on the other hand, he advocates the national idea - aggressive, powerful, strong.
Zharikov is recording his next album, Impenetrable Forgetfulness, in Leningrad, in the home studio of Alexei Vishnya. Cherry, who by that time had become one of the main sound engineers in St. Petersburg, was looking forward to the start of this session.
In Leningrad, I was the main fan of the DC, - he recalls. - When I first heard them and saw Zharikov, I was just stunned. It was some kind of shot. Maybe it was the most vivid impressions in my life - so I fell in love with him then, boyish, crazy love. I could listen to Zharikov's reasoning for hours - they developed me. This was the only person with whom I corresponded. I had the complete works of DK. Nothing like this has ever happened in Leningrad.
So, the great mythologist and artist provocateur Sergei Zharikov came to the city of three revolutions to record another conceptual album. He continues to use elements of the radio theater - in particular, he uses dozens of melodies from records brought from Moscow or found at Cherry's house. The level of preparation here is an order of magnitude higher than that of Amanita, and corresponds to the best works residents. Dialogues from the Course are included in Unforgivable Oblivion of English language, excerpts from Russian, Palestinian, Jewish folk songs and anti-perestroika poems filled with evil pain for a huge nation that has fallen into the grip of a social experiment. The recording features a sitar-played Hindu melody (New Day) and tape rings from fragments of the Beatles: Live In Hamburg bootleg (Hairy Beatle).
The instrumental side of the session looked surprisingly simple. Cherry played a Yamaha synthesizer, guitar, and sang in his high, sonorous tenor cantor on most of the tracks. For the first time in the history of the Palace of Culture, several numbers were sung by Zharikov himself (the blues of the Gas Sector and Mrs. Rosenblum stylized as thieves' couplets). The sound on the remote control was set in such a way that his voice was unrecognizable. Hymn to Perestroika Originally from October, all participants in the session sang in a discordant but friendly chorus: If you go out into the street, glasnost is everywhere / We swear by the five-pointed star.
In the composition New Day, Cherry plays a clumsy solo from Smoke On The Water, repeating a technique already used by DK on the album There is no God, when one of the Led Zeppelin blues was played on the button accordion and balalaika. The song One and the same dream was a hit by Merry Fellows about a ring with turquoise, which was sung at concerts by Malezhik and Glyzin, changed beyond recognition. In the DC version, this immaculate love lyric appeared as another alcoholic monologue, performed under acoustic guitar Lena Cherry. Zharikov was then a little annoyed that I did not have the voice of a drunk storekeeper, she recalls. - But then, after thinking, I decided that the voice of, let's say, an innocent student would sound even more cynical.
In the course of the album, Zharikov intensifies darkness and hopeless melancholy - especially when he reads poems to a melody reminiscent of the sounds of a dive bomber: Eternity will last without Veras / Without Light, Gems, cowards / Without Makarevich, Youth without / Without others who climbed a tree.
From the very first pop composition Wind of Change, written by Vishnya with the production of Zharikov right in the studio, the album begins a deliberate mockery not only of the peculiarities of perestroika (the smell of sausage makes people sweat), but also of the entire Russian history. Zharikov rewrites lines from the poetry of Blok (pharmacy, street, people, armored car, lantern) and Yesenin (you are my purse, purse); replays the speeches of Lenin and Sverdlov backwards; reads a verse-manifesto, written by him a few years before the session: You stood aside, looking at the corpses of your fathers / Tomorrow you are gone, you are already hiding your face ... / But if you have the strength - go! The memory of Russia is with you / Still ahead, tomorrow is the decisive battle. In the original tape version, the text part of the album ends with Lenin's fiery speech that socialism is being replaced by a new order.
Zharikov's impregnable forgetfulness is, in my opinion, one of the most sinister albums anyone has ever written, argues rock critic Sergei Guryev in his Bedtime For Democracy policy article. - It contains a little-noticed thing Play me, bro, a blues, something similar to the moan of a wounded hyena. Listen to it again - this is probably the only thing in the history of the DC where Zharikov is open as he is. This is very, without fools, creepy. In the skin of such a creature, hardly anyone would agree to be.
Having recorded several more albums in the radio theater genre (Black Ribbon, Occupation, Flower King), Zharikov released in 1989 a kind of requiem to the idea of DK - the album Fire in the Mausoleum. After that, he completely switches to journalism, publishing in publications of a clearly right-wing orientation and for some time collaborating with Zhirinovsky and Nevzorov. Rock is no longer interesting to me, - said Zharikov in an interview. - I would like to seriously engage in journalism ... I do not consider myself a poet, or a musician, or a manager. I am a publicist.
Sergei Zharikov has gone through a complex ideological evolution, - wrote the culturologist Leonid Afonsky in the historical and philosophical thriller The Way of Heat, published in the journal Counterculture. - Starting with a shocking denial of the foundations of the Soviet system, by the end of the 80s he began to imitate an ardent adherence to the memorable Vasilyevsky ideas, mistakenly believing that it was they who replaced anti-Sovietism with the role of the current striving of modernity ... In the ornate punk Zharikov, we see only an evil child Moscow streets, vainly eager to rise even on tiptoe above their environment. However, the results of these attempts are disappointing: pseudo-elitism, obvious pornography of the spirit, heart blackness.
On a par with the albums "Lyric" and "Dembel album".
Encyclopedic YouTube
-
1 / 5
Essentially, this album is a solo work by Sergey Zharikov, in which Alexey Vishnya helped him. In the beginning, it was planned to record several things that required multiple mixes, for which a more or less decent studio was required. However, Cherry insisted that "he had a original album Whole DC.
“In Leningrad, I was the main fan of DK. When I first heard them and saw Zharikov, I was simply stunned. It was some kind of shot. Maybe it was the most vivid impressions in my life - so I fell in love with him then, boyish, crazy love. I could listen to Zharikov's reasoning for hours - they developed me. This was the only person with whom I corresponded. I had the complete collected works of "DK". Nothing like this has ever happened in Leningrad.”
Cherry remembers.
The recording of the album traditionally uses music from "different times and different peoples": from Yakut folklore to The Beatles. The texts contain many quotations from general secretaries to Boris Grebenshchikov as elements of modern mythology. On this album, Zharikov himself performed many things in addition to the traditional reading of his own poems. Aleksey Vishnya sang in places. The song "The Same Dream" was performed by Alexei's wife, Elena Vishnya.
Album concept
The album "Impenetrable Forgetfulness" is a mirror of the perestroika era.
The initial composition “Wind of Changes” ironically plays up the spirit of the upcoming changes, the song “Comes from October” is a kind of perestroika anthem, the songs “Hairy Beatle” and “New Day” are a mockery of the huge number of rock bands that existed at that time in the Soviet Union.
The atmosphere of the album changes periodically. On the one hand, Zharikov intensifies darkness and hopeless longing, especially when he reads the poem "Mu-mu", but at the same time dilutes this atmosphere with the song "Mrs. Rosenblum" - containing black humor. The composition "Muscovite" evokes nostalgic feelings in the listener, and the blues "Gaza Strip" - a feeling of anxiety and a feeling that enemies have penetrated the country that do not seem to be enemies to anyone.
Thus, the album describes perestroika from different points of view and presents before the listener a multifaceted and deep reflection of it.
Legacy and influence
The song "Gaza Strip" not only gave the name to the group of the same name, but also inspired these musicians to work, the origins of which come from "DK". The reanimated "Letka-enka" has again become fashionable. And also this album laid the foundation for a whole direction in Russian rock, in line with which Laertsky, KhZ, Civil Defense, Communism and many other equally famous underground bands and musicians worked.
Reviews
The first listener of the new album "DK" was Andrey Tropilo, who told Vishna:
Rock critic Sergei Guryev in his program article "Bedtime For Democracy" said the following about the album:
Zharikov's "Uncriminal Forgetfulness" is, in my opinion, one of the most sinister albums anyone has ever written. It contains a little-noticed thing “Play me, bro, blues”, something similar to the moan of a wounded hyena. Listen to it again - this is probably the only thing in the history of DK where Zharikov is open as he is. This is very, without fools, creepy. In the shoes of such a creature, hardly anyone would agree to be.
Album Creators
- Author of the concept, music texts and performer - Sergey Zharikov
- Performer of some compositions - Alexey Vishnya
- Artist - Olga Pomerantseva
- Producer - Sergey Zharikov
- Vocals in the song "The Same Dream" - Elena Vishnya
List of songs
All lyrics are written by Sergey Zharikov, all music is written by Sergey Zharikov and Alexey Vishnya (except for the song "One and the Same Dream", which uses the music of Vladislav Shpilman from the Polish song Tych lat nie odda nikt, performed by Irena Santor).
№ Name Executor Duration 1. "The wind of change" A. Cherry 3:11 2. "Born in October" A. Cherry 2:30 3. "Kochet" S. Zharikov 0:26 4. "The Same Dream" Elena Cherry 1:24 5. "Om-Nom-nom" E.Morozov 1:57 6. "Letka-Enka" A. Cherry 2:34 7. "Mu Mu" The DK group played their last concert on the day of the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in the spring of 1986. Guitarist Dmitry Yanshin, together with the new vocalist Igor Belov, formed "Funny Pictures", and Sergey Zharikov continued studio experiments under the sign of "DK".
Recording several albums a year, Zharikov managed to make them completely different from each other. Gone are the "folklore-demobilization" cycle, punk mimicry, rock and roll "burn people's hearts with the verb" and gloomy hard rock such as "akhtung, akhtung, deutsch soldaten und officer". A kind of farewell to the aesthetics of the early "DK" occurred in the album "Against the background of Lebedev-Kumach" (86), in which Soviet pop songs of the pre-war era were arranged to twist, shake and blues. The musicians of "Merry Pictures" and the avant-garde trumpeter Andrey Solovyov, later known for his collaboration with "Polite Refusal" and "Nochny Prospekt", participated in the recording of this conceptual work.
Alexey Vishnya and Sergey Zharikov, 88
After the collapse of the golden composition of "DK" Zharikov is increasingly working with guest musicians - in particular, with Yuri Orlov ("Nicholas Copernicus") and Ivan Sokolovsky ("Night Prospect"). On the necrophilic album "Cup of Tea" (86), most of the vocal parts were performed by the Leningrad punk-blues singer Terry, in the recording "Before the foundation, and then" (87), the musicians of "Va-Bank", and in the album " This is life" (85) - a singer from the choir of the Yelokhovskaya church, who sang "pacifist hymns" like "load the clip into the machine gun" with a gentle baritone.
At the same time, Zharikov began to independently record literary and musical opuses in the genre of radio theater (claiming that this was a purely Soviet invention that appeared in the thirties simultaneously with Radio Comintern).
"The radio theater genre allows you to introduce the most diverse material into the musical fabric of a work - from authentic folklore to excerpts from the speeches of political figures," Zharikov believes. - song forms.
The first experiments in this direction were carried out by Zharikov in 1986. Already in "Minefield named after March 8th" and "Hehenno-Fiery" he tried to fit into the framework of each of the works the maximum number of layers of world culture. It seemed that Zharikov selected the material based on the well-known principle of Molière: "I take my good where I find it." These audio canvases included: recitation of social quatrains to the melodies of Scriabin and Tchaikovsky, Western hits performed in a uniquely provincial manner by Igor Belov and Viktor Klemeshev, fragments from Appassionata, Swingle Singers and Bremen Town Musicians, the mournful singing of Bul-Bul Ogly and some speech by Brezhnev, called by the hoaxer Zharikov "Fragments of my speech."
Alexey Vishnya in his home studio.
The musicians of "DK" recall that Zharikov built the plots and dramaturgy of such albums immediately after watching the next program "Vremya". Moreover, he quite consciously created some of his works in the spirit of caricature of this popular TV show. Through editing, he made logically absurd collages from the speeches of party bosses. "The Party has done everything to ... betray ... the interests of the working class ... betray ... the interests of the working peasantry ... betray ... our youth ... betray ... the interests of the whole country," - broadcasts Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev on one of the albums.
Starting in 1987, Zharikov became disillusioned with democracy, perestroika, acceleration, etc. In discussions with friends, the DK leader, referring to Russian philosophers of the 19th century, increasingly says that "the people are stupid, we are fed up with revolutions, and true art is elitist."
“Art, contrary to the well-known idiotic slogan, cannot belong to the people,” Zharikov believed. “Culture is inherent in the people, and art is the prerogative of some separate caste, the aristocracy. And the people ... For our Russian peasant, democracy is still vodka, bread and women".
It seems that holiness and "the ability to radiate light" were contraindicated for Zharikov from birth. His cynicism at that time manifested itself in such ideas as "putting the Mausoleum on wheels and rolling it around the country like a cooperative, setting an entrance fee of 50 kopecks." Most likely, it was a joke, but very typical for Zharikov. In the late 80s, his work becomes more and more politicized and sinister. Accordingly, assessments of the activities of the "late" Zharikov acquire a contradictory character - even among rock musicians.
"DK" is not art, it's snobbish banter, - Yuri Shevchuk said in an interview of that time. - Zharikov has no love for a peasant. He puts it in cancer, pokes it with a stick and waits for what will happen next."
At some point, Zharikov's musical ideas automatically coincided with certain social moods. In his works, he begins to criticize Gorbachev's reforms more and more sharply, exposing the pro-American sentiments of the "perestroika mafia." In the album "Mirror - Souls" (88), consisting of poems set to music by Sergei Prokofiev, the idea of the revival of Russia prevails. Being a personality not always consistent, Zharikov, on the one hand, condemns the views of populist writers, and on the other hand, advocates the national idea - "aggressive, powerful, strong."
Zharikov is recording his next album "Incredible Forgetfulness" in Leningrad, in Alexei Vishnya's home studio. Cherry, who by that time had become one of the main sound engineers in St. Petersburg, was looking forward to the start of this session.
“In Leningrad, I was the main fan of DK,” he recalls. “When I first heard them and saw Zharikov, I was just stunned. It was some kind of shot. Maybe these were the most vivid impressions in my life - I fell in love so much into him then, with boyish, crazy love. I could listen to Zharikov's reasoning for hours - they developed me. He was the only person with whom I corresponded. I had the complete works of DK. Nothing like this has ever happened in Leningrad."
Sergei Zharikov and Konstantin Kinchev:
discussions about the fate of the motherland. 1985
So, the great mythologist and artist provocateur Sergei Zharikov came to the city of three revolutions to record another conceptual album. He continues to use elements of the radio theater - in particular, he uses dozens of melodies from records brought from Moscow or found at Cherry's house. The level of preparation here is an order of magnitude higher than that of "Amanita", and corresponds to the best work of Residents. The "Uncriminal Forgetfulness" includes dialogues from the "English Language Course", excerpts from Russian, Palestinian, Jewish folk songs and anti-perestroika poems filled with evil pain for a huge nation that has fallen into the grip of a social experiment. The recording features a Hindu melody played on the sitar ("New Day") and tape rings from fragments of the "Beatles: Live In Hamburg" bootleg ("Hairy Beatle").
The instrumental side of the session looked surprisingly simple. Cherry played a Yamaha synthesizer, guitar, and sang in his high, sonorous tenor cantor on most of the tracks. For the first time in the history of DK, Zharikov himself sang several numbers (the blues "Gas Sector" and stylized as thieves' couplets "Mrs. Rosenblum"). The sound on the remote control was set in such a way that his voice was unrecognizable. "Hymn" to perestroika "Coming from October" was performed by all participants of the session in a discordant but friendly chorus: "If you go out into the street - glasnost is everywhere / We swear by the five-pointed star."
In the composition "New Day" Cherry plays a clumsy solo from "Smoke On The Water", repeating the technique already used by "DK" on the album "There is no God", when one of the Led Zeppelin blues was played on the button accordion and balalaika. The song "The Same Dream" was a hit "Merry Fellows" about a ring with turquoise, which was sung at concerts by Malezhik and Glyzin, changed beyond recognition. In the "DK" version, this immaculate love lyric appeared as another alcoholic monologue, performed with an acoustic guitar by Lena Cherry. “Zharikov was then a little annoyed that I didn’t have the voice of a drunk storekeeper,” she recalls. “But then, after thinking, I decided that the voice of, let’s say, an innocent student would sound even more cynical.”
In the course of the album, Zharikov intensifies darkness and hopeless melancholy - especially when he reads poems to a melody reminiscent of the sounds of a dive bomber: "Eternity will last without" Veras "/ Without "Spark", "Gems", cowards / Without Makarevich, "Youth" without / Without the rest who climbed the tree."
From the very first pop composition "Wind of Change", written by Cherry with the production of Zharikov right in the studio, the album begins a purposeful mockery not only of the "features" of perestroika ("the smell of sausage makes people sweat"), but also of all Russian history. Zharikov rewrites lines from the poetry of Blok ("pharmacy, street, people, armored car, lantern") and Yesenin ("you are my purse, purse"); replays the speeches of Lenin and Sverdlov backwards; reads a verse-manifesto, written by him a few years before the session: "You stood aside, looking at the corpses of your fathers / Tomorrow you are gone, you are already hiding your face ... / But if you have the strength, go! The memory of Russia is with you / Still ahead, tomorrow is the decisive battle." In the original tape version, the text part of the album ends with Lenin's fiery speech that "socialism is being replaced by a new order."
Zharikov's "Uncriminal Forgetfulness" is, in my opinion, one of the most sinister albums anyone has ever written, says rock critic Sergei Guryev in his policy article "Bedtime For Democracy". - It contains a little-noticed thing "Play me, bro, blues", something similar to the moan of a wounded hyena. Listen to it again - this is probably the only thing in the history of DK where Zharikov is open as he is. This is very, without fools, creepy. In the shoes of such a creature, hardly anyone would agree to be."
Having recorded several more albums in the genre of radio theater ("Black Ribbon", "Occupation", "Flower King"), Zharikov released in 89 a kind of requiem to the idea of \u200b\u200bDK - the album "Fire in the Mausoleum". After that, he completely switches to journalism, publishing in publications of a clearly right-wing orientation and for some time collaborating with Zhirinovsky and Nevzorov. “Rock is no longer interesting to me,” Zharikov said in an interview. “I want to seriously engage in journalism ... I don’t consider myself a poet, musician, or manager.
"Sergey Zharikov has gone through a complex ideological evolution," wrote the culturologist Leonid Afonsky in the historical and philosophical thriller "The Way of Heat," published in the journal "Counterculture." memorably Vasily's ideas, mistakenly believing that it was they who replaced anti-Sovietism with the role of the current striving of modernity ... In the ornate "punk" of Zharikov, we see only an evil child of Moscow streets, vainly eager to rise even on tiptoe above his environment. However, the results of these attempts are disappointing : pseudo-elitism, obvious pornography of the spirit, blackness of the heart.
Alexander KushnirSide A
01. Wind of change
02. Originally from October
03. Kochet
04. The same dream
05. Letka-enka
06. Moo-moo
07. Meat, bread and fruits
08. Mrs. Rosenblum
09. In memory of Ya.M. Sverdlov (Uncriminal forgetfulness)Side B
10. Fish and vegetables
11. Muscovite
12. New day
13. Hairy Beatle
14. Gas sector (Play me bro blues)
15. Everything is aheadCarrier: Rus Tape
Released: 1988
Format: MP3 192 kbps
File size: 55 MbPoster. Tikhomirov-Africa-Kurekhin-Cherry. 1987
Zharikov composed songs on the go, approximately according to the following scenario: “Look for a tonic so that it is convenient to sing. Let in this key you will have a backlash of two octaves, ”he said. I found the tonic - at that time, F sharp served as the most optimal key for me, and Sergey continued: “Give a guitar shvark on the second beat ... so ... good. So four times ... no, wait, ”he thought about his notebook, holding a pencil over it. “No, wait. Come on twice, - I played, - no, let's go once. Once the tonic is in a minor key, followed by a parallel major. Yeah?
I play: F sharp minor - A major, F sharp minor - A major ... - “That's right. Now that's four times. And then we shift everything up, ”Sergey made notes in a notebook, and I played: G sharp minor - B major, G sharp minor - B major ...
“Now go to the subdominant,” Sergey said, and I blinked my eyes incomprehensibly: “Is it like this?” I ask. - "Seventh step up or fifth down," - began to count the notes: one two three four ... - "Found it!" I rejoiced. “Yeah, now let's go half a step down - add some nerve - then another half step down. Let there be a feeling of discomfort. And down again, only in a major one, ”I already felt cheerful, I played and was already smiling, not knowing what the text would be about. I already liked the harmony: "And now from this place three tones down, into a parallel minor ... from there again the subdominant and that's it, you can ring it."
So we masterfully returned back to the tonic. It was a real, sparkling pleasure for me: I saw how mathematics works. On the principles of building harmonic connections alone, and this turned out to be quite enough to compose music in absentia. Sergey finished writing the text during the recording. By the time I had to overdub, the text was completely ready, and I was learning the melody:
You took my life, leaving fear in return
But now I'm wearing purple pants
I change in puffs for joy pickle
Ticket for rooster and ksiva for mosolHere's a grass boy spitting on the moon
Do you know a huge country
Where the blue forest stands like a queue in a general store
Where the smell of sausage makes people sweat...Alexey Vishnya and Boris Grebenshchikov
It was what we needed. Zharikov appreciated the quality of work at high belt speeds - 15 inches per second. There was practically no noise when applying. My previous work - the album "Heart" - I recorded exactly according to this principle - in several overdubs, but Sergey did not want to indulge in any wilds. One overlay turned out to be quite enough for all the numbers of the album, and some went without any overdubs at all. Once while we were working, Andrey Tropillo visited us. After listening to the finished recordings, he put his finger to his lips and said: “That's cool, well done Cherry, but I didn't hear that, okay? I haven't heard it at all and I don't even know what it's about. Deal?"
Even Andrei was frightened of the line on which we then balanced. Put it now - it will be difficult for many to understand at all, but what is the strom here. Perestroika television was still in its infancy, when people started talking about the Gulag aloud, from the screen. And we already sang about perestroika to the motive of the letka-enka:
I dug a little in the trash
And found something to eat among the shit
Great Perestroika Mastermind
Pointed me to the washBread rolls lay nearby
And so similar to balls
The essence of publicity to people was
It means that you want to scream.In Leningrad, everyone is used to veiling thoughts, hiding them behind a series of linguistic puzzles. Zharikov hid an even more shocking meaning behind the shocking text - his work seemed to me sharper and deeper than our entire St. Petersburg. Actually, my experiments in the home studio almost ended on it. After him, I recorded "Blood Type", "Nesterov's Loop" and that's it. Lost interest in Russian rock, I confess. Zharikov called the album “Incredible Forgetfulness” (a remastering of the album with a bunch of bonuses was released in 2006 under the title “ national project", - approx. ed.). This, to a certain extent, echoed the name of the “Memory” society, which was raging in those years.
The cover of the album "DK", where the voice of Alexei Vishnya sounds“It’s a dumb name, tell me?” Sergey said. - “Dumb,” I agreed, making out the original envelope, “but how to write? Unapproachable or Unapproachable? - “Actually, “e,” Sergey answered, “but if you write “and”, the essence will not change. It will still be dark…”
Of course, we didn't write to ourselves face-to-face all the time. They simply did not give us this: Zharikov is in the city !! Whoever found out about this - immediately came in large numbers to us. Sasha Volkov came from Moscow to see such an action, Andrei Baranovsky is our common friend with Sergei. Alcohol was not welcome in our house, so tea was our main drink. Sergei put on a record with ethnic recordings of the songs of the peoples of the North and asked me to record one number on tape. Pleasant music played on the accordion served as a blank for another song. There was no need to overlay anything there, so I put the microphone in front of me, all our friends sat around, I sang the first two lines, and the next two were all together, in chorus:
Someone started a cult of personality
He wants us to live worse for everyone
To shoot all the faithful Leninists
Again, what would be bad for everyone againOur work brought great pleasure to everyone. Once Firsov arrived with some aunts, Sasha Bashlachev arrived. We drank a little, SashBash picked up a guitar, but did not sing serious songs under Zharikov. He played a gypsy and sang the text of Kinchev's "Juice Squeezer" to her, which led everyone to a rapture: "Lyokha, let's write soon, put the microphone on, this is fucked up! Zharikov shouted. But SashBash flatly refused to record this comic material: “What are you, how can you, well, how will I look Kinchev in the eyes after this? he balked.
Sergei Zharikov. Photo by V.MarochkinI was upset. In the performance of Bashlachev, the parodies were terribly funny, and in my understanding, this was above all the rest of his work. I confess, but I did not understand the meaning of SashBash, I did not like his work at all. Kostya knew about this and shamed me that I did not understand the genius. My argument was that SashBash is musically secondary and of no value to me. Epigonil Vysotsky, whom I also practically did not listen to. I liked the record released in France, but… there was some music there, but it was there. But SashBash did not want to record in electricity, his guitar was constantly out of tune, his last concert at the LDM at the 7th rockfest was a complete failure. Sasha got drunk to death before the concert, played very badly, and we washed off the product of his stomach stools from wires and combos the whole next day, because I was responsible for the apparatus, being a staff member of the Youth Palace ...
Once the Slipper completely struck me. I really liked one of my wife's girlfriends, and, once, they met at my house at an impromptu party. Listening to the tape recorder, singing songs, word by word, and my guests occupied my sofa in bulk. During a casual conversation, in the intricacies of rocker bodies, beautiful leg our girlfriend ended up in the groin of the singing SashBash. Excited, he immediately sang another song, then another, and when the girl went about her business, he rushed after her. After waiting for her to come out, he called her into the kitchen and began to undress. Dinka, that was the name of the girl, unexpectedly resisted him: she began to scream and struggle, for which she immediately received from SashBash in the forehead, and apparently not once. Dinka came into the room all in tears, shabby, with a red face. Sasha stayed in the kitchen to smoke. The unpleasant incident remained in my memory, but of course it was difficult not to love the Slipper ...
Album cover "Dancing on broken glass" by Alexey VishnyaWith Zharikov, too, everything did not go in the most vivid way: my wife also had discussions with Sergey, but at some point they could not find a common language: Sergey began to trample on her values, ridiculing what caused my wife to tremble: talking about books and favorite writers, they quarreled to the nines: “I hate him, you hear, I hate him,” Lena told me with tears in her eyes, “I wish the album would end, I can’t take it anymore.” My wife had clear and indestructible ideals, which Zharikov set not a penny. But the next day everything was settled: Zharikov composed a thug text for an old pop song, Lena sang it with a guitar:
I'm dreaming again
The same dream
How we brother Kolya
They ate in unison.We went to the store
Vodyary buy
With a kilometer there is a queue
For her own costEdryona my louse
tell me not to….One of the songs we just copied from the record: I sang the lyrics to some old instrumental composition of the early Beatles. Zharikov sang the Gaza Strip blues himself, and I played a somnambulistic solo on the guitar. I never really knew how to play, but in the case of "DK" it went almost unnoticed. Many mistook my clumsy game for refined banter, I was an instrument in the hands of Sergei Zharikov, probably the best instrument in relation to this concept, because the recording of the new album "DK" made an incredible success. Sergey Firsov immediately dubbed this work “the highest quality album of DK” and began to popularize it in every possible way. He then worked as a conductor in the car and just put the album on the whole car, instead of the radio. Firsov also, in a sense, took part in the recording of the album: we recorded a phone call that he made at our request for one of the songs. Recorded for a long time than terribly frightened him. Calling, he listened to long beeps for a long time and was horrified to think that we had all been tied up.
With LEM theaterThe album "Incredible Forgetfulness" instantly scattered among the "writers", I gained fame in quite certain circles of Moscow, thanks to this particular work. When I recorded my "Dancing on Broken Glass" in 1989, its promotion went like clockwork. Everyone already knew who "Cherry" was and were happy to put on the radio and show on TV songs that no longer sang about shit, nor about garbage, nor about Jews and perestroika. It could already be given to the people. They were shown in music programs, interrupting the clips of Shevchuk and Butusov with me, and, despite the pop style, my songs carried rocker moods. Cherry has acquired the status of amateur performances, smoothly flowing into the mainstream - all over the world synthpop was already departing, and here it was just beginning. As always, we were seven years behind the West.
In the meantime, our paths with Sergei diverged: he took up Zhirinovsky, the magazines "To the ax" and "Attack". His articles began to appear more and more often - here and there. For example, in the famous "CounterCulture". There were opponents, both mine and Zharikov's. Some said about him that he was an anti-Semite, others believed that he was a Jew. To one he seemed to be an anti-Soviet, others considered him a career KGB officer. I didn’t give a damn about all this: I appreciated him for his independence, education and analytical mind. Then, I also took up my own career, started performing, traveling around Russia. In many cities of the country, the audience asked me to sing something from DK. Of course, our friendship played a huge role in my development. Kuryokhin called me to perform at Pop Mechanics concerts, and threatened those who were against it with his fist.
For Special RadioJanuary 2007