Because music

Rephrasing Lenin’s hackneyed aphorism “Of all arts cinematography is the most important for us,” it could be said that rock music is the most important kind of art for us. Everyone has, naturally, his/her own hierarchy of values. However, there is no doubt that for many people rock music is the lord of their thoughts, a teacher, and, in a sense, a lifestyle.

Many readers of our newspaper probably listen or even play rock music. The Day opens a music column for them and for those interested in this subject. It will contain both serious articles on musicology, interviews, reviews of newly-released albums, reports from concerts and festivals, research of the subcultures close to rock music, portraits of the brightest representatives of this style, etc.

We will try to determine the place of Ukrainian rock music in the world and also the ways the world comes to us via its best embassy—the music. The column’s title was a quick and easy decision—Huchnomovets (Loudspeaker) was the title of a samvydav rock music magazine, which was published in Kyiv in the late 1980s and acquired a cult status and renowned across the Soviet Union. In fact, at the time it was the most authoritative publication, on the contemporary Ukrainian music. We have picked the title “Loudspeaker” with the kind permission of Tetiana Yezhova, the magazine’s editor in chief. She also wrote the introductory article on the history and present day of Ukrainian rock music.

Statistics shows something more or less extraordinary happens each minute on Earth. Among other things, one could perhaps count how many young and not so young people are holding musical instruments in their hands and extracting out of them rock music as you read this text. Statisticians are silent on this, although it is something interesting to know.

Back in Soviet times Ukraine was no inferior to any other Soviet republics in terms of the amount and quality of rock music performed. In the 1960s and in the early 1970s Ukrainians cleverly imitated the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, tried to translate their song lyrics into Russian and Ukrainian, and even held rock festivals. There were such bands as Kyiv-based Vtoroie Dykhanie (Second Wind), Odnazhdy (Once upon a Time), Eney (Aeneas), and Krasnye Diavoliata (Little Red Devils), Kharkiv-based Avant-Garde, Lviv-based Arnika (Arnica), Medykus, and Varta (Guard), and Ivano-Frankivsk-based Berkut (Golden Eagle). Few people remember those names now, not in the last place because in the mid-1970s the Soviets banned rock music and for many years it was hardly played in Ukraine.

In the times of perestroika our rock music experienced a revival. Rock clubs were opened, festivals were held, music bands were heard on radio and appeared on TV, and the music press was published. Especially interesting were the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when different streams exhibited a tendency to conversion. Ukrainian punk rock, a conditional term used during perestroika, was replaced with a less categorical “new music,” which was largely the fusion of rock, folk, and avant-garde music, uniting very strong traditional elements and continuous experimenting.

The brightest representatives of “new music” include, above all, the Kyiv-based music bands Kollezhsky Asessor, Vopli Vidopliasova, and Rabbota KhO. In 1988 they created the Rok-Artel artistic association, thus launching the Kyiv rock school, which considerably differed from the ones in St. Petersburg and Siberia. The Artel bands took part in many prestigious festivals, toured abroad, performed on radio and TV, and released recordings.

By the early 1990s an entire generation of rock bands (such as Ivanov Daun, Sakhar – Belaia Smert, Kedy, and Plastilinovye Negry Navsegda) that played exclusively experimental music had appeared.

Approximately at the same time the New Stage Cultural Center emerged in Kharkiv: the idea was embodied by the activists of the Kharkiv rock club and the students of the local conservatory, on the other hand. Representatives of seemingly mutually exclusive streams—academic avant-garde and radical rock—were united in an unheard-of formation.

The New Stage festivals and the Cult of Modern Festival took place in Kharkiv until the mid-1990s. The activity was not limited to music only. Both theatric companies of actors (in particular, the Les Kurbas Theater) and photo artists, including worldwide renowned Borys Mykhailov, also took part in the New Stage projects. The CD collection of the pieces played by the numerous bands, the participants of the New Stage festivals, was released in Germany in 1993 and became a real breakthrough of new Ukrainian music in the West.

In the early 1990s the “new wave” swept over other Ukrainian cities. The Pure Musical Sound Association was active in Dnipropetrovsk. The punk band ShO? (What?) and aesthetes Obmen Belya (Exchange of Linen) played in Kryvy Rih, Muztrest (Music Trust) in Zaporizhia, and Mynula Yun (Past Youth) in Ivano-Frankivsk (today’s Perkalaba is their worthy successor). Ihor Tsymbrovsky played in the underground in Lviv. Zhyl-Byl Krempich (Once There Lived Krempich) and Murzilka Est Svoi Perets rocked in Odesa.

Another transitional period, the late 1990s and the early 2000s, its endless economic downturns, tangible cultural degradation of society, mass media’s indiscriminate orientation toward mediocre samples of the Western popular culture has done palpable harm to the Ukrainian rock stage. The “zero generation” bands tended to adopt the commercial approach to music. Rock music became a mass consumption item. It seemed that musicians who were capable of non-standard thinking moved to the underground again.

However, if we believe the fact that in each cultural phenomenon storms of activity and lulls take turns, one can speak of the late 2000s as the time of expected revival of Ukrainian rock music. But not everyone agrees with this.

The Day interviewed Ihor Kyriienkov, a rock journalist, festival organizer, former frontman of the band Kompleks-N, and now the editor of the newspaper Rok-Probeg in Yuzhnoukrainsk, and Dmytro Ostroushko, a musician of the band Shchastie (Happiness), producer, head of a music brand, and sound producer, on the current state of affairs of Ukrainian rock music.

Does Ukraine now have rock music as it was defined in the late 1980s and the early 1990s?

I.K.: “In my opinion, a boom has started this year; another thing is that the process is not stable. The bands are very different. Now many of them get together again and play the same music as in 1990s. The only thing is that now there are more possibilities for promotion.”

D.O.: “I don’t quite understand how it was defined 20 years ago. I was a teenager then, and I had the feeling that this was a fantastic world from books or TV. Now it seems to me that there is no such phenomenon as Ukrainian rock music. There are thousands of young people who have taken the guitars in their hands and do not know more than 10 chords. But I cannot call this rock music.

“Rock music for me is energy and when there is something to say. But 95 percent of our rock musicians busy themselves with nothing more than sound extraction. However, as there is no rule without exceptions, there are, too, exceptions in the absence of the Ukrainian rock music.

“Speaking about similarities and differences, I can say with certainty that the situation has improved in terms of technical conditions. High-quality equipment and inexpensive but fairly good instruments have become more easily available. One can learn something at a music school. But this has had no effect on the content.

“Again, I cannot judge how the 1980s were different in this aspect, but when you took up rock music in those times you must have asserted yourself as an individual. Now it is often a beautiful accessory of this type: I am an all-around youth, I play tennis, watch ballet, go to a fitness club, and on top of that I play in a rock music band. Letme repeat: there are some bright examples, but they are an exception of the rule.”

In your opinion, which of the present-day Ukrainian bands are worthy of attention?

I.K.: “I would like to make special mention of Yansen-Kukansen (Kherson), Barvy (Odesa), Antypop (Zhytomyr), S.P.S (Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky), Rusychi (Bilhorod-Dnistrovsky), Obezbasheny Kran (Odesa), Maizhenomer (Zaporizhia), and also Dispreksiya (Liubotyn, Kharkiv oblast) and Tanker (Derhachi, Kharkiv oblast). There are many interesting bands that play primarily alternative music blending styles.”

D.O.: “I am afraid that I’ll forget to name somebody. I will simply name the bands off the top of my head: Black Lazer (Kyiv), Riot On The Radio (Kyiv), Peel Off The Bass (Dnipropetrovsk), …I Drug Moi Gruzovik and their other project called “Ne Gruzoviki,” Nameless (Ternopil), Fotomoto (Zaporizhia), Tzarstvie Nebesnoe (Stakhanov), April (Dnipropetrovsk), I’ll Be Your Wire (Sevastopol), Esthetic Education (Kyiv), Dymna Sumish, Bikfordov, Ryba Pyla, Coala Pascal, Nimb, and Nadto Sonna.”

How frequently are concerts and festivals held? Where can one see young bands?

I.K: “Concerts exist but perhaps not as frequently as we would like to, but on different levels—starting from home gatherings to international level actions. Festivals are also frequent. I will mention only those that I have visited this June: UROK-4 in the village of Zatoka, Odesa oblast, an alternative music festival held in the city of Derhachi, Kharkiv oblast, and the Nationwide Festival of Rock Music in Voznesensk, Mykolaiv oblast.”

D.O.: “I cannot say that we have great enthusiasm in concert organization. Those who take the trouble are the ones who perform more often. There are well-promoted festivals like Kraina mrii (Dreamland), Stare Misto (Old Town), Rok-Sich (Rock Host), and Sheshory, but they don’t seem interesting to me. Once I was connected with the Reivakh movement, but, unfortunately, it is in limbo now. The band Ethetic Education used to organize a good festival called Moloko. There was also Hohol Fest and earlier Detali Zvuku (Details of Sound). By the way, the Ukrainian electronic experimental stage is fairly impressive.”

What is the situation with present-day music press?

I.K.: “In Yuzhnoukrainsk, for example, we make the newspaper Rok-Probeg. As far as I know, there is a music radio program called Sharmanka in Kherson, a nice TV program in the Crimea, and even the Force Majeure samvydav magazine on rock music in Zaporizhia.”

D.O.: “The music press exists, but there is no serious analytical press that would be interesting to read. Specialized periodicals are not profitable now. Competent journalists are either writing for uninteresting periodicals or deal with a more profitable business. Practically, few people in Ukraine can call themselves music journalists, and I am not sure whether I would react to such a statement without irony.

“There are no interesting, informative, analytical radio or TV programs. When I was a teenager, I highly appreciated the programs “Programa A,” “Vinilovi Dzhunhli,” “Ekzotyka,” “Post,” “Resheto,” “Dzhemiks,” and even “Studia Hart” with Hariachy Kompot (Hot Compote) on the Central and Ukrainian TV channels. I cannot think of anything of this kind in Ukrainian present-day broadcasting. There are, however, several informational Internet portals that go to the trouble of working, inquiring, and educating, but this is the personal merit of their teams.”

Have things become easier for musicians and music lovers with the appearance of the Internet?

I.K.: “The Internet has made life very much easier, but, as anything, it has two sides: a lot of garbage music has appeared. It is not so difficult to find interesting bands. One should only be active. By the way, many people have neither computers nor money to use them in Internet caf s. Thus, we publish our Rok-Probeg for them.”

D.O.: “On the one hand, the Internet is a wonderful tool for bringing your music to others and finding new music for yourself. But, on the other hand, megatons of digital records have devaluated music, and an ordinary person cannot force himself/herself listen to one and the same album, even it is excellent, several times, because tomorrow hundreds of new albums will appear on the Internet. It is hard to get one’s bearing in piles of garbage, and often we just don’t bother.”

Why do young people continue to play rock music nowadays?

I.K.: “Now, just like before, young people are eager to shown their audacity and express themselves. If they are lucky, they will earn some money, but this is secondary. The main thing is to get a kick out of energy exchange while performing on stage.”

D.O.: “For some people it is a repetition of a ready sample, some model, whereas others find self-expression here. Rock music is the music of the young spirit and wild energy. It is the best way to reveal one’s young energy.”

Because Music is the name for a French Recording Studio that records performers with non-standard way of thinking like Manu Chao. This is a good answer to the question why one should continue playing rock music—because it exists and someone still needs it.