Friday, January 18, 2008. Issue 3823. Page 103.Politics and Silver Age Poetry
By Sergey Chernov
The frontman of Tequilajazzz, Yevgeny Fyodorov, started out playing bass in the 1980s with a punk band called Obyekt Nashmeshek, or Target for Ridicule. It was the first punk band that managed to stage official concerts in the late 1980s, when it performed biting anti-establishment songs such as "Komsomol Card."
In the next decade, Fyodorov split with frontman Alexander "Ricochet" Aksyonov and formed a new band, Tequilajazzz, which played hard-edged rock. On Friday at Ikra, the band will play songs from an upcoming album -- its first in five years -- that reveal another change of direction.
In its latest incarnation, the band's output is sophisticated soft-rock -- personal songs dealing with children's dreams, mental states or subtleties of relationships.
The new album, as yet untitled, is expected to come out in February. Tequilajazzz gave the public a taste of the new material by releasing a self-produced, four-track CD single called "Berlin" in September.
The idea was to "remind ourselves that we're not only a live band," Fyodorov said in an interview this week, sipping an Americano in a St. Petersburg cafe. True to its indie principles, the band sold the single at cost price, he said.
In the next decade, Fyodorov split with frontman Alexander "Ricochet" Aksyonov and formed a new band, Tequilajazzz, which played hard-edged rock. On Friday at Ikra, the band will play songs from an upcoming album -- its first in five years -- that reveal another change of direction.
In its latest incarnation, the band's output is sophisticated soft-rock -- personal songs dealing with children's dreams, mental states or subtleties of relationships.
The new album, as yet untitled, is expected to come out in February. Tequilajazzz gave the public a taste of the new material by releasing a self-produced, four-track CD single called "Berlin" in September.
The idea was to "remind ourselves that we're not only a live band," Fyodorov said in an interview this week, sipping an Americano in a St. Petersburg cafe. True to its indie principles, the band sold the single at cost price, he said.
The band will play most of the new songs at Ikra, even though many don't yet have names, Fyodorov said. All the songs on the upcoming album, which will be the band's sixth, were composed during the past year.
"The name has nothing to do with geography," Fyodorov said of "Berlin" and its title song. "It's a figure of speech for how the song's hero feels, as is usual in our songs. Just as before our song 'Aviation and Artillery' had nothing to do with the armed forces, this one has nothing to do with Berlin."
Recalling the explicitly political songs of Obyekt Nashmeshek, Fyodorov argued they still hit home. "Komsomol Card" was a harsh attack on the Soviet youth organization that "would sound relevant now if addressed to the current Kremlin-backed youth organizations," he said.
But he describes his new songs as "a departure into romantic, Gumilyov-style stuff," referring to the exotic, romantic verses of Nikolai Gumilyov, a Silver Age poet shot by the Bolsheviks in 1921.
"It could be called cultural escapism, perhaps," he said, "but one can recall the fate of Gumilyov himself, whose end was eventually determined by the political situation. So it's all interrelated."
Even if the band's new songs do not deal with politics, at live performances Fyodorov often comments on current affairs, whether it is election violations or the "dubious" victory of the Sochi 2014 Olympic bid.
"I don't have any nostalgia for the [Soviet] political regime, the so-called stability," he said. "It's obvious that the Soviet Union is coming back or rather is being re-enforced, and I feel deep disappointment," he said.
The long break that Tequilajazzz took before recording their new album was partly due to lack of funds, Fyodorov said. "We're a self-financed band, so unfortunately, we have to finance our recordings ourselves. To record an album we have to play a lot of concerts, which, in its turn, distracts us from recording an album."
But Fyodorov disagrees with the stereotype that bands should release regular studio recordings. "We don't write songs for the sake of writing. We try to record strange things because we don't want to repeat ourselves -- and you're always close to repeating yourselves in our genre, as pop music has many limitations," he said.
"Releasing an album every year has been a contractual demand by the recording industry for several decades since the introduction of LPs. It is only linked to business, nothing else," he said. "After all, a writer can take 10 years off and then publish a work of genius."
Tequilajazzz plays Fri. at 9 p.m. at Ikra, located at 8A Ulitsa Kazakova. Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 778-5651.
"The name has nothing to do with geography," Fyodorov said of "Berlin" and its title song. "It's a figure of speech for how the song's hero feels, as is usual in our songs. Just as before our song 'Aviation and Artillery' had nothing to do with the armed forces, this one has nothing to do with Berlin."
Recalling the explicitly political songs of Obyekt Nashmeshek, Fyodorov argued they still hit home. "Komsomol Card" was a harsh attack on the Soviet youth organization that "would sound relevant now if addressed to the current Kremlin-backed youth organizations," he said.
But he describes his new songs as "a departure into romantic, Gumilyov-style stuff," referring to the exotic, romantic verses of Nikolai Gumilyov, a Silver Age poet shot by the Bolsheviks in 1921.
"It could be called cultural escapism, perhaps," he said, "but one can recall the fate of Gumilyov himself, whose end was eventually determined by the political situation. So it's all interrelated."
Even if the band's new songs do not deal with politics, at live performances Fyodorov often comments on current affairs, whether it is election violations or the "dubious" victory of the Sochi 2014 Olympic bid.
"I don't have any nostalgia for the [Soviet] political regime, the so-called stability," he said. "It's obvious that the Soviet Union is coming back or rather is being re-enforced, and I feel deep disappointment," he said.
The long break that Tequilajazzz took before recording their new album was partly due to lack of funds, Fyodorov said. "We're a self-financed band, so unfortunately, we have to finance our recordings ourselves. To record an album we have to play a lot of concerts, which, in its turn, distracts us from recording an album."
But Fyodorov disagrees with the stereotype that bands should release regular studio recordings. "We don't write songs for the sake of writing. We try to record strange things because we don't want to repeat ourselves -- and you're always close to repeating yourselves in our genre, as pop music has many limitations," he said.
"Releasing an album every year has been a contractual demand by the recording industry for several decades since the introduction of LPs. It is only linked to business, nothing else," he said. "After all, a writer can take 10 years off and then publish a work of genius."
Tequilajazzz plays Fri. at 9 p.m. at Ikra, located at 8A Ulitsa Kazakova. Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 778-5651.
FONTE(photo include): The Moscow Times - Russia
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