"Only the Wildest and Craziest": Kuryokhin's Neo-Avant-Garde on the Russian Radio

1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:05,360 ...jazz musicians, or avant-gardists. 2 00:00:05,520 --> 00:00:06,880 I'd like to think 3 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,480 that our program is very avant-garde and cool. 4 00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:12,960 I would even call it radical. 5 00:00:13,120 --> 00:00:14,840 Our program is dedicated to 6 00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:19,400 the most unbelievably radical music of all times and all peoples. 7 00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:22,000 We go from the early Medieval period 8 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:25,520 right up to post-post-post punk and post-industrial 9 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:28,600 mixed with thrash, heavy, and death metal. 10 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:34,120 Basically, we'll take any facet of musical life 11 00:00:34,280 --> 00:00:36,280 from any age or nation... 12 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,280 As long as it was radical in its time. 13 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:43,320 It would be just as appropriate to listen to the Sex Pistols, 14 00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:47,760 who were radicals in their time, as it would be to listen to Bach, 15 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:49,600 - who was also... - Bach? 16 00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:54,640 - Bach? - He was also extremely radical in his time. 17 00:00:54,800 --> 00:00:58,840 Plus, we will be hosting a whole variety of guests. 18 00:00:59,000 --> 00:01:01,360 These will be famous pioneers 19 00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:04,720 and people who can tell us extraordinary things. 20 00:01:04,880 --> 00:01:07,560 People who have made their mark on music, 21 00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:11,680 - both in Russia and globally. - Of course, and we'll also bring 22 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:13,520 new names to the fore. 23 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:15,960 That is, people who for whatever reason 24 00:01:16,120 --> 00:01:19,360 sit undeservedly in the shadows, 25 00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:23,200 having been major pioneers and innovators in their time. 26 00:01:23,360 --> 00:01:26,640 People who for some ideological or commercial reason 27 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:30,320 have been relegated to the bottom shelf, 28 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:34,600 and whose creations are unavailable to today's listener. 29 00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:38,080 Right, that's the introduction over. 30 00:01:38,200 --> 00:01:40,400 Let's get into our first 31 00:01:40,680 --> 00:01:43,640 avant-garde, alternative, radical piece. 32 00:01:43,800 --> 00:01:46,080 I disagree with that characterization. 33 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:50,840 What does "alternative" mean? I just don't get it. 34 00:01:51,000 --> 00:01:53,280 It must be alternative to something. 35 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:55,520 - Yes... - But we have no alternative. 36 00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:58,600 What we're going to listen to is very traditional. 37 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:02,800 It's very traditional, elegant, beautiful, and sad. 38 00:02:02,960 --> 00:02:05,920 And I would say that's what makes it radical. 39 00:02:06,160 --> 00:02:09,360 Actually, all music is radical, as we were just saying. 40 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:14,120 You have to understand it in the context in which it is situated. 41 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:18,360 That's the starting point for identifying what's radical. 42 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:22,560 Fine, but why can one piece of music not be alternative to another? 43 00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,640 I mean, this piece, the first number on this record, 44 00:02:26,800 --> 00:02:29,400 might be alternative to to our next one. 45 00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:32,840 Yes, within the context of the program. 46 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,680 I don't dispute the context. 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,880 Looking at the name, this is the piece that... 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,240 We actually played two pieces that ran into each other. 3 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:09,880 The second piece is simply called About the Professor. 4 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:13,600 Speaking of professors, our listeners will remember 5 00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:17,000 that I promised them a guest last time. 6 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:19,920 And a guest they shall have! 7 00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:25,200 We had to work very hard to get this man into the studio 8 00:00:25,360 --> 00:00:29,920 because he's been hidden away for practically the last 20 years. 9 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:34,480 He's a fantastic musician, one of the greats. 10 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:38,560 He was a cult figure in 1950s Leningrad, 11 00:00:38,720 --> 00:00:41,920 a legend on the experimental music scene. 12 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,800 In recent years, he's been almost invisible. 13 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:49,360 He has long since changed his profession. 14 00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:53,080 He's a well-known doctor, 15 00:00:53,240 --> 00:00:56,720 though he's getting on a bit these days. 16 00:00:57,560 --> 00:00:58,920 Please welcome 17 00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:04,440 that infamous cult musician of the '50s, Vladimir Olegovich Volkov. 18 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:08,240 To his friends and those who love him, 19 00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:11,880 he is simply "Professor Volkov". Hello, Vladimir Olegovich. 20 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,120 Good evening, Seryozha and Sasha. I'm so grateful for the invitation. 21 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:20,880 It wasn't easy deciding whether or not to join you on air. 22 00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:25,200 I don't expect to be asked to speak on the radio these days. 23 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:30,640 And of course, back in our day, there weren't programs like this one. 24 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:37,040 They didn't broadcast radical, avant-garde music back then. 25 00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,800 Vladimir Olegovich, bear with us a moment. 26 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:43,840 I'm going to get into a bit of theory, I'm afraid. 27 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:46,000 Our listeners will forgive me. 28 00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:49,120 It seems to me that art, and music in particular, 29 00:01:49,280 --> 00:01:51,960 can only exist as a real, living organism. 30 00:01:52,080 --> 00:01:55,160 It has three essential elements: the traditional, 31 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:58,440 the mainstream in the center, and the avant-garde. 32 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:02,720 When one of these components is missing, especially in music, 33 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:05,040 the result is flawed. 34 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:08,320 Right now, all we have is the mainstream. 35 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:11,880 Our entire pop scene is... We have no avant-garde at all. 36 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,480 Avant-garde isn't commercially viable. 37 00:02:14,640 --> 00:02:18,440 Those who experimented in the past are no longer able to, 38 00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:24,160 because life is so hard that people are totally taken up by it. 39 00:02:24,280 --> 00:02:27,480 There's no room for experimentation, 40 00:02:27,640 --> 00:02:30,640 and no real tradition of it either. 41 00:02:30,800 --> 00:02:34,800 Except for Theremin, the brilliant acoustic engineer who invented 42 00:02:34,960 --> 00:02:38,120 an ingenious instrument, the Thereminvox, in the '20s. 43 00:02:38,200 --> 00:02:41,840 On the whole, we have no tradition of genuine experimentation 44 00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:46,080 as has always existed in the West, where all the radical thinkers 45 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:49,520 have that strong European tradition of the avant-garde. 46 00:02:49,680 --> 00:02:53,520 That's why there are so few people who have done things 47 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,200 that were truly unusual, strange, wild, 48 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:00,920 or even unthinkable at the time. 49 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:05,720 And that's why it's so important that we have people with us 50 00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:11,360 who can tell us about those times, what life was like, how it all happened. 51 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:13,840 I think this is just fascinating. 52 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,240 If I may, I just want to add that 53 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:20,800 I'm particularly interested to hear 54 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:25,880 how it all came about in what seems like the distant past to us now. 55 00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:29,120 - At least, to me as... - You weren't even born yet. 56 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:31,360 - Right. - And I was a kid. 57 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:35,000 I mean, as a representative of the younger generation. 58 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:39,640 I should also say that Vladimir Volkov started out as a jazz guitarist. 59 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:45,600 He played with several pop-symphony ensembles of the time. 60 00:03:45,760 --> 00:03:50,480 Notably, he did a long stint with Alexander Tsfasman's orchestra. 61 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:52,960 He worked briefly with Utyosov. 62 00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:55,800 Later, he played with a number of collectives 63 00:03:55,960 --> 00:04:00,880 while continuing to experiment. And these experiments... 64 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:03,080 But that's enough from me. 65 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:06,280 Seryozha, you're absolutely right. 66 00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:08,880 There's no avant-garde without tradition. 67 00:04:08,960 --> 00:04:13,320 It's like trying to produce an abstract painting 68 00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:16,320 having never been to art school. 69 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:21,080 It's dilettantism, or opportunism, I would say. 70 00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:26,560 The point is, there is tradition in the Russian avant-garde, 71 00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:29,920 in both the Soviet and contemporary avant-garde. 72 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:35,880 You just mentioned several famous musicians and conductors 73 00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:38,960 who were traditionally radicals. 74 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:41,800 I would say Utyosov was 75 00:04:42,640 --> 00:04:44,760 emotionally radical. 76 00:04:45,880 --> 00:04:48,920 And Tsfasman was intellectually radical. 77 00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:53,120 You may not have heard of the Pokrass brothers... 78 00:04:53,280 --> 00:04:55,000 Of course, we have. 79 00:04:55,160 --> 00:04:59,960 They had a wonderful jazz orchestra, and were radicals of the heroic genre. 80 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:03,040 Remember the song? "We're the red cavaliers..." 81 00:05:03,200 --> 00:05:05,000 - Of course. - There you go. 82 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:10,480 Believe it or not, these traditions fed into 83 00:05:10,640 --> 00:05:16,120 the subsequent timid development of the musical avant-garde in Russia. 84 00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:20,440 Vladimir Olegovich, could you tell us briefly what made you do it? 85 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,760 You were a famous musician, in wonderful orchestras. 86 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:29,880 So, what made you... My older friends have told me that 87 00:05:30,040 --> 00:05:33,320 you were the first to scrape a guitar in concert. 88 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:36,400 And there's a story about how you gave a concert 89 00:05:36,560 --> 00:05:40,000 during the war in a trench with Clavdiya Shulzhenko. 90 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:45,040 You played a 25-minute solo full of crazy twanging, 91 00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:49,360 squealing, grinding, the lot. Is this true, or is it a myth? 92 00:05:49,520 --> 00:05:54,280 It's partly true. Clavdiya and I parted ways after that 93 00:05:54,440 --> 00:06:00,680 because she didn't like that solo, and I took offense. 94 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:05,240 I actually started experimenting completely by accident. 95 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:11,840 The war was over and we were celebrating Victory Day. 96 00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:14,840 I was in a bombed out building in Berlin. 97 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:16,640 And I came across... 98 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:21,640 several records and some random magazines. 99 00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:24,160 Music magazines, in German. 100 00:06:24,320 --> 00:06:27,520 That's how I first learned there was this other music, 101 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:32,080 Western avant-garde music. This was the time, you remember... 102 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:35,640 Of course, you don't remember. It was the time of 103 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:39,280 - the Iron Curtain. - I lived a bit under the Iron Curtain. 104 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,480 - It wasn't so bad by then. - I caught the very end of it. 105 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:48,480 Anyhow, those recordings, those LPs, 106 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,080 are what got me searching. 107 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:54,920 - Also... - What was on those records? 108 00:06:55,040 --> 00:07:01,160 - That famous guitarist, Speedy West. - He's very famous. 109 00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,040 - Got going in the '40s, I know the guy. - Yes, so... 110 00:07:05,200 --> 00:07:09,920 I tried experimenting with steel guitar, but we had no steel guitars back then. 111 00:07:10,080 --> 00:07:11,920 It was funny, actually. 112 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:15,200 We held the body of the guitar to a table... 113 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:18,400 - You used a gas mask? - No, we held the body down, 114 00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:20,160 my bandmate shook the neck, 115 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:24,440 and we got a sound that was a bit like a steel guitar. 116 00:07:24,600 --> 00:07:28,760 - Sounds mental. - In fact, I think that 117 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,720 for the younger generation who make up most of our listeners 118 00:07:32,880 --> 00:07:36,400 this will be fascinating, because this is where 119 00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:39,640 our Russian avant-garde begins. It all starts here. 120 00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:41,760 These are its roots.