Interview with Yura Sobolev of
Yura Sobolev interviewed by Olga Axyutina, November 16, 1998. Taken from the book "Pank-virus v Rossii" (Punk Virus In Russia) by Olga Axyutina, Moscow, 1999, pp. 175-181. Translated by Szarapow.
BRIGADNIY PODRYAD
? When and how did your band start?
- Brigadniy Podryad formed in June 1986. They'd recorded an album at home studio of Fyodor "Begemot" (Begemot band) which Fyodor produced, and then the guitarist had been drafted.
The first lineup has been like this: Said (Igor Saikin) on drums, Dima Babich - bass guitar, Kolya Mihailov - vocals, Santyor (Sasha Lukianov) on guitar.
He was drafted, and at about the same time I came back from the army and started recording some little songs on my tape recorder, through the friends it reached Begemot, and Podryad was quiet at the time, they were looking for a guitarist. So I was offered to them, we met right after the New Year and started to rehearse right away.
For the Summer I went to a pioneer camp to get some kicks, everybody was minding their own business, and I thought that it all quietly died because from January until Summer we rehearsed but didn't play a single gig. When I got back it turned out that Said with two musicians from some band played at some little boat. Said wasn't so much a drummer as a showman - a bundle of energy. He turned everybody on all the time. But as a drummer... He drummed with the same speed (laughs) and he physically couldn't play any faster, but still he managed to organize a debut concert - at Gaz House Of Culture I think. A nightmare of a concert. The factory girls went to a discotheque with their lads, and there are some folks they couldn't understand, trying to play something. That was in late 1987.
Then I went to work at a House Of Pioneers' theater complex (I was always working in theaters as a fitter or stage machinist). So everything got quiet again. But I had some backlog of songs and I simply went to Babich. Babich bought a reel to reel tape recorder and we were recording it all live. In general, it was a nightmare of an album. Kolya played bass, Babich drummed, I played guitar and at the same time sang - all of us were doing someone else's work. And about half of this album was included in the new Podryad set. So with this old set from 1986 we joined the Rock Club in spring of 1988, after Narodnoe Opolchenie. And our gig was marked by a good fight (laughs) between Pushkin from Front and Titov from Aquarium. Everything went on like this.
There were three bands that were supposed to be "the hope of young Leningrad rock" - Narodnoye Opolcheniye, Durnoye Vliyaniye and Brigadniy Podryad. But the people in Podryad were so uncontrollable that it couldn't go on well. What's more, our singer was Nikolay Mihailov's (the president of Rock Club) namesake and there was always something happening. (laughs) For instance, the sexually transmitted and skin diseases prophylactic center was looking for Kolya or the police was going to fine him for some shop-window he broke - and all the papers were going to the Rock Club. [...]
The normal gigs that can be marked were at Rock Club (we once played at their big hall) (laughs) and the Winter Stadium at the VI Festival of Leningrad Rock Club.
But the gigs generally were a nightmare. No one could play - no practice. We rehearsed at apartments. All the rehearsals were twice a month or 3 times in 2 months. (laughs) And they tended to end with someone calling for police to disperse us. No one had proper instruments.
Then I met the band Tainoye Golosovaniye ("Secret Voting"). Their singer Sasha nicknamed Koniyak also played bass, I invited him to try something. We were trying all kinds of singers. Nothing worked. In the Autumn Begemot gave me a phone number of Valera Trushin - he was about 17 then. He turned out to be a very energetic drummer, he grasped everything quickly. He grew up literally in three months from a zero level. So the three of us... I wrote enough new songs for a 40-minute set. While we were looking for a vocalist I sang myself. We found a singer - he squealed some heavy metal stuff. He came to the rehearsal and then disappeared somewhere. It turned out that he was stabbed by a knife when he was coming back home. As always, you don't have a smoke when you need it.
Well. The late eighties were a gloomy time as far as gopniks (=rednecks, jocks) are concerned.
Kolya Mihailov once came to our rehearsal - just to see what we were doing. (Podryad was on a hiatus then). He listened and said: "Lemme sing". He sang. We started to think about the name. We were called Dohliy Nomer ("Dead Trick") before that. And Kolya said: "What are we thinking? Let's call ourselves Brigadniy Podryad".
And Dima Babich (after the stadium gig he developed some nervous disease, and he left the band) went nuts step by step. So it happened that Koniyak joined Podryad.
? Why did you decide to take such a name ("Brigade Contract")?
- The band was all made of slogans. All the refrains were the slogans that Gorbatchev invented. For instance, "Sobriety is a norm of life", all that perestroika stuff. The band was social, topics of the day. Songs had titles like "Public Feeding".
We then had to translate the name for Germany (laughs)... For foreigners it's totally unpronounceable.
Then we said to Said: "C'mon, you'll now be our manager, and Trushin will play drums". Said refused and he got offended, as it always happens. So thus we had the lineup. The most active period - it was 1989. A young man full of ambitions and complexes, Pyotr Novik, came and started to establish himself. He was organizing us gigs, out of town gigs. He made us three out of town gigs. For the first one he went with a friend who was hiding from our crew in the corners. We got settled in a women's hostel, on the 1st floor. We started a pillow fight right away. All the pillows flew out the window. (laughs) After this debauchery we were moved to a hotel where we naturally broke everything in the end.
We got so drunk there... I can't remember how we went on stage. The concert didn't happen. (laughs) We didn't have the sound switched on cause there was only some obscenities heard from the stage. The people were getting kicks. I can't remember how we got back to the hotel either. At the night Sobaka Tse-Tse (the band we went with) woke us up: "The police is coming for you, let's move". So in the night we went through these dark side-street - and the gopniks were also there, at night they don't have much to have fun with... we all returned on different trains.
Then in Summer 1989 we went to Kalinin (now called Tver). We arrived on Sunday. We see - the river enbankment, and gangs of grown-up men fight among themsleves. We stand there and can't understand anything. We ask the passers by - it's the city day, people's festival, no one gets involved with that, the folks are having fun. And they have a big sports complex there. We go inside - the stands, a stage, but no equipment. We're thinking: "Wow, cool! What a big hall! But when are they going to put the equipment?" We had to play in 4 hours. We go out into a foyer and there's this small stage, and a piece of fabric hangs that says, in foil, "Our Discotheque". (laughs) And so we had to play there. Which we did.
And after that there was the best thing - Kahovka (in Ukraine). We got there by plane. We were met by a Volga car from the Regional Committee of Communist Party. We were given a central room at the floating pier there with a half-round window on the whole wall. What was groovy there was wine that cost 1,1 ruble (cca. $1,8 by official exchange rate; average monthly salary was between 100 and 200 rubles then). We bought 17 bottles of that wine and got wasted the first day we arrived. Then we played a good gig, the people dug us. But in the evening the guys got drunk and went to kick up a row on stage. The headliners were Matrosskaya Tishina ("Sailors Silence") from Moscow, they were filmed by local TV. So our guys got on stage, started trying to sing along, snatching the instruments out of their hands, like, "C'mon let's jam together". We got deprived of a right to perform at the final concert of this Serpen festival. [...] So we're sitting there, the mood isn't great. Nothing to do. We swam there, though. Making fun of Pyotr. Every morning we ritually threw Pyotr into the Dnepr. We sit there on our suitcases, the bands are rocking out and then these members of the Komsomol run to us: "C'mon, run, you got a permission to perform". Everybody played, and the people screamed all the time: "We want Brigadniy Pordyad from Leningrad", so they let us go.
Back home we made a rehearsal room at NCh / VCh squat, a fan of a band helped us put it together. The instruments were very hard to get then. A stinking "Diamand" guitar cost 600 rubles ($1000). So almost no one had good instruments. For a couple of years I played "Aelita" guitar, okay. Then I bought a Czech "Star 7", then a "Diamand". As for the other equipment, it was trouble. I ended up entering a forged marriage and for the money from that I bought the "coffins" from the band Zoopark.
And everything's got powerful in a moment. In May we recorded an album at that NCh / VCh. And another one in the Autumn. At that squat many bands rehearsed - mainly underground and basement collectives - thrashers, metalheads, young punks. Yugo-Zapad was in the next room. [...] All that was done by Boris Sumarokov - with a bundle of papers and receipts. So, for instance, the cops come to kick out and arrest everyone. The folks get Sumarokov: "Help us". He digs in his bundle: "There". Another question: "What's with Sanitary Epidemiology Station?" Etc. He had all the papers. In the Winter everyone sits and rocks. Dark, the light was often switched off. And in the Spring you go there, and some greenish, very thin, totally tattooed punks, metalheads get out from the basement, like a tired butterfly, sitting by the wall. It was a terrible thing to look at. It had to be filmed. That squat existed for some 18 - 24 months.
And "Podryad"... No one did anything new, everyone was very passive. I did one gig at the House Of Culture Of Workers Of Food Industry - I spent so much nerves, energy, and at the end the people thrashed the hall, and for some reason the band had to pay - a 300 ruble ($500) fine. For us it was a lot of money. The drum set was arrested as a guarantee. So everything died away. A tour in Germany broke down - we didn't have the passports and money.
There was a German girl named Sabine who was taking the young talents abroad as cultural exchange - Vostok-1 (Gusev's project) and Durnoye Vliyaniye had to go. One of them couldn't go so Podryad was recommended. The German band Mix Double came here. We had to play together, and we're specific people - horrible looking and all... The Germans were shocked: "They're right-wing extremists". [...] But we were very apolitical and no one was anyone. Yet they were shocked: "They're some crazy people". They called us right-wing and cancelled the invitation.
I got very upset then and I thought I won't call anyone, let them call themselves when they would feel like it. So for 5 months no one called, and I sold our rehearsal room with all the equipment, decided to leave the music. So everything ended in 1990.
Valera Trushin formed Birotsefaly, Kolya recorded albums with the lads at home. And I was making solo recordings - I made a lot of them, 'cause the tape recorder could make 4 overdubs.
[...] With old Podryad I didn't get anything except nervous wreck. I had such a negative attitude, I didn't like the audience, and all... I'm a homely person, to be honest. The heck do I need all these adventures. There were situations with Kolya getting into a fight, I get to defend him and I come to senses at the police station cause I got my head kicked in, while Kolya sleeps at home ok. I lost a guitar this way. [...]
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