Momus

Yet another my favorite love song, that followed me through my romantic years... from the same video-tape...

Sugarcubes

Very soon after I discovered Bjork that very same sister's friend brought us a tape of the band she used to sing in before. I don't know why noone of us did copy it, since we both liked it very much, but at least later on we had the video of our favorite song alongside all the 4AD artists and some others that I'll be posting further on... that video-tape was indeed a treasure chest of discoveries...

 

Einsturzende Neubauten

Today's tune is from an album that was brought to my sister by the same friend that discovered for us Portishead a few months earlier...

"They're actually playing every metal or stone object in sight?!"... "Hold on, this guy is... from Nick Cave's Bad Seeds!"... "This is heavy as hell and there's almost no rock instruments used!..."

This was my introduction to industrial as well as the exciting world of new musical sounds. I also think that this record on behalf of the series of articles in "MG" about electronic music production, was the main inspiration to my first electronic experiments, which were very much based on sounds, taken from computer games - "Warcraft II" and "Shattered Steel"... But all that was a bit later...

All the while, in the middle of a 45-minute side of the cassette with the heaviest and darkest music I've ever heard, I discovered this incredibly beautiful ballad - one of my favorite love songs of all time:

Kristin Hersh

January 1997, the winter vacation and the winter camp were the beginning of an exciting period and a mind-blowing year in my life. Previous two years seemed like a rehearsal for the serious turn in my life.

I was falling in love with special girls that I met around, but was too shy to talk about my feelings. Those love affairs pushed my creativity to incredible levels, which later turned into music, visual arts and attempts at poetry. The first girl to blow my mind and make my heart bloom was Katya Volkova from Vitebsk. Her eyes had different colours, she was always around Ilya, a huge fan of The Doors, she called him Jim. And I called her Kate Bowie. Eccentric and loving flower child, she constantly spread euphoric atmosphere around her. Later, when I saw this video amongst other 4AD artists, the singer's face reminded Kate's so strongly that I was thinking of her each time I saw this video.

Note: The only place, where I could find this video, is some Bulgarian website, which is a bit slow. So, be patient and give it a time to load. :)

Dead Can Dance

And, of course, the song following Cocteau Twins was this one. It very much connected me back to the chamber music that my dad used to listen to and the classical music that I was playing on piano.

Cocteau Twins

Alongside The Breeders on the same video-tape there was an array of clips by other artists from the same label. That's how I discovered 4AD an a whole bunch of my new favorite names:

The Breeders

Something else from our video-tapes of early 1997. At the same time I was making my first failing attempts at songwriting with the band that still had no name... Funny enough that this particular video was one of the first to push me towards sound experimentation... "HEY! That's an acoustic guitar plugged into distortion! Why wouldn't WE try it?"

Blur

I must admit that sometimes I'm not exactly sure that I'm tracking the chronology correctly... so maybe I should put it aside at times and just concentrate on the songs themselves...

No so much can I tell about the next band, except that back then I knew that they were Oasis' biggest competitors, just as assholes as them, pretentious and, unlike Oasis, pretty snobbish followers of The Beatles' musical tradition. However, they somehow sounded more interesting to me than Oasis. Much more interesting. The cassette with their eponymous album could have remained in my collection to this day, if I wouldn't have lost it. But my very first meeting with the band was again through my sister's video-tapes:

Sex and Violence

I don't know what to tell about today's song, except that Ilya discovered it for me from my sister's collection. Well, you know... back then if you saw a skull or a cemetery on the cover you wouldn't think that it's a punk record... more of a metal one... :)

Tequilajazzz

Today's late evening tune is from an album that I've discovered in the very same issue of "MG", where I found the "Evil Empire" review.

Despite all the western alternative music that I was so driven by, I was still in Minsk, Belarus, ex-USSR and I was very aware of the music coming from the ex-Sovied territory. Russia, mostly, of course. Since I was studying at the Jewish school in European country, I had one tiny privilege over kids from regular schools - free Saturday. Well, I always had a piano class this day, but that was the ONLY school activity for that day. So Saturday morning was beginning with TV and weekend morning shows. So on Saturdays fro a few years there was a quite odd morning show that was sort of an absurd collage of animation, live in-studio performances of local rock bands and interviews with them between the songs, later they included episodes from Monty Python's Flying Circus, then they were replaced with episodes from a Spanish show "Gomaespuma"... Sssso... the first time I saw this show, they hosted this cool hardcore band from St.-Petersburg.

Back then, with Ilya's help I was very much getting hooked on hardcore, but looking for a band that sounded less metal (like Biohazard or "King for a Day..."'s Faith No More) and more "pure" hardcore (which I didn't exactly know how it's supposed to sound, but i guess RATM was the answer, after all). And this SPB band was just exactly what I needed. They have become the only contemporary Russian band that I followed with dedication, buying every album and listening to it hundreds of times. Their sound was changing with every new record (every year!) and still, it only reflected what my musical search was demanding.

It is possible, that many of you won't be as impressed by this song as I am, for the lyrics in Russian rock were always a very strong element. You'll just have to trust me then... :)

Evil Empire

One of the first album reviews I read in "MG" pretty quickly led me to buying the cassette. This album brought me closer to hip hop as well as protest music. As Belarus was slowly rolling down into dictatorship, I was slowly moving towards anarchism.

Oddly enough, until about 2000 I didn't know that there was one more song before this one on the album. For me this hymn was and always remains... no, not the opener - the door-smasher of this album!

Prodigy

One day among MTV clips I saw this weird guy shouting to a rave beat with heavy rock guitars. He had a reverse mohawk, phat eyeliner and piercing in his nose. But the music wasn't sounding like those Thunderdome compilations - it was more like a rock song, performed on electronics. The TV-host said that Prodigy ("that's the name of the guy?") have released a new song. In a few months, at the Jewish Agency's winter camp, I heard this name again. I can't remember from whom copied the tape, but this album soon led me to my second "break out", now - into the world of electronic music.

Babylon Zoo

Oh! I've just remembered another long lost band that I discovered from TV back in 1996. And I had their album for quite some time! Well... until I couldn't listen to it anymore... :)

Batman

Although I had two great sources of great underground music, my update on new music was still mostly from the small bits I saw on TV. This song drove my attention to U2 and Batman movies. But after years it and their "War" album, that my sister had, remained the only thing I like about this band. Just because "War" was still more of a post-punk album that wasn't pretending to teach the world anything, and this song just had a great chorus. And I guess this was one of the first songs to actually drive my attention to movie soundtracks as the source of exclusive material that was never released on artists' full albums. I'll get back to it further on.

Did I ever manage to watch "Batman Forever" because of loving this song? No, - I stopped after "Batman Returns". :)

Hippy Hippy Shake

Now, this was also my turn on the video: My first video-tape was beginning with Nirvana of course - a legendary collage "Live! Tonight! Sold Out!" and "In Utero"-time MTV concert. Then, on Belorussian TV-channel there was a show, dedicated to the news of cinema and home video. They were often opening and ending the show with some rare music clips and once in a while they were doing an all-music-video special. I've recorded the first one almost entirely. There were many clips by the bands that I've never heard before. Like this, for example:

Marigold

Like I said, coming back to school in fall 1996 was a whole new experience: Hours of new music flowing through my ears and a close friend that encouraged me to start creating my own. But what kind of song can a boy with 7 years of classic piano write? I didn't know how to play guitar... I couldn't even tune it... but I had ideas in my mind...

So, when I discovered that one of the new kids in our class - Kostya - was a guitar player, I didn't hesitate much to offer him to form a band. He brought in his friend - also a guitar player. Kostya was a fan of Guns'N'Roses, but open enough for the grungy stuff. Even before our first rehearsal ever, he brought me an issue of a newspaper that I've never seen before. Its title was simply "Musical Newspaper" (translated from Russian) or as we were used to call it later - "Muzykalka" or "MG" (this is how I'll be calling it in further posts, so don't be confused). This issue had a huge article about rare and unreleased Nirvana material. This is where I've read about the b-sides that I've never heard yet, and this is where I've learned about the forthcoming compilation "From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah". I've read some other articles and reviews, and was so amazed by the variety of genres and very dedicated writing that the next week I bought a copy for myself... and the week after too... and then again... From the late 1996 till July of 1999, every week I was taking a hit of musical knowledge from this newspaper. But back in late 1996 the explosion was just about to begin.

Citizen Fish

While copying Operation Ivy, I liked the ska-punk combination that I've heard there, so I immediately asked for something else. The "something else" was from the UK this time.

Operation Ivy

Despite Bjork, Kris Kross, Portishead, Happy Hardcore and my sister's collection of David Bowie videos, most music that I was listening to was still punk and grunge. And Ilya Aronov was the best source for such music.

"Green Day sucks! Check these guys out - they do some REAL positive punk. And also they combine it with ska, which only makes it beter, and they have a message."

Kris Kross

I can't remember exactly how and why, but together with Bjork's "Post" from the same girl from the school I took a rap cassette. I don't know how was it in the other places, but back in the mi-90s in Belarus the dividing line between youth group was defined by the musical style and it was VERY thick. You couldn't have a long hear and listen to rap or "rave". You couldn't wear baggies and likes alternative music. Everyone was jealous for their style. And, no matter what group you belonged to, only one enemy was worse than the others - skinheads, because they would beat you without any relation to your musical taste - in their eyes it all was alien and not patriotic.

However, they're not the case here. I'm talking about rap. So, yes, I've copied this cassette and for another year it remained the only hip hop album in my collection. I absolutely not ashamed by the fact that this is actually the first hip hop album in my collection. It most possibly turned me on a certain kind of vibe in rap and that's why I never liked the gangsta stuff since. The more funky and positive it was - the better.

But it took another couple of years for the whole hip hop thing to begin for me more seriously.

Post

So, yeah, I discovered Bjork at the age of 14 - "Post" and "Debut" simultaneously. And with the time her music was only growing on me more and more. The more details I was hearing in her music, the more lyrics I was understanding, the deeper her influence was growing. I even think that she was one of the main motivations for me to start writing poetry.

Bjork

Alright, moving on: summer of 1996 was over and I was back to school. With a lot of new music and a few new buddies from the higher grades, who were already regulars at the Sokhnut and HaShomer summer (and winter) camps, as well as the growing up HaShomer youth club downtown.

These were the people with whom I could exchange music. And one of the first artists that such exchange drove my attention to was actually already in my sister's collection as well. But despite the expressive looking girl on the cover (of a licensed Israeli cassette), I still didn't give it enough attention. Or maybe I just wasn't prepared yet to hear the voice and the words that will soon become a recorded equivalent of my feelings. I've heard both of her first albums almost at the same time. I will not be posting the hit songs, but instead - those that deeply touched me, those that I could quote in many situations I've had in life.

Here's one of them:

Sonic Youth

So, I asked for Sonic Youth and the next time Ilya came over I copied their album. We had too little time and too much music to copy, so I had to copy it on a double speed to one of the least qualified cassettes I had, and I forgot to write the album title.

Does anyone of you remember this annoying ability of tape recorders to freak out and "chew" tapes? Well, this happened to so many cassettes in my collection. And I guess, everyone has a story about it. So my saddest story is about this album: The moment I had it, I was listening to it a lot. One day in the middle of a climax of this song (that I'm posting) my tape player decided to "chew" it. Alright, no problem. You stop the tape, take the cassette out, carefully release the tape from the insides of the player, straighten it up as much as you can and roll it back inside with a pencil. As I played the tape again, it chewed it in the same place. When I started releasing it, I found out that it's got caught so tight inside that it was simply torn apart.

As much I've tried to find this album again, I just didn't know what to look for. Ilya had a few of their albums, so he couldn't exactly recall what I've copied. I didn't have enough friends that hip to help me find it (although this led me to my another SY favorite - "Washing Machine"), so I had no chance to hear this album again up until mid-2000s, when I intuitively took a CD of "Daydream Nation" from my friend's collection and suddenly heard familiar tunes.

Pixies

Despite all the goods I've heard, in 1996, my daily music diet was still full of Nirvana and Sex Pistols.

"You must hear Pixies - that's where Nirvana sound came from",- said Ilya one day. Of course, I jumped on it without a question. 90-minues cassette: side A - "Trompe Le Monde", side B - "Doolittle". I liked them both a lot, but side A was my favorite. "I also want that Sonic Youth, that you told me about."

Down on the Upside

It's still not too late to post the next song of the day!

Another great album I discovered from Ilya Aronov, was by the band that I already knew from the MTV hit parade segments. The video for "Black Hole Sun" used to scare the shit out of me, when I was 11. But this album (which became their last and the least appreciated by their fans), in my opinion, is a psychedelic masterpiece, that stands on the same line with "One Hot Minute". I think, I wouldn't dig early Black Sabbath, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly and other heavy psych so much, if not this record.

This is the closing song of the album - one of my favorite:

Oasis

I'll try to be short this time:

Oddly enough, today's song is by a band that I don't really like, and many people like to hate. For a reason. But back in 1996, like many kids (especially those who grew up on The Beatles), I was hooked up on "Don't Look Back in Anger" and I've had "What's the Story..." in my collection. When I met Ilya, he claimed that their first album was much more interesting and less pop. After all, there remained only one song that I really liked. Few years later, this and Radiohead's "High and Dry" would become my first sampled drum breaks.

The Bends

Oh, the summer of 1996! So many things happened to me in such a short period of time!

So, my sister was back home. On her birthday parents bought her a new stereo-system, which led to me officially inheriting the old one, that we brought from Germany in 1991 (that moved to my room at certain point, since she was abroad). It had two tape decks and a record player, so I was already regularly copying music from some friends at school.

After enjoying the HaShomer summer camp in 1995, I went to the Jewish Agency camp the following winter. And this summer I went to both - the JA camp in June and later - HaShomer camp in July. To the second I already took with me a small radio-tape and a few of my new favorites from the sister's collection. Oh what an amazing time it was! I met there my first love - Ola, and I met there my first really close friend and musical mentor - Ilya Aronov from Grodno. He was a real freak - an explosive combination of Jim Morrison and John Lydon, he was a real inspiration for me in many ways. We've lost contact, since I moved to Israel, but as I look back I realize how deep his influence was. The music that I first discovered from him may seem to obvious for now, but back then it wasn't so known in my area. You see, Minsk is the capital, but it lies right in the middle of Belarus, while Grodno is very close to the Polish border, and it often was the first stop on the way of western import to Belarus - in many terms, not only music. So, what was hard to find in Minsk, was all over the place in Grodno and at least half a year earlier. Names, like Threapy?, Dead Kennedys, Faith No More, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance were absolutely new to me. As often as Ilya was coming to Minsk for visit, most of the time we were spending copying tapes: me - from him, and him - from my sister.

One of the first things I copied was an album that (as I found out later) had a track order entirely different from the original one. It was very poetic, but at the same time very expressive and full of contrast changes. That's what I liked about this album, and that's what I was missing on this band's next album, which was their global breakthrough. At least I can say that I was among the first kids of my age, that heard this band before it was insanely popular.

Phhhhhew.... what a long story! Enough mind fuck - here's the song that was opening the b-side of my cassette:

Angel

Don't you be confused by the electronic stuff I'm posting here - 80% of the music I was listening to was still grunge, punk and even brit-pop. Nothing too obscure, no cult groups - only music that was defined as "alternative rock" in the mid-90's. I still was following the fashion and most of this stuff left almost no memories.

1996 saw the rise of Happy Hardcore. With Marusha's cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and Scooter's cover of "Rebel Yell" making noise in the charts, the market was flooded with Happy Hardcore compilations. In my sister's collection I found a tape of (still unidentified) Thunderdome compilation and my parents thought that it will ruin my intelligence. But all this still wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

I had a small radio-tape and I was occasionally recording songs that sounded good to me. One day I caught a tune that was very different from all the happy hardcore stuff - the beat was not straight and the vibe was more expressive and more musical. In a few months, when I was copying some more interesting music to the same tape, I accidentally erased almost all the tune, leaving only the very ending of it. It took me another 2 years to find out, who was the artist and find this album, but I guess, this tune pretty much defined my taste in dance-floor music - I just couldn't stand the 4/4 beat any more.

Portishead

We're moving further: The summer of 1996 and the following autumn were so full of new music, that it's hard to remember the exact chronological order, so I think I'll be posting songs a bit more randomly.

With my sister's return, another important thing that came back to our flat was her often visiting friends. One of them was regularly bringing with him interesting music. In about a year, his collection will become the main source for my introduction to electronic music, but now, he brought us a tape of something very extraordinary. A British band that combined the vibe I liked in grunge with the beat and scratching I heard in hip hop. "If all hip hop sounded like this, I'd definitely like it more", I thought to myself. I took some time until I found my match, but this album definitely opened the gates to the next step of my musical development.

Ten Years of Toys

Like I said, my sister's newly arrived tape collection has become a deep source of new music. By word "new" I generally mean things that I was never listening to before. This also brought me back to the music that I first heard from her - punk and post-punk. Needless to post here a Sex Pistols song - it's obvious. But I also found out that the 1980's Toy Dolls are SO MUCH MORE PUNK and SO MUCH MORE FUN than the 90's Green Day!

White Noise

So, as you understand, I've started my way into the world of alternative music. By the summer of 1996 I've had all the classics in my collection: "Unplugged in New York", "Incesticide", "Bleach" and, finally, "Nevermind", Offspring, Green Day, Metallica (black album), Oasis, some compilations, I've also had some Russian rockers in my collection. Ironically, most of these cassettes by the end of 1996 were erased for the sake of more interesting stuff.

In the summer of 1996, after graduating from school my sister decided to not accept Israeli citizenship and came back to Minsk. With her she brought a massive music collection, which again has become a deep source of never heard before things, and one of the first things I jumped on, was a mysterious tape that I've already heard from her room. There was no tracklist, no title, the only thing, written on it was "White Noise"...