Russia’s Mumiy Troll were in Seattle earlier this month for their sold-out show at Chop Suey. I’m guessing they’ll play an even larger venue next time they come here. The very charming and very handsome performer/singer/composer and emperor of rockapops, Ilya Lagutenko sat down and talked with me before the show and I can’t recall what it was that initiated talk about the Russian Blue cat, but that’s where we started.

Ilya Lagutenko: They make the mistake and call them British.

Q: I used to have one of those cats.

IL: My wife has two of these and they are most unfriendly. It’s like that saying, dogs have bosses and cats have staff.

Q: That’s right. Are they nice to her?

IL: They’re nice to her – they’re nice to themselves mostly. They wait until all people leave the lounge and then they sit on the sofa and watch TV. The moment you get into the room they [leave].

Q: I was actually going to ask you about cats. I was reading about you being a spokesperson for Siberian tiger conservation. Have you been able to go see them?

IL: I saw them in the zoo but not in real life. I heard them in real life when I was in university and we did our ecological lessons. We had to study ecology. I studied Chinese – Mandarin and we went to the Far East of Russia, in the middle of nowhere. It used to be a pre-Chinese inhabitance. The weather was so bad – for a whole month. When you dig dirt for ecological purposes it has to be dry and if it rains you have to wait four or five days and sit and do nothing. One night we heard these really strange sounds and it’s not a dog – you don’t have dogs in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like a roar you hear in the movies. It’s kind of haunting. The next morning the local ranger told us not to go to that part because tigers had had a party, killed a wild boar – it was their space. They know you’re here and you know they’re here. It influenced my music style, in a way. I’ve been doing this charity work for the last seven years and it’s a Russian-British organization. I met with this lovely British lady who worries about our tigers more than any one in my hometown, which is supposed to be doing more than any one else. My hometown is mostly famous for its biggest rate of crime, the most political battles between mayors and governors, shortage of hot water in the winter. Now it’s all those demonstrations against economic policies. People always know about Vladivostok – even in Russia – only bad things. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just for some reason people only hear bad news about it.

Q: That’s terrible.

IL: That’s why I wrote one of the songs, Vladivostok 2000, a rock hymn. It became a big hit in the whole of Russia. And I do the charity – at least we’ll keep the tiger alive.


Lagutenko @ Chop Suey 2009 - photo by Dagmar

Q: When you first started in the Soviet Union you would get jailed for playing shows?

IL: Now when I try to remember those Soviet times it makes me laugh to be honest. When people tried to [say] music was bad and rock concerts are something like putting a swastika flag on the Kremlin. . . It was the same kind of mad idea – it could never happen. Rock music was a bad word. We didn’t really feel any ideological or political message, it was a game for us. It was a toy, for me personally. We were so secluded in Vladivostok. In Moscow and Saint Petersburg they had their big underground scenes. They had really big bands – some of them still going on now – and great musicians. In our hometown there’d never been a movement and I knew about the rock bands from Japanese magazines sailors would bring from Japan. You’d tune into AM radio and hear some American radio station which would broadcast for American soldiers in Okinawa and then [you’d] hear [static] and Michael Jackson and Rockwell. Somebody’s Watching Me - what a song. I still have tapes which I recorded from the radio. It was terrible quality. It was random music experiences – sometimes my mother used to have Elvis Presley or John Lennon solo albums and I remember we had this tape at home. On side A was Deep Purple Live in Japan and the other side was soundtrack to Emmanuelle, this erotic movie from the 70s. Both things were cool because it was so different from what you could hear on our radio and on our television. It gave you a landscape to dream and fantasize about something. It gives you inspiration. We created our own world without knowing what we should create. In the end we had two or three rock bands in town and we created our own club and we would see each other. In a way it’s similar to what’s going on now with the Internet. When you don’t have a big promotional tool, like television or a company with some idea of how to promote you . . . it was basically, I like this band and I can reference it to a friend. That’s probably why at some point we were as popular as, like, Black Sabbath. So coming back to the question about being jailed – it wasn’t for [us] being so scary it was just some people in our local communist party who were supposed to do reports for their bosses . . .we’re fighting western influences, these rotten capitalistic influences so what shall we do? Black Sabbath – banned. Mumiy Troll, what the hell? Banned. We were on the same scale. Every week young communists would go to meetings and say, those guys playing rotten western music, they’re bad guys. The government hates you and it feeds your teenage ego.

Q: Were your parents musical?

IL: Not at all actually. My father died when I was a small kid and my mother worked hard. She used to work in [today’s terms] the fashion industry but in those days there was no fashion industry in the Soviet Union. It was government orders to create people’s uniform. Basically she was designing dresses and stuff. For fun she designs for theaters. She was supportive of my music interests. The circle of her friends were artists so I grew up in a so-called Soviet bohemia, if there is any. Vladivostok is a port city, a sailor’s place. It’s a really young city.

Q: She let you go on a choir tour when you were a little kid? How old were you?

IL: Yeah, seven. It was my first tour of Russia.

Q: Did you decide then that you wanted to be involved in music?

IL: Not really. It was just for fun but at some point me and friends decided we’d like to be in a band but we understood that it’s not the thing to which to devote our lives. It would never work because you cannot be a musician on your own terms. At that time, to be in a band was like another galaxy. You have to choose your profession so I entered Far Eastern University to study Chinese and Chinese history. While I was studying the Soviet Union collapsed and everything went topsy-turvy. In one day all those ideals just collapsed. If yesterday you felt like Big Brother was watching you and you had to follow the orders and your bosses would check how you behave in society . . . in school we had not only marks for knowledge for math but behavior. Good, bad . . . you can study very well but not behave good. How they judge it was on their own terms. And suddenly there’s no country and no one to judge, you can do whatever you want. And what about work which you have to provide for me? Forget it. You just find it yourself. That’s why some people feel frustrated in Russia because at some point, okay we didn’t have enough choice and freedom but at the same time it was a predicted life. For many people it was okay. You have a flat and your factory will hire you for life. For me it was challenging because you can travel anywhere you want. I used to live in China and England. I used to work for an investment bank in London and I’ve been involved in building toll roads in China. You have too many things to try out. At some point I understood I wasn’t enjoying do all these entrepreneurial things. When I was in England a friend of mine said, let’s just record an album and release it in Russia. The music market started to grow and you can sell CDs, play music and sell tickets. Why not? We tried and we succeeded. Now it sounds too easy. It was probably the cheapest studio in London that we could find. When we brought it to Russian labels they said it was too western, too good and I said, before you told me it’s not quality enough. Ten years before it was too lightweight and ten years later it’s too serious and radical. Historically it was the biggest-selling indie album ever in Russia, which basically showed to other people in the business rock music can sell. Before that no one really believed rock music could sell in Russia. It was at the same time as all those British bands like Oasis so that’s why they call us Britpop in Russia because I did the album in London. It’s nothing to do with Britpop. Then all this stuff started about how I defined the music so I made up this term, rockapops. It still sounds Russian. Now I’m the emperor of rockapops. I’ve always been fascinated that someone created the term rock ‘n’ roll out of nothing.

Q: I haven’t seen the film you played a vampire in, Night Watch yet. Do you plan on more acting?

IL: I do not really enjoy acting, to be honest. Actors’ work is hard work and you’ve got a hundred people around you. You’ve got the director, who knows what you have to do. There are probably relations between actors and directors if you’re doing it full time but I’m not a natural-born actor. As a band, in a way, you’re free to do what you want to do. I was obsessed to see all my favorite bands from the 80s and it’s boring when you see it live. Great songs but live . . . lots of current bands, when they do the same stuff that’s on their records – do I really have to listen to the same quality CD? I like the real experience of today. I remember I saw U2 once and Bono was like, excuse me I’ve lost my voice, and I liked it more because I need energy, right now. It’s based on communication. We never rehearse, I think it’s a waste of time. The audience will never be the same, we’re never the same because me and you – we’re not the same tomorrow as today. For us that’s the most important thing, right here right now.
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Mumiy Troll returns to the States in March 2009.
More of my photos from the Chop Suey show can be seen here & here.

I had never heard of this band before Valentine's Day and though I am always up for hearing new music and seeing new bands, you never know what you're in for. The good news with Branden Daniel & Everybody Gets Laid is that I saw them at the Comet and was floored. It's not every day you see bands of this high caliber. Anywhere.

Go to their myspage page and listen to Love Button and Work Like Your Man. Hell, listen to all the songs.


Branden Daniel & EGL @ the Comet

They've got another show in Seattle on March 19th - this poster is for an appearance coming up in Portland:

I interviewed Jeremy Dawson (keyboardist/bassist) and Sisely Treasure (vocalist) of Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns after they performed in Seattle at Deck the Hall Ball 2008. It was kind of a chaotic yet fun evening for me and Shiny Toy Guns were a major highlight – I really love their sound and their show was just super. They’re heading to SXSW this year and fingers crossed they’ll add some dates around this appearance!

Q: I saw a youtube clip of the appearance you made on Yo Gabba Gabba – that was adorable.

Jeremy Dawson: Let me tell you how that started. We’ve always toured with Chad’s daughter [Ally] – she’s four now. She took her first steps going 70 mph. There were some guys who had a beta kids show that was unsigned and they had a demo called Yo Gabba Gabba. They already had the White Stripes and the Fame on board. They approached us in LA and told us how they had a kids’ show. We popped the dvd in and Ally was mesmerized. It’s a kids’ show that’s psychedelic. It’s like a modern parent’s kids’ show. What we didn’t know was that it was a Halloween show – well, we did know because they asked us to make a song but we didn’t know it was a costume thing. We were given a choice, so I was King Arthur the Knight and Chad was a banana. They painted his face yellow. They played it again this year – ratings-wise it was actually a big deal. Unfortunately they had to cut our name down to the Shinys because the word gun for a four-year-old . . . some parents get weird.


Jeremy Dawson

Q: What kind of toys did you have as children?

Sisely Treasure: A Sit ‘n Spin. There was another thing that you sit on and it had wheels – you could move it back and forth. . . going down hills in that one! I guess I’m some sort of weird motion-adrenaline junkie.


Sisely Treasure

JD: There was all these extra bricks and I was fascinated with the school bus. When I was in first and second grade I thought school buses were the coolest things in the world. So I would take these bricks and look at the holes in the bricks like they were windows of a bus, and draw the names of schools in the sand. There was a creek behind my house and I would build schools out of the sand and make bus routes. That’s what I played with all day. I would not ask for toys. My friends would come over and ask I would ask if they’d play with my bricks and they would say no. I was really into emulating an environment instead of buying a plastic replication.

ST: I really liked playing in the rain, in the garden with big plants – very Californian. It reminded me of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I always wanted to live in the rain forest, which is another story.
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Watch Jeremy & Sisely in the video for Ricochet! and check out more of my photos from Deck the Hall Ball 2008.

You many not know about Russia’s Mumiy Troll yet - but that is sure to change in 2009 if their American tour has anything to do with it.

If you don’t understand Russian at first listen you might be annoyed that you don’t know what singer Ilya Lagutenko is singing about. It’s easy though to appreciate Lagutenko’s vocals as another instrument of the band. Their newest CD Comrade Ambassador has a lyric book included with an English translation by Lagutenko himself.


Ilya Lagutenko & Eugene Zvidionny

The show at Chop Suey was sold-out and the crowd was overwhelmingly Russian. Not just people of Russian descent but Russians, from Russia, speaking Russian. It was like being in a different country for one night. Mumiy Troll’s fans were possessive of their spots in the crowd – no one milled around down in front and no one gave an inch – if you did, you’d lose your ground. They knew the lyrics and proved it by singing along. They danced and shouted and I was impressed by how dressed up the women were. Even the men were dressed up. And drinking hard liquor – not the usual beer of Seattle crowds. Two women down in front got into a fight.


Yuri Tsaler

Mumiy Troll as a live band is something you really need to witness. By the end of the show they had launched into a non-stop five strong song swell of something that was like a Led Zeppelin crossed with Nirvana crossed with Black Sabbath breakdown. It was, to put it mildly, awesome. Singer Ilya Lagutenko is a shocking showman – he uses every single atom to get across his emotion.

Koroleva Roka was brilliant - as were Vladivostok 2000, Utekai and Oh, Paradiso. My text editor mangles the Cyrillic alphabet but you can see the set list here. Mumiy Troll will return to the States with shows in Los Angeles and an appearance at SXSW.


Ilya Lagutenko

You can also get a taste of their albums by visiting their page on last.fm and myspace profile. I will also have my interview with Lagutenko ready very soon and check out more photos I took at the show here & here.

Iglu & Hartly came to Seattle last week and played a fantastic set at Chop Suey. I love every single song this band has. They're unreal.


Jarvis Anderson


Sam Martin

Follow these links for a full gallery of photos I took:
Page 1 & Page 2
& check out my interview with singer/keyboardist Jarvis Anderson here.

Set list:
Jump Out of Your Car
Believe
Whatever We Like
Tomorrow
Out There
Violent and Young
In This City
People
Dayglo

I was excited about this show but the more I research Mumiy Troll for an interview on Friday the more excited I get. This is going to be one of hell of a show. I can feel it.

Their new cd, Comrade Ambassador, comes out in March 2009:



Listen to/watch the irresistible Lady Alpine Blue.


Mumiy Troll singer, Ilia Lagutenko - photo by Anatoly Vyalikh

Also there are some cool shots from their recent show in Toronto located here.

They list Cream first in their list of influences on their myspace page and that's enough for me to hear.

I'm maybe one step or two steps behind NME (JK), who has a track of Tame Impala's song Skeleton Tiger for you to download on their Daily Download.

They're Australian and on Modular - the same folk who brought us Wolfmother.

Go get it. You don't even have to register or anything and it's a great song.

In case you wondered what exactly an impala is, it's an antelope.

Britain's Metronomy is playing Chop Suey on Sunday, January 25th. I really like this kind of music. I like synthesizers, what can I say? A friend of mine pointed out to me the other day that disco etc. never really went away, and that is kind of true. But now the bonus is that nearly everything that's coming out now sounds like disco or synth music. Well, maybe not nearly everything - just enough to keep music interesting.

Here's a video for their catchy song, A Thing For Me.

PS: I guess I am starting to make show announcements on here. That's okay - it's part of covering music for sure.

I don't usually post many show announcements on this blog but here's an exception because I love this Ashley chick at the Wig so freaking much:

In celebration of FIVE YEARS of The Wig
The Wig, Platform Booking & The Inlander present...
WIG BASH 2009

Friday, March 27
@ King Cobra - Seattle
SHIM
TRUCKASAURAS
THE WHORE MOANS[my emphasis]
CYRUS FELL DOWN

Saturday, March 28
@ The Blvd.
- Spokane
SHIM
CYRUS FELL DOWN
SEE ME RIVER
TRUCKASAURAS

with photos by BLUSH PHOTO
sponsored by:Seattlest, Sound on the Sound, MF Magazine, The Som Show,
Blush Photo and The Production Company

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More details on their way.

Mad Rad is one of Seattle's great wonders. They're lively and out for fun. Their songs and shows are parties unto themselves. P Smoov, performer/lyricist/beatmaker of Mad Rad talked with me in December 08 about the band's origins and foxy fan base - oh, and I found out he's also a talented visual artist. Read on.
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Q: You recently played in New York?

P Smoov: Yeah, we played the Knitting Factory, which is a legendary three story venue where a lot of amazing punk acts and pretty much every act that comes through there at some point or another. We played on the bottom floor – it was so chill [with] a really good turnout and kids know how to dance in New York City. It was so much fun.

Q: The tour reception was positive?

PS: Everyone was receiving us well and they all loved the tunes. It was just like, yo do you need a place to sleep, you can crash on our sofa. . . It was a very different scene and a different crowd from Seattle – or Portland even. But a cool scene.

Q: You guys dance around a lot in Mad Rad – how would you describe your dancing style?

PS: I personally think that I’m a horrible dancer. I think we just like our tunes and when we get onstage we can’t really help but to wild out. Buffalo [Madonna] is more of the dancing guy. He starts flipping out on the ground like a fish out of water.

Q: Yeah, he was pretty dirty after crawling around the floor of the Funhouse.

PS: That was nasty. I think Terry Radjaw is the best dancer out of all of us. Sometimes he just gets down and dances onstage for a couple of minutes without even doing any lyrics. It’s hilarious.

Q: What’s a typical Mad Rad show?

PS: A typical Mad Rad show starts about three hours before where we start drinking and smoking weed – just wilding out, practicing our lyrics. We get there and there’s a lot of scantily clad women with makeup on. I guess we just wild the hell out for as long as we’re onstage and try to do the best job as possible.

Q: The show at the Funhouse had a lot of pretty women there – that’s typical?

PS: I would say we definitely lucked out when it comes to our fan base. It’s largely female, which is great. [And] the girls bring the boys.


P Smoov @ the Funhouse, December 2008

Q: You played with 2 Live Crew at Nectar – what was that like?

PS: Oh, man – that was such an awesome night. It was such an honor to work with such legendary cats like that. We played with another band that we’re friends with, Champagne Champagne. It was cool – 2 Live Crew brought out a crowd that we probably never could have brought out ourselves. It was such a fun opportunity to perform in a setting with a band of that magnitude. That was the day before we left on tour so we left with such high spirits.

Q: How did the band get together?

PS: Buffalo and Radjaw were vibing out together before I met them. They were writing songs together and they didn’t have anyone making beats for them at the time. I saw Terry Radjaw doing a solo performance at Nectar and I approached him. Buffalo, at that time was just a backup dancer, he didn’t even have a mike. So they came through and we hit it off. All the tunes that we were making were some of my favorite tunes that I had made and their favorites tunes that they had been working on. We were just like, fuck it, let’s do this. Let’s go all out.

Q: That was this year?

PS: Our first show April 9th of 2008. We’ve been performing for less than a year.

Q: What’s Fresh Espresso?

PS: Fresh Espresso is my other band with the rapper Rik Rude. He’s a local legend – one of the illest mcs that Seattle has to offer. I’ve been working on Fresh Espresso for longer than I’ve been working on the Mad Rad shit. That album is coming out soon. I came to Seattle to start a studio, called the Robot Room, in Queen Anne. One of my main focuses is recording, engineering and mastering other bands. I’ve had a fucking great opportunity to work with a lot of different musicians.

Q: Where did you move here from?

PS: I moved here from Los Angeles. I was born in Michigan, moved to Orlando then to Los Angeles. I settled in the Northwest.

Q: You’re also an artist.

PS: Yeah, I do art under the name of Ten Hundred.

Q: The drawings and paintings are really, really good.

PS: Thank you. I have been going crazy for art lately ever since I got off tour. Being in that tour van . . . I’ve been painting nonstop. It’s such a relaxer for me.

Q: Do you ever think about having Mad Rad dancers?

PS: We’ve had impromptu dance competitions onstage, where we invite a couple of the ladies from the audience to compete with dance moves for a copy of our cd or for one of our t-shirts. These girls go all out – it’s such a show. It gives us a chance to catch our breath while they’re shaking their asses. Last night there was a row of ladies in front and I was just like, can you guys please just come onstage? And they flooded the stage. I don’t think we want people that we bring with us to dance onstage. We want the crowd to come up onstage.

Q: Who writes the lyrics?

PS: We all write the lyrics and write the hooks. It’s not ego-based. We just try to crack each other up and whatever makes us laugh the hardest is pretty much what we use in the songs. The beats . . . I do those and we also had a guy, Lou Pal, who contributed to the production of the record.

Q: I really loved the video for My Product – was that shot in South Seattle?

PS: Some of it was shot in Sodo and some of it was on Capitol Hill. That was directed by Dave Otte - from Brooklyn. He flew out and was kind enough to shoot a video for us. It was three days of so much fun. It was on a shoe string budget – I think we spent maybe 150 bucks for the whole video.

Q: I wanted to ask you about the song Electric Sheep. Who’s the science fiction fan/Blade Runner fan?

PS: I’m a science fiction fan. The electric sheep are from Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Buffalo Madonna, at the time, was reading a lot of Philip K. Dick. I put together this tune and that was its central focus – I thought it was such an ill tagline. For me it wasn’t tied directly to Blade Runner or Philip K. Dick – it was just such an ill concept.

Q: Do you have many pairs of sunglasses?

PS: I lose a pair of sunglasses at every show. I’ve pretty much stopped wearing glasses unless I can borrow them or steal them from my friends. Then they’ll get lost and they’re kind of mad at me. They just fly off my face or kids grab them off my face. Terry Radjaw has an ill sunglass collection though.

Q: What do you think when people say Mad Rad’s lyrics might be sexist? Is it just good publicity?

PS: There’s a lot of negative stuff floating around on the internet about our band. The way I see it is if you don’t have haters then you’re not doing your job right.

Q: I think that’s true. When I listen to you guys I don’t think of it as mean-spirited.

PS: There’s this one site called 206proof.com [with threads] talking about how we’re racist and sexist and just horrible people. It’s such a laugh looking at that stuff. They can’t even spell.
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Check out the videos for Electric Sheep and Superdope
and I've also got more photos of them from the Funhouse here.

Mad Rad next plays Artifakt @ Lofi on January 16th plus a string of shows that month and February beginning with OBAMA RAMA!!on January 20th.