This is really happening somewhere.

(----) in Russia Vol.23--Special Edition: Deep Zeke, Part the First

You know you're in Russia when shoes end up forlorn and unclaimed on someone's gate.


Zeke Graves kickin' it up in the lab, aka my windowsill.


Ok, so you guys have seen the sneak preview, presumably (if not, it's a few posts down). Context beach: Outside of the Novokuznetskaya metro station was this band called Akuly ("Sharks") that plays every weekend. They attract a large crowd of onlookers -- bums, drunks, policemen snapping photos with their cameraphones, distinguished gentlemen, teenagers, foreigners, etc. This dude, who our party dubbed "Splitso" for his ability to do splits upon command, was incredibly inebriated. He fell on his face at least twice while we were there, to the point that his face was bruised and bleeding, but he refused to let that stop him from splitting. Or stumbling. (P.S. to RB....there was a dog running around, too.)


Akuly in action.


There was also my man here, who apparently just got off the set of David Lynch's new movie. He had some extremely distinguished moves but unfortunately was super-creepy. When the one woman who would dance with him took a break, he wandered around the crowd attempting to solicit dances from any woman he saw. He sent a couple of 15-year-old girls screaming into the night after attempting to beckon them on the "dance floor."


"Oh! A female! No matter that she's already with some dude...I'll mosey my way in there somehow, Dracula-style."


These people were, amazingly, not drunk. Akuly's oeuvre of classic rock covers had moved them enough to get down.


Splitso and Dracula. Drac, being the distinguished gentleman that he is, noticed Splitso's injuries and suggested they leave together. Which they did. One can only imagine the strange uber-paternal bond they formed later.


Zeke and our friend Yegor debate the "sleeveless vs. sleeved" issue while our roommate abstains from the heated argument.

AND NOW....DEEP ZEKE TRAVELS TO ST. PETERSBURG:


This ad is for flooring. But it asks you to imagine your floor as the intro to a James Bond film, all busty and willing to unzip itself. In Russia, floor seduces you.


Nothing out of the ordinary here. Other than Dmitry Bedderhead looking for a handout.


.....


"Dudes roll."


Statue by a canal in Petersburg.


Zeke by a canal in Petersburg.


So we ended up at this bar called Fidel, where on a Monday night the place was fucking jam-packed, and the DJ was this really big dude with a ponytail who started the crowd off with the usual American Top 40 hits of the past few years: Britney, Rhianna, etc.


Then my man got really animated.


He started spinning Russian hip-hop, and the place went kinda nuts. Which was crazy, because the floor in this place was so warped that you would literally trip on it if you attempted to dance.


Asserting his superiority.


This is an ad for ice-skating bears.


This is the former throne of Peter the Great. I did jowl in front of it, but it was on Zeke's camera and it has not yet reached my grasp. Perhaps this is for the better, but I think not.


Obedience fail.


Truth in advertising.


What? The packaging had me at hello.

There's so much more, but not enough time (or patience on your part, I would imagine) to deal with it all in one post. Next time:
--Ghostface Killah
--Russian cougars
--Balalaika solos

Until then...

Let's Talk Kanye

So Kanye wrote a book. And he claims that he hates books. This quote right here from a recent interview kinda sums it up:

"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed," West said. "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph.
"I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life," he said.

Me too, Kanye. Me too. Well, wait, not the "proud non-reader" part (as if to non-read is an active verb -- "Hey, did you non-read that book I loaned you?"). And I definitely don't want a book's autograph either. But I am increasingly subscribing to this guy's philosophy on Kanye.


I mean, even Pepper Keenan (above), formerly of Corrosion of Conformity, called Kanye retarded. Although, why he feels the need to weigh in across genres is a little puzzling. And also, shit, the bass player from C.O.C. was one of the most retarded individuals I ever encountered working at a rock club. I overheard him telling his girlfriend that the speakers of his bass amp were "where the sound comes from." And not in a condescending or confident tone; it was more of the tone of a child who is amazed at all the pretty colors coming from the TV. So I would consider Pepper an authority.

Discuss! Also, BACKGROUND WIN.

You are

Is it me, or can you kind of see faces here? Actually, wait. No, actually, never mind.

(----) in Russia Vol.22

You know you're in Moscow when the sweet light of salvation is green.


Or there's a leopard-print backhoe digger on your street at midnight on a Friday.


Or a pigeon in the metro.


Or a giant man-beer outside the metro.


Or this assortment of lunch items at the neighborhood grocery.


Or this cat in said grocery, who you just saw taking a shit in a litterbox behind the lunch counter.


Speaking of cats — hey kitty, kitty, why are you crying? Can I do something for you?


NO. FUCK OFF. I'M BUSY HATIN'.


Bottles.


Members of the Israeli Eurovision posse kickin' it.


WARNING: This is not a strip club. It's a normal one. I mean, relative to the surroundings. It's not considered normal in a lot of places to have white Grace Jones look-alikes dancing in what looks like a shredded trash bag.


Disembodied head person crossing.


This car was parked by the dumpster near our place. The stuffed rabbit inside looks pretty dead. The creepy thing is that its eyes are still open, as if it died of fright. Not surprising given that it's by the dumpster.


Dragon lady, let your animal-patterned light shine.


It's springtime and the livin' is easy in Moscow. Easy enough to post up on whatever bench may be available. I'm not sure what I'm more curious about: the purse or the jacket.


A few blocks away (same day) was a more conservatively-dressed bench sleeper.


The view out our front door's peephole.

(----) in Russia Vol.21

A very short entry this week, only because you don't need more than these two clips. Be attentive when you watch them; a lot of shit happens in a very small period of time. Especially the drunk guy who does the split about 1:25 in to the first clip. You definitely know you're in Russia when this shit is going on outside of the metro.

(----) in Russia Vol.20: On Location in St. Petersburg, again

You know you're in Petersburg when there's this kind of sky. Moscow has no such thing, only a gruel-colored layer of factory smog and car exhaust and the smoke of millions of daily cigarettes occasionally punctuated by what some people refer to as "the sun."


This dude's snoring kept me up all night long on the train.


Ad for a pet store. Might as well get the animal imagery out of the way early.


Ad for a maternity store.


Ad for an energy drink called Burn. This extremely creepy-looking individual, DJ Smash (just note how close those eyes are set together, not to mention how far back they are already set....[shiver]), is promoting the drink. If you look closely enough, you can see that someone has actually "smashed" the glass on this kiosk. Which is a meta-burn on many levels.


Ad for a strip club on the main street in Petersburg. I like how it doesn't pretend to contain any subtleties: "Simplified entrance for the foreigners." But they don't let you know how complicated the exit is...


Anticon Records' Themselves playing at a club in St. Petersburg. I've heard these guys' recordings and was impressed, but this show was pretty off the hook. Instead of running a sequencer or a cd of their backing tracks, they just brought all their samplers and played each sample individually like drummers. Note the life-size cutout of Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan posted up behind them. They brought him out at the beginning of their set and referred to him as their manager, then proceeded to try and make him drink.




My camera ran out of battery power 30 seconds in.


Someone has taken the airbrushed stencil aesthetic too far.


A post-wedding ceremony on the Neva river. It's some sort of tradition to have doves representing the happy couple, but it was really uncomfortable watching these doves squirm in this dude's hands as the newlyweds posed for photos.


So I was in Petersburg the weekend of Victory Day, the celebration of Russia's defeat of the Nazis in WWII. It's especially poignant for Petersburg, since Leningrad was under siege for over 900 days by the Nazis during the war. The day before the Victory Day Parade, the military decided to show off a little muscle in anticipation.




At the parade itself, the veterans brought the noise.


This little boy was pretty damn cute with his red star balloon.


The parade. If you make it all the way through, pay attention to how the music of the marching band fades into some creepy ice-cream-truck music from a vehicle that comes after the band.


At a Beatles-themed bar called Liverpool, this band, whose name I failed to get, kicked out some serious classic rock jams, not just Beatles, either.


Their singer's face tells a hard story. His voice, as you can see below, tells a harder one. Rikk says he thinks this guy sounds like David Lee Roth; I can see that, which makes this version of "A White Shade of Pale" better than the original for me.




When the band kicked into "Honky Tonk Women," this guy in the white shirt set the dance floor on fire, urging the rest of the crowd to join him. The bald thug in the leather jacket in front of me was not moved.


Rapture.




Nevsky Prospekt.


The moon over the Neva River.


Graffiti on the ground: "Who am I without you?"


There was a soccer game in the city, which meant that the metro was closed and no one could buy any alcohol or glass bottles of any kind anywhere near the stadium. It also meant that the riot police were out and about (the dudes in the blue camo).


Somehow, I always manage to find that one dog hanging out of a window, checking out the scene. And it always makes me think of Rikk.

(----) in Russia Vol.19

You know you're in Russia when this dude is hosting a call-in music video program and he's supposed to be some sort of chick magnet.


A poster in a band rehearsal studio. This was right around the big swine flu scare-thing, so it seemed topical then. Now it's just kinda funny. The sign basically warns musicians and their guests to obey the rules of the practice place. The pig is supposed to be someone who has violated the rules, but some hooligans wrote over that part.


The lab.


So Brooklyn's VAZ played in Moscow. At the club lives this cat, who was almost frontin' but turned out to be pretty sweet.




Also at the club lives this cat's kittens, who were moved to an undisclosed, less abrasive location once VAZ started rumbling and the place filled up with smokers and drunk people.


The drummer from VAZ and the singer from Perth, who also played, communicating with the cat.


VAZ being interviewed by a Russian television station.


VAZ rocking.




God. Why? This summer, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, Korn and these jokers are coming to Moscow. But then again, so is FAITH NO MORE!!!!!! So it's a tradeoff, I suppose.


This tunnel is on my way to work. Sometimes I walk to work, which takes about an hour. This thing was the most dangerous area in the winter because it was completely iced over, but now that spring is finally here, it's ok.


I would say that this guy is a serious babnik (ladies' man). It's not often you get to hold two different ladies' hands at the same time and not have them get offended.


There had to be at least one dog image in this post.


AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!


AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!


HOLY FUCKING AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! As Silk Nogg says, you can't put a baby in a suit.

Ok, next time:
1. Themselves (insane hip-hop group from Anticon Records) live in St. Petersburg.
2. Tanks rolling down a street.
3. A dog leaning out of a window.
4. Another Silk Nogg jam. It's time for the world, or rather, the 5 of you who read this, to finally hear some cuts from "The Forthcoming Album."

(----) in Russia Vol.18

You know you're in Russia when you're walking through a park at night on a balmy 50-degree evening (spring!!!!) and a huge fucking garbage truck decides to take a shortcut through said park.


Ad in a metro car. It reads: "Allergies: Your Nightmare?" My roommates and I debated the content. One camp (mine) thinks that the cat is begging forgiveness for causing your allergies by bringing you flowers and tangerines. Another camp thinks that the cat, the flowers and the oranges are like the perfect storm of allergies, as if a cat showing up at your door bearing flowers and fruit would be the worst of all possible allergy scenarios.


One snazzy-looking couple walking through the metro.


View from my window onto our courtyard. This is what happens to a winter's worth of cigarette butts when the snow finally melts. Some poor Central Asian dude (as if he doesn't have enough to worry about with the sporadic waves of skinhead violence in the city against Central Asian workers) has to spend his day sweeping them up in preparation for the spring's installment of smokers' trash.


Cologne, Germany's Popnoname playing at a club called Shanti.


One of Popnoname's live shtick things is to put on sleeveless hoodies (he had two different ones), zip them up over his face, and dance around while his laptop blasts a series of gloriously sappy Eurobeats.






One of the more annoying things about clubbin' in Moscow is the amount of photographers running around taking hundreds of pictures of the crowd at every show. I decided to retaliate by capturing the photographer as he tried to capture me at the Popnoname gig. You can see him wincing from my flash.


Keeping with the club theme, here's a shot of British DJ team Padded Cell playing at Solyanka.


This drunk dude was carrying a huge set of white balloons in the metro.


"Ladies, pt.3"


"Solitary beer"


"Ladies, pt.4"


"Ketchups"


In a clothing market. A few seconds earlier, this cart full of headless mannequin bodies had fallen over, forcing the people pushing it to have to gather up a bunch of torsos with really supple racks.


A few meters away, this man was also carrying mannequin torsos into this empty storefront.


Pedestrian right-of-way light.


A contender for pictureisunrelated.com?
Or more fodder for ddooodpretation?

Finish Him!

I saw this on the Dan Ryan Expressway a few weeks ago. Perhaps it was being delivered to Brian Urlacher's house. Note that this isn't just Mortal Kombat 3, but the Ultimate edition. Among the changes from the previous version, "Sonya's MK3 Friendship, which had her waving her arms back-and-forth in a silly manner, is removed. Now she simply does her victory pose and a row of flowers grow out of the ground."

Grunge Fail

A Rendering

A twin

Are we ready to start Tropic of Food productions?

Because there are opportunities out there beyond Sugarbush II.

(----) in Russia Vol.17

You know you're in Russia when, well, there's this guy, who slid into this position over a period of about 30 minutes.


Or this bus.


Or this band is coming to Moscow when their brief seconds of relevance — strictly limited to the Big House viewing of a stolen VHS copy of their "unauthorized" biographical documentary — have long been expired in most of the rest of the world.


Or this strange mannequin is posted up in a shopping center, advertising exactly jack shit.


"Ladies, pt.1"


"Man in training"


"Ladies, pt.2"


So this club called Solyanka had a 50's dance night, complete with swing dancing lessons, greasers, ladies in hoop dresses and rockabilly bands. A DJ followed, clad in horn-rimmed glasses and a cowboy shirt, and rocked the dance floor with Elvis and Carl Perkins cranked up to ear-splitting, bass-distorting proportions.


This band was actually really good. They had their shit together.








Still at Solyanka. This guy opted for the laid-back look rather than embrace the nostalgia. He and his friends are taking shots. After this round, he started drooling.


Ah, the glorious, anonymous truth of graffiti.


All over the city, there are machines through which you can put more money on your phone. We don't have to deal with hellish contracts with Verizon or any of those fuckers. Just put as much money as you want on your phone wherever you are. This machine broke, leaving only this screen with which to greet potential customers.


This band from Portland, OR, called Panther came and played Moscow. They were really good; one guy on guitar, one guy on drums, and a lot of overdubbed tracks via iTunes. Regardless, they brought the energy. People were going nuts.


This is a *little* blurry, but hopefully you can make out the singer leaping off of his vocal monitor with his guitar behind his head.


"Resigned"


My courtyard, 6:30 a.m., during the Big House Partay.


At this huge warehouse club called Arma '09, this DJ, who started his set off with a techno remix of the creepy theme from "Twin Peaks," (not the title theme, but the minor-key synth part that was so often used to indicate menace) was approached on the stage by a roommate, who suggested a few choice cuts to play.


Said roommate was quickly detained by the scruff of his neck by this black-clad security guard.


Chocolate fool.

Erie Choir tonight, Friday Big House Party

Using this medium for band promotional purposes is apparently outdated at this point, but Kalb did it recently, so I will as well.

Erie Choir opens tonight for Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus Three. I'm pretty excited about it, having been a Robyn Hitchcock fan since I was fifteen-years old. I was introduced to the band by 120 minutes. Dave Kendall probably noted that his then latest release, Queen Elvis, featured REM's Peter Buck. Mr. Buck plays in the Venus Three. This is the second time I'll get the honor of opening for Mr. Hitchcock. The first time was the day following a Halloween Hackey Sack Crue performance accompanied by David Nahm. I was hungover and freaked out a bit, but David helped me get through it, even though I had been short tempered with him earlier. Thanks again David.

We'll play in some fashion at the Big House on Friday, along with Le Weekend and others....

How about them Heels?

My cousin Terence produced a film. Check out the trailer!

I really did not mean for this to come out like a Larry King column, but the years are taking their toll. Anyway, check out the links if you time, and I'll see you around.

(----) in Russia Vol.16

You know you're in Russia when you get invited to a "home party" and the only participants are a woman in a black silk kimono, her mother, a dog that looks like Alf, a cat with big nuts, a man who wants to talk about Obama and a hookah.


Alf-dog.


Monster-dog.


Context fail at the Louis Vuitton boutique.


WARNING: DON'T DRIVE INTO THE WATER. (Perhaps this has been a problem at some point?)


Hairdo fail.


Security fail. These people had their window broken outside of our building. Note ubiquitous dog tied to fence, silently observing.


Leningradsky train station, night. (Duh)


As the digital age catches up with Russia, more formats become obsolete...


...but the devices with which to play them still reside on top of my fridge, left behind by the landlady.


Statue at night. Note the lovely spring weather.


Statue in the mall. Of a cleaning lady.


Camels! And pyramids! And a ... cow skull.


Rednecks have infiltrated Moscow! Apparently, 4 months' worth of melting snow creates enough mud for some good muddin'. Which is logically followed by a stop at the sushi restaurant.


Some awesome fliers that were posted on a wall downtown.


As this photo was being taken (in the men's room), the photographer was warned by a roommate that he was "really asking for it." True, but just look at this jacket!


SPRING IS HERE! JUST LOOK AT THE...BUDDING...TREES...........season fail.


Kitchen.


Went and saw Shnurov's new band, Ruble, again. This time was way better than the previous one. He rocked the house like a madman, and people were going crazy. At one point, the power on stage cut out, but he kept singing until the whole room was singing along and clapping. Quite the showman. Look:




As Shnurov was leaving the stage, my roommate snapped this awesome shot of him walking by with his guitar. The dude in the white shirt was a guard whose job it was to prevent anyone from bothering Shnurov as he exited.


And now, a scene from Brothers In Hypeness' upcoming production of "Why So Many Dogs?":
Igor (dog in middle): “Kostya, when is that fucking bus supposed to arrive?”
Kostya (dog on right, facing away from camera): “I dunno, man, it’s already late, should we take the metro?”
Igor: “Ach, I don’t have my metro pass with me. Where is the party again?”
Kostya: “I think it’s at Byelorusskaya, right? Dima, you got the Facebook invite, right? Where is this place?”
Dima (dog on left): “Dude, get your snout out of your ass … the place is near Smolenskaya. Who told you Byelorusskaya?”
Kostya: “Chill, bro. I got a text from Alyosha, and she said that Sasha told her that Lyudmila said she talked to Ivan already and he said the party was there. Shit, we’re gonna be late.”
Igor: “Guys, look, we’ll be fine. We could always just take a car. Look, here comes one now.”
Kostya: “Do you see a wallet on any of us? How are we gonna pay, man? Damn, my leg itches.”
Dima: “I told you to stay away from that Zhenya, she’s got fleas.”
Igor: “We ALL have fleas.”
Kostya: “I need a drink.”