Moscow, 2010
Moscow, 2010
A Tour Diary Lost to the Sand Of Time: FOUND!
Once, the Canadian music magazine Exclaim asked us to do a three-part tour diary about our upcoming trip to Russia and the Ukraine. We sent it in and it was published, but since it has mysteriously disappeared from their website. These days, Exclaim seems to be busy retweeting stories about US Celebrities and covering controversies about American artists; so pretty much par for the course with all modern music media. But I just dug up an old email featuring the Moscow portion of this diary; here it is, back from the grave, complete with (holy shit) Myspace links!
Part 1: Moscow
Russia must be one of the most beautiful and tragic nations that has ever existed. 1000 years ago, Genghis Khan swept over the forested plains in conquest, declaring himself a God on earth. Since then, similar madmen have been subjecting this land to their own particular brand of maniacal tyranny.
However, out of this suffering, a great tradition of folk songs has emerged. If it weren’t for the beautiful, poetic, musical traditions that have been born in Russia, The Dreadnoughts would be a very different band. Russian folk-songs are haunting, sad, and proud, and if you haven't heard our music, we basically steal these musical themes and make them into punk songs for a living.
So, we thought: What better way to pay homage to this tradition than to show up in Moscow, get completely shittered on fine Russian vodka and shout at them for two hours? Russians paying Canadians to hear Russian music. It was too delicious to pass up.
However, anyone who knows The Dreadnoughts personally knows that we are a raving troupe of colossal fuckups. Our admirable plan was therefore nearly sabotaged by a night of wine, song and debauchery with Italian ska-punkers Talco, and the inevitable two missed alarms the morning of our flight. Luckily, anyone who knows us personally also knows that we somehow manage to make things happen despite being colossal fuckups. We made our flight. Barely.
We'd heard a few things about the place, but nothing could have prepared us for the reality of Moscow. When you grow up watching North American news, you come to think of Moscow as a cultural and architecural wonder, full of tall red towers, historical sculptures, and marching guards with cute little furry hats. In actual fact, Moscow can basically be summed up in two words:
Apartment. Buildings.
Moscow is a sea of apartment buildings. As it turns out, American news crews hang out downtown in Red Square, whereas actual Moscovites hang out beside warehouses and nuclear reactors in their colossal apartment buildings. No joke: you can drive in a straight line for 30 mintues in Moscow and not set eyes on a single house. It is a huge, flat, grey wasteland.
I honestly wondered how they don't all sink into suicidial depression until I saw that Russian McDonalds' have pierogies on the menu. Sweet.
We got to the show in time to watch the opening bands, one of whom (FPG) was absolutely incredible. Probably one of the 5 best punk bands we've ever played with. Check them out. Someone once told me that European history is etched into the faces of its people, and when I saw FPG's lead singer, I realized that this is literally true. He looks like Genghis Khan with a mohawk, a distant descendant of those mongol hordes who carved the largest empire in history out of Eurasia.
During our show, the crowd was mind-blowing. 600 people packed the hall and gave us the time of our lives. They swung from the rafters, swarmed the stage, and shouted along to the music gleefully whilst pummeling one another like gladiators. Evil Kineval wouldn't have gone into that mosh pit. I shit you not: one guy even jumped from a 40-foot balcony directly into the mosh pit... headfirst. Sorry, Horseshoe Tavern: you lose. Many people them somehow knew all the words to our songs despite not having bought our CD. FACT: you can’t really call yourselves a pirate band and get upset when people steal things.
During the show, something extraordinary happened. See, We have this song, "Samovar". A samovar is a teapot, but it is also what some Russian soldiers called their tanks in World War II, on account of their tanks sucking a very large amount of ass. Seamus and I put the song together, and we tried to be faithful to the Russian folk tradition as we could. Apparently, since we released Victory Square in 2009, a few fine Moscovites have formed a Dreadnoughts fan club (!!), and "Samovar" is their favourite song. After we played it, they charged up on stage and presented us with a gift: a beautiful, gleaming, golden Samovar. I was nearly moved to tears. In fact, I was so touched by this gracious display from our fine comrades that I immediately filled the thing with a toxic mix of whiskey and vodka and began to use the little automatic spout to distribute alcohol to the crowd.
Martha Stewart always says you should disinfect something before you use it in the kitchen.
After the show, Diman, our host and promoter, wanted to take us to the fabled Red Square. However, some drunken Russian who called himself "Paddy McIrish" kept insisting that we go with him to, quote, "an Irish pube". For those of you unfamiliar with this particular vernacular, a "pube" is what someone calls a "pub" when they are "a clueless foreigner pretending to be Irish for no good reason". Faced with the agonizing choice between yet another clone of pubs that don't actually exist in Ireland and the Kremlin, can you guess where we went?
As we walked around this beautiful, historical place, we were confronted by some Russian men in strange black uniforms who demanded to know where we were from. This was a little scary. But when they learned that we were Canadian, they burst into laughter and began taunting us about Canada's recent loss to Russia in the World Junior hockey championship. "5-3! 5-3!" they chanted. They didn't go away until we reminded them that their glorious hockey nation had been annihilated 7-1 in the olympic semifinals in Vancouver. They were defeated by, oh, some country, can't remember the name, starts with a "C"...
Anyway, Diman laughed and told us that the Russian kid who'd scored two goals in that 5-3 world juniors victory was rewarded by the mayor of his town with—you are not going to believe this—his own apartment. Can you imagine? Comrade Patarin, for your great and heroic service to Russian nation, I hereby present you with... 1804-b!
We are leaving Moscow feeling like we've just touched the surface of a huge ocean. There is just so much to see and learn here, and speaking with Russians about their culture has been alternately fascinating and hilarious, especially given the language barrier. We asked one woman about the strange 2:1 female-to-male ratio in Moscow. "How is that possible?" I asked. "Where do the men go?" She looked thoughtfully into the distance and replied: "stress".
We asked her to name the most terrible and offensive cuss-word she knew in Russian, and she replied, without hesitation: "Blin". She even blushed when she said Blin.
"What does blin mean?", Seamus asked, his eyes gleaming in anticipation.
"Pancakes," she replied. I am not making that up.
I was talking to another woman about what it's like for us to live so close to the USA. She patiently smiled and nodded, listening to my description of the various intricacies of Canadian-American relations.
"Ah," she said when I'd finished. "Yes. Thank you. But please: who is George Borscht?" There I was, 12,000 kilometers from home, quite literally on the other side of the planet, and some poor Russian woman thought I was claiming that the Americans elected a bowl of beet soup as their head of state.
Anyway, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and enjoy the sight of our violin player trying to bring a huge, ornate silver teapot onto the plane as carry-on. Should be entertaining. In actual fact, anyone who knows Russian airports knows that he can't lose. Either he will be allowed to carry the Samovar on, or he will be taken into a room and given a full body search by a tall, blonde Russian vixen with steel-blue eyes, an army uniform and an AK-47.
And that, my friends, is what we travelling musicians call a "win-win situation".
