Russian To Judgment: Does This Guy Look Like An Underground Rock Star?
When we think of “Russian rock music,” three things come to mind: Gorky Park’s “Bang”; the Moscow Music Peace Festival; and that episode of Head Of The Class when the gang gets busted for smuggling Beatles tapes into the country. Which is why we were fascinated by today’s Wall Street Journal article on Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of staff for the Kremlin: Apparently, Surkov has been collaborating with Russian rocker Vadim Samoilov on two CDs that have never been released to the public:
Mr. Samoilov says he made the first Surkov CD, described as an “art-rock project” and called Poluostrova, or Peninsulas, in 2004. But the two decided to distribute it only among their friends. “We’re both popular enough,” Mr. Samoilov says. The only times they performed the songs in public were at birthday parties for Mr. Surkov.
Despite the secrecy — neither Mr. Samoilov nor the Kremlin would provide a copy of the CD or let a reporter listen to the songs — a few have found their way onto an unauthorized Russian Web site. The texts of some of the songs, which are bleak and brooding, with names like “Black Horsemen,” also have shown up in Russian magazines like Esquire.
We realize that this is a long shot, but if anyone has an MP3 of these songs, we’d love to hear them, so drop us a line at tips@idolator.com. We’re also interested in anything by Samoilov’s other band, Agata Kristi, who apparently have a “hurricane-expressive manner of performing songs filled with efforts at psychoanalysis”–a description that must have come from pitchforkmedia.ru.
