A fragment of N. Antonyan's article "Weak-nerved people are asked to leave…" from the column "Letters from youth associations" (the newspaper Pravda Severa, 5 February 1988, no. 30 (20230), p. 3), translated from the Russian. It is published as a historical document with the source named: the author is critical, and the assessments are her personal opinion. Parts not related to Oblachny Kray are omitted. The text was provided by the community "Podtankovskaya Gvardiya".
However, one should not think that Arkhangelsk rock comes down to uninteresting bands and the idle fans hanging around them. Here is the undoubted and acknowledged leader of the rock band Oblachny Kray, Sergey Bogaev. The meeting with him was especially memorable.
"Northern Legend" was the title of an enthusiastic, gushing review of the band's recordings printed in Moskovsky Komsomolets. "The band's existence is surrounded by a mystical aura," it said, "everybody has heard it, but nobody has seen it." I got the impression that Sergey does his best to maintain this reputation. To my very first question — whether I could attend a rehearsal — the answer was brief: "We don't have rehearsals, we rehearse on stage." — "All right," I did not give up, "and when is the concert, so that I could at least have a look at you?" — "Unknown!" was the answer. "And are there recordings?" I asked. — "They all go from hand to hand, look for them," Sergey spread his hands. — "And the lyrics?" — "You have to look for them too — we have none"…
And then the interview, during which I was haunted by a vague feeling that I was being asked to take it on trust that the band Oblachny Kray is brilliant. That its five tape albums, titled "Oblachny Kray", "Khudozhestvennaya samodeyatelnost", "Vershina", "Ublyuzhya dolya" and "Stremya i lyudi", are beyond all praise because they scourge and strike dead bureaucrats, bribe-takers, hacks and careerists and thus help to cleanse our society of the consequences of the stagnation years.
"We want to shout the truth so that everybody can hear it," Sergey said heatedly. "Precisely — shout. We are not professional musicians, but I believe that to tell the truth it is not necessary to dress it in fine clothes. I did very well at school in social studies, and then I saw how much lying there is around that does not match the textbook. My friends Oleg Rautkin and Nikolai Lyskovsky and I started composing songs ourselves because we did not want to sing with someone else's voice."
Sergey works as an electrician at Krasnaya Kuznitsa. Oblachny Kray has a place to rehearse: the plant's culture palace gave the lads a room. But, as he told me, no rehearsals are held because there is no equipment. "We have nothing: no equipment, no money for it, the culture department does not approve the lyrics, which means we cannot perform with them (only the eight very first songs are approved) — and in general there is real pressure. It's hard."
"You have no equipment, but how do you record?!" I blurted out. Sergey spread his hands. "Like this. We manage somehow, we rig something up on a home tape recorder." With considerable effort I managed to get both the lyrics and the cassettes of the "Kray". To the music this observation is set, for example:
Here is a very prestigious feeding trough.
The champing is heard from there.
A mighty backside, swollen like a pillow,
The musical Buddha sits.
To snatch a fatter piece quickly,
To push a colleague away from the trough,
To rake in a fee, and fast,
And hide behind a convenient slogan…
Spiteful, rough, unceremonious — yes. Perhaps accurate too, if it is, so to speak, a sketch from life. But judging by the title the song is about the Composers' Union. And it, you must agree, is not all "Buddhas sitting"… One song, a second, a third. And the accents shift. Now the assessment is: unceremonious, rough, but how spiteful! And the spite is somehow kitchen-style, petty, when expressions are not chosen. Here is a song about Rus, in which "there are skilful craftsmen of all kinds and wonder-maidens, Russian, beautiful and tender", and here the author, who was born and raised here and "has been deprived of free will through no fault of his own since birth", exclaims:
Oh, sovereign, do not be angry.
However clever you may be,
If there are so many goats in the places —
What progress can there be!!
In what direction does Bogaev's group search, does it progress? I don't know. Their last album was recorded in 1985. Talk that something new is being written is so far only talk. Whether it goes beyond talk is known only to the group itself.
And one more thing. I would so much like to applaud Oblachny Kray unreservedly, following the colleagues from Moskovsky Komsomolets. But you read the words of the review that "…the names of Arkhangelsk musicians are in the list of those of whom domestic rock can be proud. The 'Kray' is invited to concerts by the Leningrad Rock Club and the Melodiya company, their songs have already been heard on the radio…" — and you involuntarily remember that Bogaev's songs were played not only on All-Union radio. In November last year they were broadcast by the BBC radio station, with a kind compliment from the notorious Seva Novgorodtsev to boot. And such an accompaniment for our rockers is, I think, not the best fame…
[…]
© N. Antonyan. Pravda Severa, 5 February 1988, no. 30 (20230), p. 3.
Why it matters
- Bogaev works as an electrician at Krasnaya Kuznitsa; the plant gave the band a room, but there are no rehearsals — there is not enough equipment (more about the culture palace and the studio in the article on the V rock festival of 1987).
- The lyrics were not approved by the culture department, only the eight very first songs were allowed; the author calls Bogaev the band's "undoubted and acknowledged leader".
- In November 1987 Bogaev's songs were played by the BBC (in Seva Novgorodtsev's programme); the review "Northern Legend" in Moskovsky Komsomolets is on this site (the Moscow evening is here).
