There are two things in Yerevan that are abundantly used – music and coffee. There is practically nobody who doesn’t drink coffee or doesn’t listen to music. Those two concepts not only refer to the field of business, but also form taste and style. Music has always been first on the list for musician/guitarist Vazgen Asatryan. Even after coffee suddenly invaded his life, he continued to dream of different music projects and not only dream, but also turn them into reality, very actively and tactfully. Asatryan and his wife Valerie Gortsunyan-Asatryan opened the “Parisian coffee” store/café on Abovyan Street and turned it into a stylish place that offers tasty coffee that citizens of Yerevan love. Along with good coffee, citizens of Yerevan were offered to reminisce the type of music telling the history of Yerevan that was based on the classical stage and classical music school, and the songs and memories of 70s Armenia. The concert programs entitled “70s Yerevan is singing” and the televised versions of those concerts seem to bring back the melodies of the childhood and youth of many people, and present the songs and names that have been forgotten to some. Light was shone on those songs thanks to the project implemented by Vazgen Asatryan. He has found the key to success.
“We all want to make money and when we do make money, we want to leave a good trace after us. I want to leave good music.”
He recently brought new, exclusive sound recording equipment from France to Yerevan and opened his own studio. The studio, which is called “70s Yerevan”, functions by non-standardized rules. To enter you must have talent.
Asatryan knows that dreams never fade away; they may simply go away for a certain time and come back again, when you have the money to make them a reality.
“I have always dreamed of having good equipment and good instruments. I didn’t have a normal bass-guitar for a long time, but now I have seven guitars and they are all good. That was my dream. I used to dream of recording with my friends and now I am doing just that. I am happy,” he says. He confesses: “Now I have kind of faded out; my time and strength are not enough…” During our conversation, Vazgen rarely used the word “I” and said “we”, meaning his colleagues, such as jazzman Levon Malkhasyan, duduk player Djivan Gasparyan and many other well-known people. Vazgen Asatryan gets indescribable pleasure when he is able to perform for his family and friends or have the opportunity to record again.
– We are artists; we like art and want to do something the good for the city. For some reason, people want to create a new history in Yerevan, erase the past and start anew. But that is impossible because nothing can be erased. The person who doesn’t remember his past doesn’t have a future either. Armenians don’t want to present the past as it really was. Armenian television does all it can so that the past will be forgotten today. I see that today’s television is for people below the age of 40. It feels like they have “buried” forty-year olds in their screens. You will see that there is no forty-year old person as you flip through the channels. They don’t remember those people and even if they do, they remember by making fun of them. But they are still alive and we mustn’t forget about them.
– Your studio is going to be non-profit. Don’t you want to sell your CDs?
– We recorded the album “70s Yerevan is singing”, put it up for sale, but we gave probably 80% of the CDs as presents. We did the same with Levon Malkhasyan’s CDs. We don’t complain about that; we want to make new recordings and distribute them. Djivan Gasparyan wants to give his CDs as presents more than selling them in Yerevan. We found out that he plays with Peter Gabriel, Sting and Tsukero, but he also wants to dedicate his performances to his friends in his native Yerevan. Now our studio, which we have equipped with the latest technology, can help us produce recordings that we have always dreamed of doing. We are not going to follow the principle of working by the hour or paying the rent because we want our studio to have an image. We want to find people with talent and give them the chance to record. For example, we invited Mp3 Aram over to the studio to record. He is a very talented, educated and disciplined young man. Levon Malkhasyan and I called that boy and said that we would record all of his songs free of charge and would invite musicians. He should sing so all of the singers and millions of “stars” should see who the best singer is today. God gave that boy talent and we will help that talented young man to record.
– So, you are going to work with the principle of charity.
– The sponsor always has his calculations, while the benefactor gets pleasure from helping anybody. I have no calculations; I simply like that guy as a musician and I will help him. We will soon have the young “Art voices” group recording at our studio and I also took that group with me to Paris to participate in a jazz festival. I know that they are very talented and it will be financially difficult for them to get recorded. I saw how those boys purchased musical instruments for themselves with the profit gained from the concerts, instead of buying clothes or perfume. That is a very important thing. We have already recorded Constantine Orbelyan and Patrick Fior is getting ready to record.
– A new generation of musicians is growing and they often lose themselves in the mass society. Why does that happen?
– Levon Malkhasyan, for example, is preparing a new generation of musicians in his jazz club. He finds them in the street, brings them to his club and teaches them jazz. Then today’s “stars” steal those musicians, take them away and use them. It is clear that musicians need to live and that they need new stages, but they need to be trained. Now Levon says that he wants to give them the opportunity to record as well. I also want the “last professionals” to get recorded in our studio. For example, Raissa Mkrtchyan, who has been singing for over forty years, can’t record anymore. How can it be that way? I get very happy when I see that people start to remember our elders and invite them. The Jazz Band of Armenia has decided to invite Elvina Makaryan and that is simply a remarkable idea. There is no need to comment on the culture of stage performance of those people because you immediately realize their professionalism. I am amazed as to why they don’t pay any attention to those people. They are our living history, they are alive and with us. We leave them aside and talk about Tigran the Great, or we remember our ancestors, but we don’t even “care” about our ancestors. It is amazing to see how we make the first toast to our parents, but if we really take a look, we never take into account our parents’ opinions and taste. We need to praise the people who created art history; they are the history of all of us. When ties are broken, we feel the need to pass the estaphet on. For example, jazz wasn’t born in Armenia today, was it? We used to have an Armenian jazz orchestra in 1935, which has been directed by Tsolak Vardazaryan, Artemi Ayvazyan and Constantine Orbelyan. Now it is under the direction of Armen Martirosyan.
– Perhaps it is necessary to constantly remind the youth those names and those times.
– I once said that Levon Malkhasyan reminds me of the Opera building. If I don’t meet him in Yerevan, that is the same as not seeing the Opera building. There are young people who wouldn’t even notice the absence of the Opera building. They will think that if it’s not there, it’s okay, they will build something else there. The mentality of the youth is like a sponge; it will absorb whatever it sees. This is their mentality now. We have to understand that we must help both the old and the new.
– The desire and financial means to help have coincided in your case. You can do that. Other people with the money will rarely spend money on such projects.
– I don’t have the means by which I can make all of my ideas a reality. Recently I was asked why I spent my money on purchasing the most expensive technical equipment. I answered that there are people who spend money on buying a Jeep, while I buy this. Excuse me for being impolite, but this is my Jeep. Many are surprised when they see that I go to a club and play. It seems as though that doesn’t fit the image of a businessman. What, do I have to go to a billiard club? Yes, I go and play. I am not ashamed of that, on the contrary, I feel proud.
– Perhaps that does not fit in the image of an Armenian businessman.
– It fits in with the Armenian businessman. The image of a rich person that has seen it all is not Armenian at all. What we see is the Eastern image, the Arabic/Turkish, and proof of that are our songs. We consider the songs of the 60s and 70s old and vulgar, and we make pornographic music video clips.
– Don’t you get the impression that it seems as though Armenians are in a cultural blockade and that very few are ready to come to Armenia and work here?
– We simply feel the need to have contact with the world. The countries that want to move forward stabilize sooner or later, while the countries that are narrow-minded stay on the same local level. It seems as though Armenia is spinning in the other direction; we are enclosed in the words “We are our mountains” and it seems to us that people outside Armenia recognize us. I have lived in France and the U.S. and know well that our “donkey” goes in the wrong direction outside and our basic mentality is far from perfect. Everything is narrow and doesn’t stretch beyond the borders of Armenia. We are a free and independent country and we have paid a high price for that freedom. We have accomplished many things at the expense of our blood, but we don’t know how to appreciate all of that. Young people are doing everything they can to leave to study abroad so that they will never return. Look, the boy crossing the street threw his cigarette on the floor, another threw a sunflower seed when there are a couple of trash cans on the street. I know for a fact that if that person were in France, he wouldn’t do such a thing because he would think that it is a shame. It is better to keep your country clean and pollute France. The French do just that; they think about their country and could care less about the others. We, for some reason, do the opposite – we follow the laws of others and don’t care about our own. There are classical civilized standards in the world and we Armenians don’t want to accept them. We try to do the impossible – “Armenianize” the classical. By classical I not only mean music, but also everything, including mentality, dressing up and constructing buildings. We spend millions, build two-story buildings with seven rooms reminding one of auditoriums on each floor but with one bathroom. That is an incomprehensive “Armenianized” Euro-design. Our music is also remodeled in an exclusive and unprecedented European way. All of the singers, all of the songs are the same, forgettable; they are so similar to one another and uninteresting. One day Ruben Matevosyan said that he has 900 songs in the record library of the radio. Malkhasyan said jokingly that Ruben is Pele and will soon hit his 1,000th goal. We understand that Ruben has left thousands of songs in the archives. Who can be proud of such a thing? Now comes the time of the impersonal singers who know nothing about the history of music and want to purposefully forget about that history. The greatest gift for me is words of gratitude when people thank me for helping them remember their youth. I feel happy when 77-year old singer Smbat Vardanyan comes out on stage, straightens his back and says that it is so good that he lived for another year. He sings and lives for singing. Those people are unforgettable. There was a time when I had no money and used to only eat “black” bread; now I eat white bread but never say that the “black” bread I ate was not tasty. It was very tasty, as good as today’s white bread.