On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the formation of Saint Petersburg community Yerevan received a present. On October 31 Boris Grebenshchikov and the Aquarium band visited Yerevan for a concert. They presented the music, which evidently shows the high quality and style of Grebenshchikov. An author of 28 albums Grebenshchikov during each concert forms the collage of his new and old songs. In the Yerevan collage he included his famous songs and several new compositions, which should be included in the Red River album. Grebenshchikov is a fan of a Celtic flute and during the concert of Aquarium he had invited a famous Irish flutist Brian Finagan, whose mighty energy and mastership has become the ornament of the Yerevan concert. One song was accompanied by the music of world-famous dudukist Jivan Gasparyan, who performed live. Grebenshchikov finds it a big honor to work with Gasparyan. And as the concert of Aquarium has overlapped with the Day of the old Saint of Celts (which later was renamed Halloween) Grebenshchikov suggested remembering the saints. “Today the margin of the dead and live equals and on this day everything is possible,” he said. Grebenshchikov is an amazing phenomenon in the world of music. It is hard to consider him a good composer and the lyrics of his songs don’t have much influence but it’s only enough to listen to hi songs (especially performed live) to understand everything. Grebenshchikov doesn’t like o be titled the “Legend of the Russian Rock” because he strongly believes that there is no rock in Russia any more. “The music that they play by calling it rock doesn’t mean anything,” he says. Our blitz-interview with Grebenshchikov took place in Bureaucrat book store, where for the first time the foreign-language version of Grebenshchikov poems’ collection was presented. The poems were translated into Armenian by Armen Shekoyan (he emphasized from time to time the poems of Grebenshchikov). Grebenshchikov by putting his signature on the Armenian version of his poems noticed that he feels surprisingly amused and pleasant. “No one has ever dared to translate my writings. Right now I am singing on a book in which even a single letter is not familiar to me. And this is really resembling a free flight,” he said. Armen Shekoyan in his turn noticed that he’d been doing the translations with a great pleasure because during the past 10 years he hadn’t written any poetry and missed that genre. “There was a big density of lust towards poetry. Now try to imagine with what a big pleasure I have translated those. Grebenshchikov’s poetry released my internal energy,” said Shekoyan. There is a big difference between the original version of the poems and Shekoyan’s translation. The 40 poems of Grebenshchikov sound so well in Armenian that it seems that those were written in Armenia. Those are separate islands, which are completely different images (with the style and lifestyle). And the Armenian version without music has become a template of poetry. Let us present a part from “armenianized” Grebenshchikov.
“If you want you can soar like an angel,”
If you want you can sell your soul to evil,
If you want you can limb the wall,
And walk on the ceiling,
If you want you can shine and sparkle,
If you want you can stay hush and motionless,
But remember one thing,
Gods sees it all.”
Grebenshchikov has cold-hearted relations with the government. He allows the power representatives meeting with him but never initiates such meetings. Grebenshchikov has never stopped at a certain point after roaming around various religions and musical direction. “There is the God and the human beings. The rest is their dialog,” he says.
Blitz-Interview with Grebenshchikov
– Usually besides composting people expect a little more from artists. I am sure that they are expecting from you too because you are a legend and have educated a whole generation of music.
– My words are my music. So anybody, who wants to listen to it he/she does and the ones, who don’t listen to it then they don’t need it.
– In fact, how should the dialog of the person of music and politics take place?
– I am sure when the people of art start to participate in governmental games serious troubles pop out. When a man of art goes and stands next to a politician or a political team then he only harms himself. The power and art as well as the power and religion belong to different worlds. When these two worlds are artificially joined a big calamity takes place. They cannot be placed on the same platform. Those are different planets and move around their own axes. Christ used to say, “What’s of the God must go for the God and what’s for Caesar must to go Caesar.” The art may educate (just like the religion) but it cannot affect the people with power, who are used to accepting the art in their own ways. And when the people of art confusingly think that they can influence on politics then it is the incorrect use of the God granted talent. Propaganda and art are incompatible.
– Does the talent disappear?
– Not necessarily. There are many cases in history when musicians are actively involved in politics. For example, the “Area” band has performed in the name of this or that team. And maybe they are doing the right thing. Let them believe and stand by the political teams. Propaganda and music are incompatible. Music is only an invitation and nothing more.
– If we may say it that way the lyrics of your songs are dense and saturated. Don’t you think that the words have a great power to affect consciousness?
– During the soviet years we were all trying to get rid of the ideological burden, overcome the traction power of the soviet and try to reach the universe. Now we are in the open space, where everything is unknown and no one can say how words affect the consciousness. I hope those do affect.
– Do you intentionally code the lyrics of your words or they are born just like that?
– Vice versa, I am always trying to maximally simply those. Only the simple word brings pleasure. All I am trying to do is build the words in the song so that they’d acquire different hues in various contexts and statements. I know that every word may have thousands of meanings and as I got nothing to do with my awareness (I often don’t know what to do with it) then I can build a big picture out of that. And when they say the word moon I find thousands of meanings in that word. And in my songs I mean all these meanings. I can’t do anything about that. My songs are like that. We all build what we are granted from above. We choose our favorite games and play those. And the more the elements of the game are the more interesting and brighter the game is.
– Is life a game?
– Indeed and this game is take place on the board, which is called eternity.
– And does life-game change?
– Life gets better after every single day that you live. How can there be the opposite if we day by day get more experience and learn more? One of the main goals of life is to learn new things. And the next one is better than the previous one. And you gain more features to discover more in you.