Russian musician

Musical artist

Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov (Russian: Борис Борисович Гребенщиков; born (1953-11-27)27 November 1953) is a prominent member of the generation that is widely considered to be the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music. Due as much to his contribution and the lasting success of his main effort, the band Aquarium (active from 1972 until today), he is a household name in Russia and much of the former Soviet Union. Grebenshchikov is frequently referred to as BG (Russian: БГ) (pronounced "Beh-Geh"), after his initials.

Contents

• 1 Early years (1953–1979)
• 2 Cl*ical years (1980–1988)
• 3 Going West (1988–1990)
• 4 Returning East (1991–1996)
• 5 Back to basics (1997–2019)
• 6 Radio "Aerostat"
• 7 Religion and mysticism
• 8 Production
• 9 Albums
  • 9.1 Russian
  • 9.2 English
• 10 Singles
• 11 References
• 12 Bibliography
• 13 External links

Early years (1953–1979)

Grebenshchikov was born on 27 November 1953 in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). He co-founded Aquarium with a childhood friend, Anatoly "George" Gunitsky, in 1972 as a post-modernistic theater-centric effort that involved poetry and music.

Grebenshchikov was accepted into the prestigious Leningrad State University. His musical activities began taking up the bulk of his time; he started missing exams and failing cl*es. Despite an eventual graduate degree in applied mathematics, Grebenshchikov had always been a voracious consumer of culture, especially music. His school years enamored with The Beatles eventually extended to include a deep appreciation of Bob Dylan, which slowly transformed Aquarium into a low-fi electric blues band that moonlighted in acoustic reggae.

Youthful philandering was heavily frowned upon by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union regime; decent recording facilities were out of reach because experiments in non-standardized self-expression were routinely suppressed as a matter of policy. The several two-track recordings hacked out over those years (Temptation of St. Aquarium (Iskushenie Svyatogo Akvariuma), Count Diffusor's Fables (Pritchi grafa Diffuzora), Menuet for a Farmer (Menuet zemledel'tzu), and a motley crew of "singles") were of necessity extremely unprofessional, but already showcased the off-kilter wit, showy erudition, and interest in Oriental thought and mysticism that eventually became his trademarks.

1976 also saw the recording of his first solo album, On the Other Side of the Mirror Gl* (S toy storony zerkal'nogo stekla), and a dual album with another prominent nascent Russian rock-n-roller, Mike Naumenko, All Brothers are Sisters (Vse brat'ya – sestry).

Cl*ical years (1980–1988)

His big break came in 1980, when Artemy Troitsky, the first public Russian rock critic and the enabling figure in many a Russian rock musician's career, invited Aquarium to perform at the Tbilisi Rock Festival.

The festival was a state-sanctioned attempt to channel the then-burgeoning Russian rock music movement into a controllable ideological vessel. It featured a laundered line-up of government-approved rock bands, but also Aquarium. A covert KGB-bound report pinned the shenanigans on Aquarium, which caused Grebenshchikov to lose his day job and membership in Komsomol, the Young Communist League, which was a career kiss of death for a Soviet citizen in 1980.

The band's underground profile, however, continued to rise sharply over the next seven years, post-Leonid Brezhnev KGB-fueled reactionism and Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika notwithstanding. This was both due to talent, and the scarcity of supply – Western rock music was still officially banned at the time.

The first Aquarium music available in the "west" was in 1986 when a double album en*led "RED WAVE, 4 UNDERGROUND BANDS FROM THE USSR" appeared in record stores in the U.S. Besides Aquarium, three other bands, Kino, Strange Games and Alisa were recorded on a four track machine, smuggled out of the country and released by a small record label from Hollywood. During this time, bands in the USSR were either officially sanctioned or were not allowed to play in public or record in professional recording studios.

By the time Aquarium disbanded amid internal squabble in 1991, they had 11 "official" records under their belt.

Going West (1988–1990)

Perestroika has ushered in a new era of opportunity for rock musicians; several of the more prominent ones got breaks in the West. Grebenshchikov's came from Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame). Stewart-produced Radio Silence was released in 1989, featuring covers of Alexander Vertinsky's "China" amid songs by Grebenshchikov, including a song written to Sir Thomas Malory's Death of King Arthur. Annie Lennox, Billy MacKenzie and Chrissie Hynde helped out, as did several of Grebenshchikov's bandmates from Aquarium. The single "Radio Silence" was his biggest hit outside of Russia, reaching number 7 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Chart in the United States in August 1989.

He issued another English-language album, Radio London, in 1996, which consisted of demos made in 1990 and 1991.

Returning East (1991–1996)

Disillusioned in the possibility of exporting the Russian song-writing tradition to the West, Grebenshchikov returned to Russia and entered a phase of returning to his Russian roots. He come out with a Russian album (Russkiy al'bom), backed by an all-new, eponymous BG Band, in 1992.

No matter the defiance, the Aquarium brand was too strong to eschew and even the next two albums, one mostly filler (Favorite songs of Ramses the 4th (Lyubimye pesni Ramzesa IV)) and one all outtakes ('Archive vol 4'), were released under the name Aquarium. The band's next three albums (effectively Grebenshchikov's solo albums published under the band's brand) – Navigator, Snow lion (Snezhniy lev), and Hyperborea – also have a stylized Russian feel.

Back to basics (1997–2019)

As of 1997, however, the Russian folk style seems to have run its course for Grebenshchikov. His 1997 album Lilith is still mostly Russian in lyrical theme, but is recorded by way of a chance meeting with his idol Dylan's former backing group, The Band.

1999's Psi features just that, as interpreted through a post-modernistic lens with ample, highly inventive use of keyboard-triggered samplers. 2002's Sister Chaos (Sestra Haos), 2003's Fisherman's songs (Pesni rybaka), and 2005's ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM feature the same, painted by sparse touches of Armenian (Jivan Gasparyan on Bloom of the North), Indian (the entire of Fisherman's songs) and African (some of ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM).

In 2014 he released Salt, "one of the best albums of Grebenshchikov’s long career, an astonishing, visceral piece of work that more than lives up to its moniker: earthy, vital, biting, life-enhancing".

Radio "Aerostat"

Since 2005, Grebenshikov has an own weekly radio program on Russian radio station "Radio Rossii" *led Aerostat (Russian: Аэростат). It is presented as "author's program of Boris Grebenshchikov" and is created and spoken by him. His intention is to tell about the alternatives in music, about the music which nobody else plays in today's radio despite of its artistic value and originality. It is mostly independent music which, as Boris says, otherwise would not be played at all. The range of songs in Aerostat varies from 1960s and 1970s rock (The Beatles, Bob Dylan and many others) to reggae, new wave, alternative rock, electronica, punk, world music, jazz, cl*ical, and avant-garde. As of April 2019, more than 700 shows were created and broadcast, each approximately 46 minutes long. The track lists and the scripts of all programs are available at official site of Aquarium and Grebenshchikov.

Religion and mysticism

Grebenshchikov is known as a student of religion and mysticism. He translated several Hinduist and Buddhist books for publication in Russian, travelled the Orient widely, and is friends with A-list spiritual celebrities.

He also translated several Buddhist and Hinduist texts to Russian, including:

• Chökyi Nyima Rinpoche (son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche) Bardo Guidebook – "source material for the Tibetan Book of Living & Dying also known as Tibetan Book of the Dead Bardo Thodol, in 1995;
• Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche Repeating Words of the Buddha – "the essential points of spiritual practice, inseparable from everyday life.", in 1997;
• Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche Rainbow Painting – "addressing the topics of practices of ac*ulating and purifying to facilitate unification of view and conduct", in 1999;
• Shibendu Lahiri Kriya yoga – "authentic teachings and techniques of Kriya Yoga", in 2003;
• The Katha Upanishad, Upanishad belonging to the Yajur Veda, in 2005.

Production

Grebenshchikov's lyrics are often eclectic.

Over the years of his career, he wrote more than 500 songs, most of which were recorded and/or performed publicly. Additionally, Grebenshchikov recorded cover albums on material from two prominent Russian-language songwriters (Alexander Vertinsky (1994's Songs of A.Vertinsky (Pesni A.Vertinskogo)) and Bulat Okudzhava (1999's Songs of B.Okudzhava (Pesni B.Okudzhavy))), two albums of mantra music with Gabrielle Roth and the Mirrors, (1998's Refuge and 2002's Bardo), and an album of electronica versions of Aquarium songs from late 1970s – early 1980s with the Russian duo Deadushki.

Albums

Russian

• Russian Album (1991)
• Songs by Alexander Vertinsky (1994)
• Chubchik (1996)
• Lilith (1997) with The Band
• Refuge (1998) with Gabrielle Roth
• Songs by Bulat Okudzhava (1999)
• Bardo (2002) with Gabrielle Roth
• Salt (2014)
• Vremya N (2018)
• The Sign of Fire (2020)

English

Singles

References

Bibliography

• Гаккель В. Аквариум как способ ухода за теннисным кортом. – М.: Сентябрь, 2000.
• Гребенщиков Б. Б. Правдивая автобиография Аквариума. (Письмо Артемию Троицкому, 1980 год.)
• Гребенщиков Б. Б. Краткий отчёт о 16-ти годах звукозаписи. – 1997.
• Рыбин А., Кушнир А., Гребенщиков Б., Соловьёв-Спасский В. Аквариум. Сны о чём-то большем... – М.: Нота-Р, 2003.
• Троицкий А. Рок в Союзе: 60-е, 70-е, 80-е… – М.: Искусство, 1991. – 203 с – ISBN:5-210-02476-8.

External links

• Tomi Huttunen: Russian rock: Boris Grebenschikov, Intertextualist
• Aquarium website
• This article borrows from the "Short history of Aquarium", which seems to be public domain.
• Boris Grebenshikov Concert – Site for Grebenshikov's concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.
• Aquarium Bookshelf with Buddhist materials translated to Russian by Grebenshchikov
• The Bodhisattvas of Babylon, an English-language fan site
• Boris Grebenshchikov at IMDb
• Boris Grebenshchikov discography at Discogs