Translated material
Architect's belly
Maxim Alexandrov
Today's Andrei Makarevich fully fits the category of "poet as bourgeois"
Today's Andrei Makarevich fully fits the category of "poet as bourgeois"
From the House of Culture to the State Central Clinical Hospital. In the 80s and early 90s, Time Machine was perceived by many rock fans as almost an official team. And how could it be otherwise, if the founding father of “Russian rock” celebrates his 40th anniversary in the main official concert hall “Russia” (Photo: Svetlana Yaroshevich )
Boys and girls who studied at the Moscow Architectural Institute in the very early 70s could witness a strange student skit. A girl and four of her friends appeared on stage. Three of them were wow, broad-shouldered and broad-shouldered, but the fourth was barely alive, and besides, he was with a violin. On command, one of the big guys gave the musician a kick, and he began to play “Ah, my dear Augustine, Augustine, Augustine...”. For some reason, the entire performance was called “Musical Eccentrics Brothers Makarevich,” although only one member of the troupe bore the historical surname - the violinist himself. Andrey Vadimovich.
It was such a sweet, slightly blessed Augustine that Andrei Makarevich entered the alarming kingdom of Soviet-Russian rock.
In this rock, Makarevich really stands apart. Not even a mansion, but a kind of house with a mezzanine, from which you can smell a mile away of melted candles, high school birthdays, sails under the sky and fish in jars. His vague pathetic fables, not very far from the KSP, always confirmed the relevance of the famous statement of Sergei Kuryokhin: all Moscow rock music belongs more to the field of literature.
Nevertheless, the rock group “Time Machine” is in its thirties, has outlived many of its persecutors, and to this day fills stadiums and is in great shape. As Yeltsin said, congratulating Makarevich on his 40th birthday, “The Time Machine songs are loved for their sincerity, emotionality and depth.” Changes in the composition at this age only speak of hitherto unrealized ambitions.
Seventies
In those years, Makarevich collected butterflies, painted and sculpted. While studying at a special school with an English bias, he tried to play songs by Okudzhava and Vysotsky on a seven-string guitar. Then I heard “The Beatles” and in my spare time I once sculpted either clay or plasticine figures of the Beatles. Eyewitnesses spoke of a frightening resemblance. Makarevich's first musical project in 1968 was called The Kids and was strictly English-language. (About the same time, the young Leningrader Boris Grebenshchikov surprised the girls with a performance of Satisfaction by Jagger - Richards in the purest language of the original.)
The debut concerts of the Time Machine itself, formed on June 27, 1969, are played in Moscow schools - first in their native school, 19th, then in 4th, then somewhere else. The first songs appear in Russian. They are recorded on the radio with a fair amount of professionalism. The group is given an audition at the Moscow beat club - and no one there likes it, except for rock and roller Alexander Gradsky. In the early 70s, Makarevich was expelled from the Moscow Architectural Institute, and the half-educated architect, who nevertheless managed to design a couple of cultural centers, together with his rock band, began to actively play “electricity” in the southern resorts - for shelter and wine.
Leonid Utesov in one of his last interviews said the following: “They told me that there is such a new ensemble “Time Machine”. I have not heard it, but I believe that it is a good ensemble.” Leonid Osipovich was not mistaken - the group was definitely good. “Machine” turned out to be the most remarkable group of the first generation of Soviet rockers - it was able to play Led Zeppelin’s songs better than others, it composed its own hits, and finally, in it Makarevich came up with rock and roll poetry in Russian.
Seventies Makarevich - a real rock star, a hero-lover in bell-bottoms, colorful shirts and large darkened glasses - was going through his best times. Insanely popular, recordings go all over the country, and each musician receives ten rubles for a concert. In 1975, Daneliev’s film “Afonya” was released, in which Afanasy Borshchov slowly dances to “Sunny Island” and the musicians of “Machine” themselves are shown for a few seconds. With the fee he received for this signature blues, Makarevich bought a Grundig TK-46 tape recorder.
In 1977, a brass section appeared in the group, and a year later, in the speech studio of GITIS, under the direction of director Alexander Kutikov, “Time Machine” recorded the famous program “The Little Prince”. At the same time, Makarevich and his group performed in Tallinn at the popular music days, where he met the then little-known Boris Grebenshchikov and his Aquarium project. A friendship began, “Time Machine” played for the first time in Leningrad and for several years became the most popular group in the city. I went there every month. BG, being in Makarevich’s sixth role at that time, accompanied him everywhere. In the next decade the situation changed dramatically.
Eighties
By 1980, the group acquired professional status, became relatively “one of their own” and went to work at Rosconcert. The tour begins - Kharkov, Odessa, Rostov. In March, the legendary Tbilisi-80 festival takes place, at which “Machine” snatches the main prize, playing, by the way, on equipment belonging to the Integral group and personally to Bari Alibasov. Grebenshchikov and “Aquarium” are being chased away from the same rock forum with a filthy broom and are almost facing a criminal case for homosexuality.
In 1981, Makarevich and Kutikov composed the hit "Turn" and starred in the film "Soul", illustrating the creative path of the singer Svobodina - Rotaru with their most popular songs. After “Soul,” musicians begin to be recognized by sight on the streets. A pirated disc called “Machines” is being released in America of appalling quality. The group ends up in the Morning Mail. A book of Makarevich’s poems called “Crystal City” is being published in Bulgaria.
“In 1986, we were allowed to play in Moscow, although it was almost in the Moscow region - the Setun Sports Palace. And that was only because Chernobyl happened, and we immediately organized a concert to raise funds. Such an action could no longer be banned,” - recalled the head of “Machine” in an interview. Having achieved minimal recognition from the state, the group immediately earned the ardent dislike of their more “underground” colleagues - from the very beginning of the 80s. Andrei Makarevich, who actually founded this entire almshouse called “Russian rock,” was subjected to rather severe obstruction from his smaller brothers.
A prominent sound engineer and producer of those years, Andrei Tropillo, says: “By 1979, “Time Machine” had reached the apogee of decomposition as a team.” Artemy Troitsky wrote in an article in 1982: “I imagine Makarevich’s muse with difficulty, in the form of a middle-aged teacher, kindly, intelligent and with principles.”
Two years later, the then disgraced Yuri Shevchuk sang a ditty with prophetic culinary content in a bad voice: “Time-time-time-time-passes, Makarevich has become out of fashion - pasta is coming in.” “Our youth hero has again started a battle with fools, but he is fighting with himself,” - this is 1983, Mike Naumenko and the group “Zoo”, album “County City N”, composition of the same name.
The appearance of Grebenshchikov, Naumenko, and Tsoi on the rock scene was welcomed in only one way - it was finally an end to the dominance of Makarevich and his sky-high crystal castles; hurray, real contemporary street rock poetry has appeared. The albums of the new rockers, among other things, were mostly conceptual and well designed, while the recordings of “Machine” were only random collections of songs, often without covers.
Makarevich’s most remarkable story was with Mikhail, Mike, Naumenko. Mike's first Moscow performance, his clumsy acoustic rhythm and blues, inimitable nasal vocals, touching, rude and naive poetry by any standards - Makarevich regarded all this as vile hooliganism. (To be fair, it must be said that then everything settled down - “Zoo” played on the twentieth anniversary of “Machine”, Makarevich dedicated a song to Naumenko’s memory.) Mike, meanwhile, became the main hero of the 80s. Makarevich did not guess this in time - and therefore lost. The then bass guitarist of “Zvukov Mu” Alexander Lipnitsky recalled: “Mike, with his new vocabulary and disdainful attitude towards the stage image, was a test, a litmus test. And “Time Machine” by that time had already been performing in velvet suits for a long time. They still played well, but they were already in velvet or, in extreme cases, in Beatle suits. Moscow (unlike Leningrad - “Itogi”) always tried to be as if on the stage."
This is roughly how one can determine the place of “Machine” on the rock scene of the 80s: still a supergroup, but already missing something. They had little sense of musical fashion. The beginning of the 80s in the West is the time of post-punk and “new wave”. All self-respecting domestic rockers ("Aquarium", "Kino", "Strange Games", "Center") in one way or another tried to move in these directions: they were tricky with sound, lyrics, appearance, and singing style. “Machine” continued to play its good-natured and even then old-fashioned rhythm and blues.
The group essentially began experimenting with sound only with the album “Rivers and Bridges.” But it was already 1986 - it’s not like the train had completely left, but by that time all the classic Russian rock bands had managed to compose all the classic Russian rock songs. A new generation of musicians has grown up ("AuktYon", "Civil Defense", etc.), against the background of which Makarevich and the company already looked like the most perfect antiques.
“Time Machine” began to be pecked by all and sundry. Already in perestroika times, the magazine "Literary Studies" published an analytical article by Alexander Shchuplov, where Makarevich was accused of inappropriate symbolism, isolation from life and a general copying of Grebenshchikov. For example, Yuri Loza with his “little rafts”, “oh-what-legs” and other nonsense was set as an example for the supra-mundane Makarevich. “Isn’t my “Talk on the Train” social?” - Makarevich was sincerely perplexed, answering questions from strict readers of the Student Meridian. “Not particularly,” ungrateful readers responded gloomily.
Makarevich contrasted with Russian rockers in absolutely everything, including his appearance. The same BG, clearly aware of his status, dressed accordingly - red camouflage coats, high boots, mesh sweaters and other attributes of a difficult and unbalanced person. At the same time, the head of the "Machine" was photographed in a disastrous boiled jacket, white sneakers, a Carolina Friends School T-shirt and brown slacks with suspenders.
All rockers have proven themselves in films in one way or another. Grebenshchikov and Naumenko to a lesser extent, but Tsoi, Mamonov, Kinchev and Shevchuk - in all the glory and power of talent. Makarevich, again, started this, and one cannot help but admit that of all the Russian rockmen, he managed to star in the most idiotic film and in the most stupid role. In “Start Over,” he portrayed the suffering young bard Nikolai Kovalev - with a dozen songs clamped down by the artistic council, an unbalanced fan and a hamster Nikanor in a three-liter jar.
The same Boris Grebenshchikov spoke wisely about his friend then (in the samizdat magazine “Roxy”): “He was the first to make a fool of himself.”
However, the vagueness of social themes and general “venality” did not in any way prevent the group from creating expressive music, touring in Africa and England and increasing the number of fans here.
Nineties
The 90s again became the time of Makarevich. The activity of the leader of the “Machine” amazed the imagination. He sang at the August barricades, successfully rafted down the Amazon with Alexander Rosenbaum, co-wrote an amazing book about diving with Yuri Belsky, artistically designed the volumes of Yuz Aleshkovsky, starred in Avtandil Kvirikashvili’s film “Crazy Love” as a hypnotist, founded a dental clinic, invented several television programs, registered the trademark "Smak" (dumplings, drinks and other provisions), patronized the acoustic group "Fern", recorded a number of his own very decent records and responded with a song to literally every event in socio-political life - be it the death of Joseph Brodsky or life of Yegor Stroev. And this time no one was trying to vilify him. Firstly, it’s a familiar thing (what difference does it really make – Rosconcert, steeped in the 80s, or the Party company advertised in the 90s), and secondly, it’s executed in a painfully natural way. When almost all the surviving heroes of Russian rock and roll began to slowly but surely lose their minds, Makarevich looked, if not more decent, then certainly more natural than anyone else. Neither the "Smak" apron nor the "Old Songs about the Main Thing" samovar could confuse the fans. His music did not suffer qualitatively, because a healthy sporting interest was already felt in relation to it: the musician composes and plays, since this is his work and everything has long been put on stream. It has become more or less the same whether Andrei Makarevich makes the blues or fights with Yuri Antonov over a poorly cooked leg of lamb.
In general, nothing bad happened. Simply, in the witty words of cultural critic Boris Paramonov, “the artist turns into a priest and begins to eat.”
Today's Makarevich fully fits the category of “poet as bourgeois.” God knows whether this fully corresponds to the inner essence of Andrei Vadimovich, but his external (television) image is exactly like that. Only the severity of his last deeds prevents him from finally being touched and calmed down. The first sign of this kind was a production scandal with an old friend Leonid Yarmolnik - over the film "Crossroads". At Yarmolnik’s request, for some reason Yuri Ilchenko performed the songs for the film - without the consent of their eminent author. The case almost went to trial. (True, there was also talk that this scandal was an advertising one.) This incident was followed by a very harsh action: the most professional of the Mashina musicians, the fat and cozy keyboard player, showman and ex-cocaine addict, Petr Podgorodetsky, was expelled from the three-neck group. . “We lost the pleasure of both playing and communicating with Peter,” the head of the ensemble coldly commented on what happened.
Dear Augustine more and more often demonstrates the traits of the autocratic Augustus. And it’s no longer clear whether this is dictated by the demands of show business or the fault of the same irrepressible rock and roll fever, which reminded itself thirty years later.