Dmitry "Sid" Spirin: "I control everything"

In March 2016, the Moscow punk group "Tarakans!" celebrates the 25th anniversary of the four-day series of concerts in one of the largest Moscow clubs by Yotaspace -promise to perform almost all the songs written in a quarter century and the performances of the followers. On this occasion, Denis Boyarinov discussed with the leader of "cockroaches!" Dmitry Spirin, as he began to play Punk, how he defended the White House in August 1991, how he signed a bonded contract and other curious episodes from the history of veterans of the Moscow punk rock.

- Your path on the stage began even before the Kutuzovsky Prospekt, which was renamed “cockroaches!”. In 1990, you got a loader in the Cleopatra group and earned money for a bass guitar. How did Cleopatra concerts go ?

- We went to speak in Orsha. Cleopatra belonged to the producer center of Andrei Lityagin, the Mirage studio. The emissaries of the Center, who did not resemble the impresario of the Soviet school, sprinkled all the surrounding cities and villages in the area in advance. The ensemble and the technical group were settled in the best Orsha hotel and every day went on Ikarus to the next village. With all equipment. All Cleopatra was necessary for the performance was some kind of recreation center with the likeness of the stage and the hall. When the bus arrived to the place, all the local guys and girls were already hanging out at the club, although the concert was supposed to begin only a few hours later. The equipment in an instant was extracted from the bus and connected - this was the sound. The group performed a complete plus, although the microphone was turned on so that the singer Svetlana Vladimir could shout something encouraging into it. At the same time, all the dude from Cleopatra were musicians of the underground Moscow Hevi-Metal groups; They looked colorful - with Hair, in leggings and boots. Three concerts were given on the weekend - in the morning, day and evening in one hall. Then they returned back - diverged to the numbers, and after 15 minutes the whole party gathered in the only suite of the Orsha hotel, at the singer Svetlana Vladimir, where a cheerful party took place. Over the weekend I could earn 45 rubles, while my mother received 210 rubles a month, which was a lot in 1990.

-You wrote in your book “Dumb Punk Rock for Intellectuals” that in addition to a good guitar, you were taken to the group for a spectacular appearance.

- (Laughs.) It was already 1991. I had a normal bass-the Czech “Iolanda Bas Disco”. She was cool - brilliant and black. As for the appearance - I was a tall dude, and I had a very magnificent red hire, sticking out in different directions. He wore things that a 16-year-old teenager could afford to stand out from the crowd: jeans, a home-made boar-I cooked it in a pan, and did not buy it in the Riga market. The guys from Kutuzovsky Prospekt liked that I was playing the guitar and shook my head, and Hair was textured. Khair was released for Hevi-Metal-then we all dreamed of playing him.

"Cockroaches!" - "What can I change?"

“You didn’t listen to Punk yet?”

- No. We went many times to the film "The accident-the daughter of the cop", there we showed "Miracle Yudo." I heard Sex Pistols once. And everyone heard that there was a “coffin” - “civil defense”, but then I could not imagine their music. When I met guys from Kutuzovsky Prospekt, they let me listen to the newly released debut of Naiva and Sex Pistols . I really liked the other. I thought: “Class, how to knock down your fingers, engage in triol drawings, shoot parties and never grow to the level of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden , or maybe even to Vladimir Kholstin from Aria - the idols of my childhood; I can play tonic bass, and this already creates a cool sound. ” The Sex Pistols record sounded cool - there were sound and energy. I thought I want to play in such a group.

-When you got to the festival of hopes held by the Moscow Rock Laboratory, Kutuzovsky Prospekt almost forcibly appropriated the name “Four cockroaches”. You didn't like the name - why weren't you renamed?

-Olga is neat and her friends in the rock laboratory to our indignation reacted as follows: not only are you renamed ten more times, but after a couple of months you will be taken into the army, and when you return, you don’t remember the group. Then she was mistaken: none of us went into the army (except for one guy), and the group continued. The festival of hopes of the rock laboratory in those days was a very important event in the cultural life of the capital. For two days in a row, the Big Hall of the Palace of Gorbunov was scored. The entire underground of Moscow gathered - from mossy punk from Herzen to the "night wolves." Everyone went to look at the new rock groups.

We thought that this was a cool start: we saw and found out under the name “Four cockroaches” a lot of correct people. Therefore, later we simply threw back the numeral. Now it seems to me that "cockroaches!" -Normal rock and roll name. It happens worse: for example, "crematorium".

-Do you have your favorite groups from the Moscow rock laboratory , which may not have lived until today?

- I have a side project “Rockets from Russia”. Our main activity is the execution of the covers of the Hits of Rock and Punk rock in parties. Two years ago, we muddied a series of Internet releases that came out under the name “Fathers and Dead 's”-it was tribalized by laboratory rock bands, which for some reason do not use such fame as Leningrad and Yekaterinburg. We made the covers for the songs “E.S.T.”, “Black Obelisk”, “Naiva”, “Va-Bank”, “Mr. Twister”, “Alliance”, “Sounds of Mu”-we can assume that these are my favorite groups from near-Laboratory party.

“Rockets from Russia” - “Nobody loves me” (Naiv ”Cover)

- The Four Cockroaches group took part in historical events on August 19-21, 1991 - was hanging out on the barricades. What do you remember about these days?

- All four musicians then lived in Kutuzovsky - in two neighboring courtyards. Right at the point where Kutuzovsky is divided into avenue and a large Dorogomilovskaya street. We had some kind of homemade Tusa-in the evening of August 18 we threw, and the next day it would never have occurred to us to turn on the radio. We went out into the street - to dart to the stall. We see - very alarmed citizens on the street. Especially pensioners who were then a politically active class. They tell us: "You hang out, and guys like you protect democracy!" - "What happened?" “Do you know? - Pensioners say. - In the country, putsch. Gorbachev under arrest. The power was seized by revanchists. We must protect. " We broke. Two trolleybus stops walked on foot, crossed the bridge and found themselves in the square in front of the Sev building, which after those events was called the Square of the Free Russia, where there was the so -called anarchist barricade. There, very different people were piled up near the breasts of garbage as fortification fortifications. It was a cheerful party with a raid of anxiety. Representatives of public organizations came-sometimes very dumb, simply bulls, but for some reason they did not want to return the authorities. They brought food - canned food with soups from humanitarian European assistance. There was a lot of vodka. Some paratroopers thumped by the “piano” alcohol. No one understood what would happen next. This was the only moment in the history of modern Russia, when simply a large accumulation of the people at one point changed the course of events. Putchists, apparently, simply fell on treason. And then a holiday happened. The Echo of Moscow announced the victory: the GKChP is self -released, Gorbachev was released and flies to Moscow, and in general everything is a buzz. Then immediately a rock concert was organized on the stairs in front of the White House, which we really wanted to fit in. But the organizers at that time did not yet know our group.

The events of 1991 are recalled as cheerful happy, because the October pile of the 93rd-in the same place-looked more ominous. With our own eyes we saw snipers who sat on the roofs of houses, they shot at people, were wounded and killed. We saw tanks working in the White House - it was all not Ponaroshka. It was possible to die.

- In 1996, you were not called to the tour “vote or lose”?

- No, we were still small then. But if he took place a year later, we would definitely play there, because our Felee Records label had something to do with him. If my memory serves me, our colleagues in the Wa-Bank and Chayf label participated in it.

-In the 1990s, Felee Records behaved like a serious Western label, which is still a rarity in Russia. What was your contract with them?

- The most bonded that you can invent. By 1997, Igor Tonskikhi and his company became noticeable players-they had licensed contracts with strong Western indie labels, and they began to sign groups that, as it seemed to them, would jump out of the underground to the mainstream. We were one of the first, and we were still very uncouth. Therefore, we signed a translated Majorov contract, which implied 7 albums for 10 years. When I read it, I rushed with two demo sands on other labels-there were two and a half of them: Moroz Records and SNC . They told me there: "Thank you, we will call you back." I had to sign a contract with Felee , but this is where the cabin ended. Igor was very attentive to the artists, and we received what we wanted from Felee - the budget for serious studios: they began to take off the video clips, began to engage in the publicity of the album “stole? Drank?! In prison !!! " Suddenly, on the fashionable radio Maximum , our song “The Bad Brying” sounded - almost the only one with the dystorshny. And to top it off, our track in 1998 was in the collection of OM magazine, which was then read by all fashionists and those who wanted to be fashionable. Then it was just fantastic for us.

"Cockroaches!" - “Train towards“ Arbat ”” (1998)

- Now you are doing everything yourself. Without a label. How many people are in the company "Tarakans!"?

- There are five of us in the group. There are four more on the tour with us: a tour manager who also performs the functions of a lighter, sound engineer and two techniques. The 10th is a press attache. The 11th is a dude that covers all social networks and Internet. In the administrative group - two, formed by tandem. In my opinion, there is no one else.

- Who is the financial director?

- (Laughs.) There is a person who makes sure that the accounting department is in order. But I control everything. I recently learned from the book about Exla Rose that Mick Jagger also controls everything in Rolling Stones . Well, or it was in 1987, when Guns N 'Roses performed with them. I cannot afford to live like Lumen or Louna groups, trusting the manager in everything. I want to hold my hand on the pulse.

- This year, the group "cockroaches!" It will turn 25 years old. What are you preparing for the holiday?

- We prepare new songs. The last song for the Maximumhappy dilogy was composed somewhere in September 2012. About three years we have not made new songs. In February 2015, we composed "What can I change?" - And it was a good initiative. At the moment, we have 15 more new songs. We want to record 10-12 best of them on a new album, which we will release, most likely, by the fall of 2016. At the end of last year, a collection of the best songs “The Best of the Best” was released. And at the beginning of this, an unusual concert record will be released, which we ironically called “A solid punk rock for solid gentlemen” is an acoustic concert in an expanded composition. With backing vocalists, percussionist, bandjo and double bass. In arrangements - from lounge to reggae and daba.

-And at the “invasion” -2016 will you perform-after the scandal at the last festival associated with the performance of the song “Sun Circle”?

- We had to meet with the organizers of the festival to clarify the position on some issues. It turned out that the basic views on life coincide with us: we are all for the world around the world, against wars, against tears of mothers. We are all for freedom of speech and for freedom of expression. We clearly made it clear that next year the position on military equipment present at the “invasion”, we will have the same - we are not happy with her. And they told us: no one shuts your mouth. I had the feeling that the organizers of the “Invasion” really wanted their viewer to see us this year. But I still do not know how our tour will be dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the group. Who knows what will happen in July?

"Cockroaches!": 25 years old "
5, 6, 7 and 8, Yotaspace