субота, 29 липня 2017 р.

Bil Sabab Power Hour: ...И Друг Мой Грузовик - Ганда



The song is titled Ganda and it was performed by the band ...И Друг Мой Грузовик (...and my friend the truck). It is intense nonsensical roundabout with exteme bouts of aggression in the interim. It is boiling with mysterious unease. Its lyrics are one of the best examples of utilizing dada sensibilities in the strict form of a relatively straightforward rock song. It instantly reminds of Hugo Ball's Karawane and Talking Heads' I Zimbra - but it takes the matters further. It boils and ejects heat. It circles around the listener and makes you feel threatened by the unknown hidden in the song.

The video is also quite curious. It tells a story of a two men sitting in a basement - looking at the closed box. The box is tied with ropes and is definitely intimidating. The two are clearly unnerved by its presence. It is fair to say they're very scared, even terrified by it. Then the third man comes in and sits down nearby - also looking at the box. And so they look at the box and they look at each other. They feel a bit lost. Something wicked this way comes. Then the third man snaps and goes straight to the box, cuts the ropes with a knife and opens it. What he sees is so disgusting and horrible to him that he falls away unconscious. The end.

It is fun to listen to that song outside context. Because that way - the mystery doubles and it seems to be even better. But since this text is in english and none of you probably ever heard of this band - here's a quick primer:

...И Друг Мой Грузовик - were one of the more fascinating ukrainian bands of its time. Coming from former Dnipropetrovsk (currently simply Dnipro) - they started out in the 1997 as Я и Друг Мой Грузовик (Me and my friend the truck), released two albums under that name and then their original drummer quit and they dropped "I" from the name and that was it. They went on with different drummers, somewhat upgrading their sound with more distortion and loops, casually slipped into a spin-off outfit once and then in 2012 they broke up because "boredom, etc; probably...but it's OK". There is not much actually to say about the band.

They were an oddballs of ukrainian rock. They combined pretentiously thoughtful lyrics with bouncing pounding sound. Their music neatly whirled into extravagant post-punk niche with elaborate fills of bossa nova and nu metal.

The band had a gimmick - no guitar player because reasons. That was a good idea in theory but in reality it wasn't a big deal. Their bass player was like an octopus - doing all the heavy lifting with a spark but it wasn't all that remarkable. Most of the time it was typical alternative rock with a bit different flavor. The singer was doing something that can be described as "trying to accomplish singing duties" (meh). The drummer was doing the job - obviously obliviously drumming.

Overall, their sound was unusual - but not that much. For the most of the time - it was even comfortable, maybe even too much. It lacked the edge. It was uneven. They were simply enjoying themselves playing out all those things. Which was irritating most of the time because were usually going nowhere for a better half of forever. But they had few fun songs. Such as aforementioned Ganda.

Their other song of notice was extremely catchy manic-depressive anthem "Wheels". It was featured on their first album and it is brilliant dum-dum from start to finish. Over the course of the song the singer was mumbling in all manners "MY COLORFUL WHEELS, WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME?" and then in the end it morphed into endless "MY COLORFUL WHEELS ARE TAKING ME HOME". The music around him was jumping, bouncing, rolling, sliding. It is really groovy. Watch this video:



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