Three Tune Tuesday #172 .:. retro videos EN/RU

Boris Rubashkin is a famous performer of classical Russian romances. Some ignorant people even label him as "the golden heritage of Russia". Lol, whaaat? Rubashkin was born in Bulgaria in the family of a tsarist army officer who fled the country - first-wave emigrant, citizen of Austria, soloist of the Salzburg Opera, whose works were banned in the USSR; Rubashkin himself also was a non grata person. Another deal is that his repertoire touches the heart of every Russian... "Fried Chicken" is a traditional song that became very popular in 1920s, there exist a huge number of performances and altered versions of its lyrics. Giving the full story in details would take a separate lecture, so I not gonna abuse your attention. Instead, I suggest you to enjoy the retro videofeed cut up from the films "Heart of a Dog" and "Cigarette Girl from Mosselprom".

Russian band Nogu svelo (the title can be translated apparently as 'My leg is cramping') is rather a punk band; they always loved to shock the audience with unusual and even absurd lyrics, interviews, messages. The band's back catalog did not take much room in my heart (simply because there are many great bands out there, and the heart is not made from rubber, you can not squeeze in the unsqueezable). However, some of their songs are my absolute forever faves, and 'Moscow Romance' is one of them. This is a real masterpiece; the band cooked up this song from cliches that are usually used at the streets by all sorts of beggars and gypsies demanding your money under various tear-jerking excuses. The song was backed by a gorgeous black and white video, which I will not describe - it speaks for itself. Wonderful visual finds of the director...

For the first time in my #ttt, a very unique and original rock-band from ex-USSR. Named after famous English detective author Agatha Christie, the band started their career back in 1987, when rock was still a protest music and just started to emerge from underground. Note Agatha Christie is a wonderful band, one of the best and most original on the Russian music scene, but it wasnt considered as the Top league; they spent almost a decade building up their fan base, and - sadly - the band's heyday came in the years when the underground began to rapidly lose its significance, and it became much more difficult to break into the stadium leaders (i.e. "if you havent made it already - now its too late"). Music critics even claimed that the band plays mostly for teenage audience... which of course is not true.

The first two albums of the band were self-made; the song 'Viva Kalman' is from the 2nd LP, it became a big hit - and deserved it. Well, the whole album turned out a great recording! The orchestral and violin sound mixed in retro tunes of operetta, marches, tango with boiling pop burlesque... which rather will drop along with the band's subsequent development.

There exist an official video clip for this song, which was filmed at the real abandoned circus. (!) But I'd love to show you an unofficial one, cut from black and white retro films of the 20s: 'Les Enfants du paradis' (1945), 'Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt' (1927), 'Spione' (1928). Below, as a bonus, the concert version from 1992 performance. This is a year earlier than the hyped-up acoustic concert of Nirvana on MTV - and in my opinion, looks even more cool!