memoirs provide new look at akvarium

by Sergey Chernov

Staff Writer

Published: June 29, 2001 (Issue # 682)

The memoirs of Akvarium's principal member, the late Andrei "Dyusha" Romanov, will be showcased at a concert featuring Boris Grebenshchikov and various Akvarium-related projects at SpartaK on Friday. It's also set to mark the anniversary of the flautist's death, as Romanov died on stage at the beginning of a concert at the venue on June 29, 2000.

Besides including Romanov's memoirs, finished shortly before his death, the extensive volume also has articles by fellow musicians, friends and music writers, excerpts from interviews with Romanov, and 72 pages of black and white and color photos, most of them published for the first time.

"The History of Akvarium. The Book of the Flautist," edited by Romanov's widow Anna Chernigovskaya and published by Neva Publishing and OLMA Press, is the second book from a former Akvarium member, and inevitably invites comparison with last year's "Akvarium as a Way of Maintaining a Tennis Court" by the band's former cellist Seva Gakkel.

Like Gakkel, Romanov belonged to the "classic Akvarium" lineup, which also included Grebenshchikov and bassist Mikhail Fainshtein-Vasilyev, but their assessments of the band often differ significantly.

In the early 1980s, Akvarium was exciting and innovative, exploring new horizons for music that few people in Russia thought were possible. Influenced by the Russian literature of absurd, Akvarium managed to move on from the hippy pomposity of Russian rock at the time - and developed very quickly, incorporating punk, new wave and reggae, styles which were then largely unknown and neglected in Russia, into their work.

Not allowed to release records, they consistently made studio albums on self-produced tapes, complete with excellent cover art, and when banned from public performances they developed the practice of giving concerts in private apartments.

Probably the most interesting aspect of Romanov's book are glimpses from the most creative period of the band in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The chapter where Romanov describes his travels with a friend across the Petrograd Side, visiting all kinds of watering holes, stands out as being particularly well written, and is reminiscent of Venedikt Yerofeyev's classic "Moscow - Petushki."

Unlike Gakkel, who is very critical of Grebenshchikov, there is no conflict with the band's mainstay in Romanov's book. Romanov seems to be glad to have been in a band with Grebenshchikov and frequently cites his lyrics. The approach is mostly positive, although can sometimes appear somewhat naive, as exclamations abound in the text.

Gakkel left the band as he felt its late-1980s activities were "sell-outs," and sees as compromises the band's 1994 lip-sync television performance with Akvarium's work presented as "musical parodies," changes in lyrics on the demand of television editors, participation in Sergei Solovyev's movies and so on. Romanov, on the other hand, perceives them as important "breakthroughs."

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Akvarium was seen as a sum of personalities, not as Grebenshchikov with backing musicians. Like Gakkel and Fainshtein, Romanov did not recognize Grebenshchikov's 1990s band as Akvarium, but his criticism seems to be aimed not at the rock guru, but at his current sidekicks.

Gakkel finally quit the band in 1988 to reappear only at "Akvarium's Last Concert" in 1991 and the 25th anniversary concerts in 1995, while Romanov remained with the group until it was disbanded by Grebenshchikov, who went on to pursue solo activities, only to rename his BG Band Akvarium in 1992.

"It seems that Dyushka looks [in the book] as he did in life, which is talented enough in itself," said Grebenshchikov last week.

"I didn't read what he wrote at the end - probably there was some swearing there, but the beginning very precisely revoked what it was like in my memory."

"Sevka [Gakkel] remembers only [the negative aspects], but Dyushka seems to remember what it was really like - all the pleasure which we got out of the music is evident in his book, at least in the first chapters," said Grebenshchikov, adding that he cancelled one day in a London studio to return for the concert.

"Dyusha was not writing memoirs, he wrote the history of Akvarium in short stories which were commissioned [by publishers]," said Chernigovskaya in an e-mail interview this week.

"Being an extremely tactful and peaceful person, and expecting it to be a lifetime edition, he got round many hard edges and wrote almost nothing about himself - that's why there is a section with his friends' recollections. I believe that if Dyusha was writing the history of his life in art, as Seva did, his text would have been much more hard-edged. Through the prism of his whole life he would look on the band's history differently."

Like Gakkel's memoirs, Romanov's book adds interesting details and color to Akvarium's history, but also proves that you cannot understand the greatness of a rock band in its heyday from mere recollections, no matter how talented the person who wrote them was.

The "Akvarium - the Workshop of Arts" concert featuring Boris Grebenshchikov will take place at 7 p.m. on Friday at SpartaK.