Interview with Eugene Hutz, Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello’s frontman, Eugene Hutz, was born in Kiev to a Romany family which fled their home following the Chernobyl disaster when he was a teenager. He spent years travelling through Eastern European refugee camps before arriving in Vermont, in the north-east American region of New England, as a political refugee. He eventually established himself in New York as a musician and artist, and became the resident DJ at the Bulgarian Bar, Mehanata, which, thanks to Eugene’s ‘kidnapping’ of touring Romany and Gypsy bands and artists to perform there after their official seated concert hall shows, helped turn it into the ‘CBGBs of Gypsy Punk. Gogol Bordello formed after its original members met at a Russian wedding in Vermont, and soon snow-balled into a fully-fledged immigrant orchestra. Debut shows at famous New York venues, including the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom, saw them banned for performances that were ‘too over the top’.
It was around the release of the band’s second album, Gypsy Punks – Underdog World Strike, in 2005, and ‘starting fires in all the backyards from Moscow to Vancouver with tours’, that the mainstream press really started to embrace Gogol Bordello and their hyperactive, charismatic, chaotic frontman. It was around this time also that Madonna started turning up to Gogol Bordello’s gigs.
While working on Gogol Bordello’s third album, Super Taranta, that Hutz woke one morning to find a message from Madonna on his answering machine: ‘I’m calling from London. Let’s get in touch, I’ve got some projects in mind’.
The projects were the main role in Madonna’s directorial debut, the short film, Filth and Wisdom, and that Live Earth performance. Hutz says he took on the projects not because of Madonna’s fame or furtune — ‘I don’t come from a family or social type that worships any kind of celebrity culture. So to me, it was irrelevant if she’s famous or not famous’ — but for her artistic determination and respect for his band: ‘The essence of is it the person’s creative power, whether they really have a love for what they do. That’s what I look for and it’s easy for me to connect with people who are determined and willing. It was unchartered territory, but there was a lot of independent spirit. It didn’t reek with a huge campaign and promotional thing. Stuff clicked and it felt right. I knew that I would have quite a liberty with Filth and Wisdom. And I did’.
Much of the music on the soundtrack is written and performed by Gogol Bordello.
‘Madonna was very supportive of our band. She’d known about us for some years. It was very flattering and inspiring. She really was great with our band’.
Next will come the release of Gogol Bordello’s fourth, as yet untitled, album.
‘The material is all basically written. I wrote it in Brazil, where I’ve been living for about a year. It was always a romantic place for me and it’s also a music heaven. But that doesn’t mean the new album is going to be samba. It’s a lot more textured. It doesn’t stink of a flavour that’s cheap. It’s more a spirit. And for that you have to spend time there and get to know it’.
Tagged: gypsy music, New York bands, world music
RELATED
Surprise TV On The Radio live performance in New York
Yes, it’s true: on August 17, 2011 the Heineken billboard on Lafayette and Great Jones Streets in New York became occasionally perfect. Don’t believe us? Check this video out.
The Phenomenal Handclap Band releases Remixes LP
New York’s The Phenomenal Handclap Band have put their exceptional 2009 debut album in the hands of some of today’s finest remixers to see what they’d come up with. The result is a Remixes LP, which will be out on November 16 through Friendly Fire Recordings.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I love the glitchy electro-pop of Saratoga band Phantogram, whose album Eyelid Movies is out now on Ghostly. Josh Carter, one half of the duo, says: ‘Daydreams, the spots you see moving around when your eyes are closed tight, and the shapes you see in the world, those are the kinds of things we want to surface in your mind when you hear a Phantogram song.’ And you do, as you spin to its gloriously wistful intonations. [Listen to When I'm Small]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Also by AMY FREEBORN
The Gossip are the three-piece punk rock electro band from Olympia, Washington’s underground scene who broke through in the UK in spectacular style in 2006 with the single and album Standing In The Way Of Control. Lead by the unlikely rock star, lesbian, feminist, fashion icon and ‘cool’ person Beth Ditto, the trio have just released their third album, Music For Men. The title comes from a night when Beth was at a gig watching a friend’s band, which had a female member, and observed the male audience members’ reaction to it. The Gossip’s drummer Hannah Blilie recalls ‘and those words popped up in her mind. Music for men. This is music for men, and it just kinda stuck. It’s tongue in cheek, it’s not serious. It is their first studio effort for a major label since leaving indie legends Kill Rock Stars for Sony in 2008. And it’s every bit as good as their last one.
Interview with Mick Jones, ex-Clash and BAD
For a person with the musical history of ex-The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite frontman, Mick Jones, he is a very unassuming man. I meet him on a humid afternoon in West London as he and a team of helpers are madly trying to finish putting together the Mick Jones Rock n Roll Public Library — an exhibition of some 10,000 pieces of musical and pop culture memorabilia that Jones has been collecting since childhood. While I wait for my time to speak with the man, as he poses for a photo shoot with a London paper and finishes putting pieces of jewellery into a glass case in a room titled American Artefacts, his press officer relays to him: ‘Southampton University want to offer you an honorary doctorate.’ Jones’ response is: ‘Why would I want to do that? I haven’t done anything.’ But that’s far from the truth. Read more
Will Sergeant, Echo and the Bunnymen
Echo and the Bunnymen were spawned in the creative and fertile hub of Liverpool’s late-70s punk scene, borne from oft-discussed ambitions eventually called out. The three original members, who ‘didn’t really know what they were doing’, chose to perform — sink or swim — in support of Teardrop Explodes, and became cult icons; post-punk pioneers. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (0)
No comments yet.
HAVE YOUR SAY
The New York Times has just run an interesting article about artist Jorge Colombo, who created this week’s cover for The New Yorker magazine exclusively using the iPhone application Brushes: ‘Absolutely nobody can tell I am drawing’. Colombo told the Times. ‘In fact, once I was doing the drawing at some place, and my wife was around, and they asked her why did I have to work so hard? I seemed to be always on my iPhone sending messages’. Read more
The cool thing about Robin Eley’s photo-realistic paintings is that they’re very much more about the process of painting — the angles, the composition, the lighting, the backgrounds, and the poses — than about photography. Read more
B-Reel is real smooth. And when I say real, I mean really. They created the latest ad for kicks brand Onitsuka Tiger. Read more
Mexican architecture firm Senosiain Arquitectos recently designed a shell-shaped dwelling for a Mexico City couple. The owners are already living in their new abode with their two very happy children. The structure is maintenance-free and earthquake proof, and is full of soothing greenery and smooth, rounded surfaces. Read more
Our celebrity-saturated culture makes many of us irrationally hateful of the faces we see on our TV screens and magazine pages. Good thing there’s Celebrity PunchOut to let off some of that steam.
Skeletonbreath pound out some pretty raging post-punk anthems with a violin taking the lead rather than a vocalist. The trio can get surprisingly loud, despite frontman Robert Pycior’s classically trained virtuosity.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This necklace has been handmade in Italy by Paola Volpi. No longer are zips merely a functioning necessity for apparel, this unique necklace has been created from original gold zippers and thick transparent acrylic threading.
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
Here are a couple awesome pieces by Matt Leines that were recently on display in the Doubting Thomases exhibit at Nudashank gallery in Baltimore. Gives me ideas for Halloween. Read more
Michelle Blade’s psychedelic artwork
Michelle Blade’s washed out paintings are deceptively simple, her washy acrylics creating psychedelic textures and conjuring ghostly figures from the past. Read more
Mathematics? Leave me out. Fashematics? Now you’re talking! This gem of a site is a runway equation that adds up to a whole lot of wonderful.
Christoph Niemann illustrates a nightmare flight
New York Times illustrator Christoph Niemann has created a brilliant visual diary outlining the peril and pitfalls that beset the everyday passenger based on his recent experience flying from New York to his home town of Berlin. Read more
Baltimore Mural by Josh Van Horne
My friend Josh Van Horne, a local Baltimore artist, did this amazing mural in our neighborhood that depicts the history of this warehouse-laden area.
We love the re-Issue of the original Raised by Wolves and Furni digital watch collaboration, which comes with a built-in phone book, stopwatch, countdown timer and multiple alarm features with melody setting. Read more
If you have a Twitter feed that focuses on cool pop cultural things and you’d like to swap Tweets with Lost At E Minor and other like-minded Twitterers, drop us a note (with Tweet Swap in the title). We have a system in place and we’d like to have you in on it! [illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick]
FOLLOW US
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it's not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.
