From The Beatles to present day in russian music history: Who are you, a guy?

Let me introduce you an interesting person and a talented musician, whose name you might not have heard but whose contribution to the Russian music over the last 20 years is rather impressive.

Among a number of bands, inspired by the Western “Musical Titans”, like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and others, in Russia there are few to delight the ear of Western music addict. At present we see more professional performers but along with this, less individuality in their works. That`s mainly because it`s hard to keep the balance of desire to create a hit and the real potential to realize the project according to talent, abilities and promote the product in professional sphere.

The person I`m going to introduce manages to keep the above mentioned  balance. His name is Dmitry Pushkariov – frontman for  the Russian band Barley Corn, that was born more than 20 years ago. There are lots of live concerts, articles and critical reviews left behind, but today the thing I want to focus on is Dmitry`s burning desire to create. So let`s try to find out more about him.

 

Sound tracks:

 

•1.     Brother Joe

•2.     Close to the sun

 

•3.     Mary Joanna

 

•4.     Who You Are

 

 

BA - Dmitry, we know that you have basic music education and can play at least one instrument – piano. Tell us please how it all started and the way Western music influenced you.

PD – It all started the early morning of December 1986 when I woke up with dead certainty that I`m going to be a musician. I have to say that one year before I had graduated from a music school, piano department, sworn never to touch this instrument again and wanted to quit music at all. However, when I figured out Paul McCartney`s "Heart of the country" from “RAM” everything changed in a moment mysteriously, the music took me up in a new different way.

 

BA -Thank you, and tell us please how you manage not only to make these arrangements, stylized according to certain periods in world music, but, what`s more, to perform all tracks so artistically? And one more thing: did you do that all just by yourself?

PD - Well, it came to me once, that the whole notion of time & the way I spend it become a priority in the creative process. I love to feel part of the band, discuss all the details while playing, but concert and studio arrangements are two different things.  Besides, rehearsals are quite a long process when figuring out some new material. Studio time is quite expensive, so I want to make maximum use of it, and that makes me solve creative tasks other way. For example, I book players just for separate parts recording. It`s very important in the studio to save time and money, so not everything during the recording is done by me. As for stylization of songs, that`s just natural influence of the music, absorbed by my soul, that is so close to my spirit and music perception. The vocals are a long story. I couldn`t imagine that I`ll be ready to vocal parts in a way my works demand. But it`s up to the audience to decide if I succeed or not, taking into account what Mother Nature has gifted me with.

 

BA - Dmitry, you are too modest here… As if it is really that simple: you make an arrangement, record, sing…  But ok, we`re not going to be pushy, just tell us please about the process of music creation

PD – From a certain moment (from the end of the 80-ties to be exact) I started recording on tape and then on digital recorders all the worthy (from my point of view) ideas that came to me either while playing some instrument or while doing daily chores. As years passed, I turned to collect lots of ideas, but just a small part of them turned into ready made product. There are lots of reasons for that: no colourful text, lack of money to pay the record hall and session players (including hornists and string quartet) and so on. But the main thing is that the idea itself, the so-called seed of a future song, can remain just a seed, if you don`t give it a second birth. I mean, you need to find the way of realization, the way of arrangement, stylization, production of this musical material. So most of my ideas like an old wine bottle are still waiting in the wings. For example the four songs above correspond to my “scetches” of 1992, 1994, 2001 and 2009 and they have been recorded for the last 1,5 years.

As for stylization, I never do it like “Oh, this one`s gonna be The Beatles -like”- I mean the very idea predefines some stylistic frames. Once I had to write music for an avant-garde classics` style play and none of my music “scetches” matched the style, so I had to make it  right there in the studio.

 Now recording process goes like this: when the idea of a song arrangement has come in, I do some “draft copy” on the computer myself and I also do my mixing version. Then follows the process of so-called “checkout” – I correct some parts, effects, etc. in the arrangement until I`m finally pleased with the result. This process takes about one week and I usually choose versions (usually there are about 20 of them) right in the car when going to work or on the way back home. Then I send the chosen version to the sound engineer and after that our work in the studio begins. It mainly consists of fair-copying instrumental parts and vocals.

As far as possible I try to use “live instruments” but it is not often needed or even reasonable. For example, I used VST –sound of melotron and piano but the organ is live for the 2 songs above :Mary Joanna  and Close to the sun (that was Hammond V-series 1948 ). That was necessary for the material – that`s the key factor for me.  The hot button is, traditionally, the live drums. There are quite good alternatives to live sound, but the whole being craves for live drums, though that sometimes costs a pretty penny. Note, for the 2 songs above we made an experiment of recordind drums in a hall for 800 people. The expenses exceeded our expectations. From then on we record live drums very rarely.

BА – Ok, and now tell us please about your innermost – guitars and equipment.

PD – As for my instruments, a couple of years ago I bought Gibson SG Special 1969 (it is similar to that of Pete Townsend`s, except that his guitar is of 1968 and his sensors P90  are black and mine are white). I can discuss it for hours, but briefly:

This instrument is more than forty years old (it is 2 years older than me), the wood is dry so it`s simply singing in my hands, the new ideas are easy to come (as if they just rush into my head). It can be compared to riding a horse, when you control and direct it by your will, but if you relax and loosen the reins, it starts choosing the direction and it may ride you anywhere…that`s maybe because lots of people played this instrument and information on energy level remained within the guitar…

  So I `m one of those players who prefer vintage instruments to new ones, and that`s in reason – I`m not a maniac-collector and the so-called collector value has little importance for me. It`s the sound that matters much.

As for the bass guitar I often use mine – Fresher Precision Bass 1978(Made in Japan). It has smooth strings and a foam damper, so with a pick you get the sound of the 60-ies.

 I use Martin Acoustics because I like it`s individual midrange sound with low cut and high cut similar to albums of McCartney, Jethro Tull or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. In the studio I happened to play the bright sound Taylor, which we recorded to double track my acoustics. The result was pretty good.

I also have a Lap Steel Guitar (you may hear it in Mary Joanna).

There are a few mandolins. One of them I often use on the concerts (the same was used when recording Brother Joe). From one of my tours abroad I returned with Didgeridoo (instrument of Australian Aborigines) – you can hear it in Mary Joanna (actually it begins with the sound). As for Estonian wind flute – my friend`s present - you can hear it in the same reggae-style song (the sound reminds a racing car`s engine).

Three more instruments are gathering dust at home. These are: bagpipe, clarinet and violin. After all I took the violin to the studio to record some simple parts for folk-style song Brother Joe. As for bagpipe and clarinet – I just can`t start learning to play them until I have a private house of my own. These instruments are too loud and I `m too modest by nature to bother my neighbours once again.

So I guess, that`s all, except for ukulele, kozoo, lots of Blues Harps, jew's-harps and lots of percussion equipment, that deserve little attention. I realize that after hearing about all these instruments you can easily call me a freak, but I know that lots of musicians share my “malady”.

As for the equipment, I don`t have much to say because I`m not that good in technical aspect. I use Cubase SW sequensor with a bunch of plugins  and  VST-instruments. I record e-guitars and bass right into the sound card; for acoustics and vocals I use “Oktava” microphone.   

Studio work is a different story. Before I continue, I have to say that the highlight of a good studio is not the equipment, but the people who work there. All in all I can say that I`ve always been lucky with soundmen. Maybe it`s due to my material that they find interesting to work with, but all of them so to speak “light up” with work, are full of ideas and always ready for sound experiments, that`s what I always welcome. I often hear from my colleague players about a token approach of soundmen – some of their works prove that by the way. Perhaps, they just didn`t get along or it was bad luck.

  There were lots of experiments: from innocent ones, like  irregular microphones positioning or recording different acoustic instruments in strange rooms (stair wells and metal boxes), to drums, bass, guitars and voices pitching experiments (mainly lowering the tone). And once we even tried an extreme one – recording the voice through the piano. Just imagine: I`m standing on all fours trying the opera singing under the piano`s keyboard and the microphone is positioned above the keyboard near the strings (with sustain pedal pressed, of course), to record the voice together with the string aftersound.

As for the vocal microphones, there are many of them in the studio where I record and apart from nominal I come across rather expensive ones (like Neumann) and I surely test them. But the microphone I`ve been using more often recently is quite cheap - an old Lomo of Soviet times. The choice of microphone depends on a song`s voice perspective. My voice is colourful enough (sometimes even too colourful), that explains the microphone`s choice.

My guitar equipment consists of an old Marshall (head and cabinet) of the 60-ies, among the effects – tape delay, tremolo and sometimes Way-Way, but frankly, I don`t know much about stomp boxes…

BA – And now please try to characterize in brief the four songs we are introducing to our readers. As for me, in your works I heard familiar old-timey sound and spirit of the end of the 60-ies and 70-ies.

 PD – Altogether you are right. But when you create a piece of music, you don`t really think much about roots or parallels of ideas and sounds. Only when the arrangement is completed you suddenly realize that something from those times, stuck deep in your mind, starts coming out like images in the photo paper.  So it`s likely that listening to the song “Who You Are” you might have associations with The Beatles` album “Magical Mystery Tour”. Well, that was the idea, actually.

BА – Thank you, Dmitry. We had a brief but very informative insight into your professional life. I wish you to continue your professional growth and hope to hear of you very soon. Good Luck.

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