B EAST Magazine website

– By Al Jackson

In a city gripped by recession tighter than most, precocious good-time guys are urging the youth of Budpest to get out, get happy and get partying.

Bence Meyeri, the brain behind Wacky Parties, who together with Andras Eichstaedt, Janos Prorok and Matyas Lendvai of serial party/production/DJ crew Sick As A Dog, have been throwing dynamic pop-up guerilla raves in the metro stations, underpasses, and abandoned buildings of Budapest for the past year.

The likely lads recently hosted iLLFEST, a libertine mid-January weekender who’s first night took place in the concourse of the Astoria metro station. Chosen precisely for the heavy footfall of Friday night revellers traversing busy Karoly Kut avenue, attention was guaranteed and the minimal tech-house pumping from a makeshift DJ booth of trellis tables and ironing boards outside a news kiosk managed to attract quite a crowd.

After a couple of hours, the 100-strong party halted as the power (jacked straight from an outlet in the wall) failed. Perplexed cops looked on while Plan B seamlessly clicked into action and the throng was whisked to a club where the tunes continued to spin.

Hitches and glitches though are simply par for the course for Bence and the boys. Indeed, they seem to revel in the off-the-cuff ethic of what they’re doing. Importantly, the party goers are all plugged-in to the same attitude too and are eager to be part of it.

It’s just as well ‘cos Saturday night’s installment, in a freezing underpass off Ferenciek Square next to Erzsebet Bridge, was hit-up by the riot squad. As tear gas brought an end to a party that, Budapest’s likely lads at the helm, was thriving on its ‘stolen moments’ vibe, it was a case of grab a lap-top, korg or ironing board and leg it to the van a few streets away.

However, this being a more focused, recession-era, Budapest, the 200 souls who had been waiting for this all week, or had simply stumbled across it and liked what they saw, were defiant. They were not ready for the authorities to kill their weekend (in addition to their economy). Not even at two thirty in the morning.

Again, exit strategies were already in motion and iLLFEST rumbled on in the eclectic Tuzrakter Cultural Centre. The squat-like former school building an inspired choice to sustain the hi-NRG D.I.Y. fun and keep us hedonists drinking and dancing well into Sunday.

In these troubled times it’s heartening to see that Andras, Matyas, Janos, Bence and associates, are throwing down the gauntlet: underground in Budapest, it’s invention vs recession and it’s kicking off.

– post: Al Jackson

When was the last time you were set upon by beat-crazed gypsies intent on making you feel that the world isn’t shitty, that life isn’t one big fucking let-down, and actually get you smiling like a bloody idiot while jigging uncontrollably? For me it was about 4mins 54secs ago.

Many weird and wonderful things are stumbled upon when kerb-crawling the net but the video for I Was Drunk ft. Noze by tech-house sensation Riva Starr (real name Stefano Miele) certainly falls into the latter category. Well, maybe a little bit into the first one too but in a good way. It is total lunacy after all.

It’s a mash-up of Black Cat, White Cat, by controversial Serbian director Emir Kustarica and if you thought the film was an absurdist delight, just wait til you see it set to Miele’s infectious, hook-laden Balkan belter. Like the most joyously riotous, insane, crystal-meth induced shot-gun wedding homevideo ever. Watch it, watch it now.

Riva Starr’s album, If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemonade is out on Made to Play in January 2010.

Last month Marc Almond released his new album, Orpheus in Exile, dedicated to the tragic life, times and tunes of Vadim Kozin, a chanson singer exiled by the Soviets to Russia’s far East because of his sexuality. Though packed with the classics of the Russian romance and folk genres, the record didn’t exactly take the classic route to completion: going virtually native, Marc recorded in intimate apartments around town and playing private shows for assorted oligarchs and biznessmen for the big bucks by night – a B.Eastie after our own hearts, then. Alex Jackson caught up with the story behind Orpheus…

Hey Marc, so you first visited Russia on a tour back in 1990, then lived there again circa ’01 and were back, on and off, over the last few years creating the new record – seems you can’t keep away, eh?

Some of the best times of my life have been spent living in Moscow. It’s a hard city to penetrate for Westerners but I feel privileged that I got to know a bit more of it and the way it works than most. I had an  apartment in a state-building that was just great to go back to after recording and make dinner for friends and it was wonderful to work with [entertainment Royalty] Alla Bayanova, Lyudmilla Zykina [Brezhnev’s favourite] and the Rossiya Orchestra. All thanks to great friends who opened doors for me, especially creative ones.

The creative experience was a good one I take it?

Recording was fantastic. The studios were really high quality, even tiny ones in people’s apartments had a great sound – especially for vocals. It was also wonderful to see some of Moscow’s decadent nightlife!

Speaking of which, gigging for oligarchs must have been insane?

I’ll always enjoy a bit of decadence if I have the opportunity but – even having lived in London and New York as I have done – I was stunned by the levels of opulence. Absolute decadence! At some of the private parties oligarchs would be sat on thrones like Kings and Queens, with great feasts attended by the beautiful people. Certain performances I’d rather not have done but I felt the end justified the means. Moscow can be very expensive and I don’t like to stay in bad places and eat bad food. More importantly though, I will not cut corners on my recording and it was very important for me to use the famed Rossiya Orchestra. I like the idea of being a wandering troubadour and I think it’s a worthy way to finance a project. I’d do the same again to record in Moscow more.

Ok, so why Russian folk and why Vadim Kozin?

I fell in love with it while touring Russia at the beginning of the 1990s and people gave me tapes. Simple yet beautiful melodies, melancholic but uplifting. And I related to it. For Orpheus I picked songs to tell a story of Kozin’s life: Probably Russia’s first gay icon, Kozin suffered for being a victim of his time and political climate. It’s about how life and circumstances change things, how what is forgotten one day is remembered and celebrated the next, how what is outlawed becomes accepted. I want people to love Kozin’s songs as I have, be interested in him and the times lived through and take something for their own lives from it. We sometimes take our liberties for granted.

In Greek mythology Orpheus’ music never lost it’s power, even when sent to Hades – just like Kozin in exile. Are you aligning yourself with these two figures – what is Marc Almond’s exile from?

I’ve often felt that I’ve been excluded, that I didn’t fit in and never felt I was good at communicating except through music. I still don’t feel part of a community, musical or otherwise. At times I’ve felt alone. Maybe that makes me some kind of exile? Though, I would never compare my privileged life to someone like Kozin’s.

Finally Marc, what project(s) lie in the pipeline?

I’m currently recording a more mainstream album as a follow-up to Stardom Road but all original songs. It’s called Variete and is out, I hope, in May. I’d also love to do an album of [fellow Russian folk chansonnier] Alexander Vertinsky songs but I fell out with his estate. They tried to get my previous ‘Russian’ album, Heart on Snow, banned in Russia as it contained a song – Nuit de Noel – they didn’t approve being included because I couldn’t pay them enough. They didn’t succeed. If I’m determined to do something, I do it.

Listen to Orpheus in Exile here