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"VIVA
LAS VOLGA!" (The Times of Acadiana,
March 22,
2000)--by Arsenio Orteza
"The name Siberia," writes the historian W. Bruce Lincoln, "comes
from the
Tatar term Sibir, meaning ‘sleeping land.’" Exactly how
that land got
any
sleep, however, with Igor Yuzov, Oleg Bernov, and Zhenya Kolykhanov honing
their chops in its frozen wastes neither Lincoln nor any other competent
authority has so far ventured to guess.
Yuzov, Bernov, and Kolykhanov native Siberians each, comprise three fourths
of the Red Elvises, as rousing a combo of rock-and-roll rebels as has ever
rocked a joint, a casbah, a jailhouse, or a gulag. Since their 1996
relocation to Los Angeles--and their recruitment of the Austin-Texas-based
drummer Avi Sills--they’ve released five albums on their own Shooba-Doobah
label (six if you count Russian Bellydance, the Russian-language version
of
their 1998 masterpiece I Wanna See You Bellydance), made numerous television
appearances (Melrose Place, Penn and Teller’s Sin City Spectacular),
played all over the soundtrack of Six-String Samurai, and toured with an
enthusiastic determination not necessarily uninspired by their belated access
to Western capital. "And for the past three years," reads
the "Highlights"
link of their website, "they’ve performed just about daily on the
very populated 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica."
Beginning on Thursday, March 23, at the Bayou in Baton Rouge and concluding
on Saturday, March 25, at the Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans, the Red Elvises
will attempt a Louisiana hat trick, the middle gig of which will take place
this Friday, March 24, at the Grant Street Dancehall. The ostensible
reason for their current tour is the promotion of their new long player, Shake
Your
Pelvis. The real reason, though, may be something closer to a covert
operation: had the U.S.S.R. offered the free world rock and roll this sharp,
satirical, and sexy, even the coldest Cold Warrior would’ve had to get
out of
the kitchen.
The Elvises spent their first two albums, Grooving to the Moscow Beat (’96)
and Surfing in Siberia (’97), transforming their "Siberian surf-rock" from
a
parodic novelty into a genuinely infectious and affectionate mock-up of the
original California kind. On originals such as "Love Pipe," "Boogie
on the
Beach," and "Scorchi Chornie," as well as on their surf-rock rendition
of
Brahms’ "Hungarian Dance #5," they proved that neither the Ventures
nor the
Shadows had anything on their ten-hanging guitar twang or ubangi-stomping
drum ruckus.
And with a "Good Golly Miss Molly" that wasn’t Little Richard’s
and an "I
Wanna Rock n’ Roll All Night" that wasn’t Kiss’s, they also
began what
has
since become a band tradition--the matching of original, none-too-shabby
material with classic rock-and-roll titles.
By I Wanna See You Bellydance, they’d added not only a "Rocketman" that
beat
Elton John’s and an "All I Wanna Do" that rivaled Bob Dylan’s
but also
a
stylistic breadth that verged on virtuosity without endangering the group’s
sense of humor. Yuzov’s and Kolykhanov’s lead vocals, while still
occasionally self-mockingly Russian sounding, had taken on that international
lack of accent the existence of which Beatle fans used to acknowledge when
they’d say, "Funny, they don’t sing British." Furthermore,
Yuzov
had
mastered English idioms: "I gave her a ring," he sings in "Sad
Cowboy
Song."
"She gave me the finger." And in the delicate instrumental "After
the
Carnival," the group achieved actual beauty.
Bellydance also began the Red Elvis tradition of risqué album covers, a
tradition that would continue with Better Than Sex (’98). Less ambitious
than Bellydance, Sex nevertheless represented more than a holding pattern.
In "Strip Joint Is Closed" the group added a spot-on Tom Waits impersonation
to their growing list of assimilations. In "Mamasita" (rhymes
with "I
really
like your body, Senorita") they assimilated Doug Sahm.
But Sex’s most pregnant number was "Closet Disco Dancer," a song
in which
Yuzov confesses to having traded Police records for Bee Gees ones back in
1985 and a song that turned out to foreshadow the uncloseted disco that
thumps through much of Shake Your Pelvis (a title, incidentally, that
constitutes the Elvises’ first idiomatic misstep in some time--one thrusts
one’s pelvis, one shakes one’s hips).
In addition to "Everybody Disco" (a funnier disco send-up than Frank
Zappa’s
"Dancin’ Fool"), there are "Beat of a Drum" and "Techno
Surfer," cool, hooky
excursions into ’80’s-style electro-throb that would be the best songs
ever
recorded by this ever-evolving foursome if not for "Rocketship" (cosmic
double entendres set to Bangly jangle) and "Girls Gonna Boogie Tonight," a
song so catchy that the dancefloor denizens at whom it’s clearly aimed may
be
the last to notice the deftness with which it bends surf, R&B, and rockabilly
to its own mercenary designs. "Ve are no longer Communists," they
proclaim
inside the cover of Better Than Sex, "so ve vill take your money."
And, if rock and roll were an Olympic event, the Red Elvises would take the
gold. |
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