DRØZDY

“Have you heard Drozdy sing?” What are Drozdy? What are they singing about? How are they different from the millions of other Russian and American bands? Who makes up their audience? Here is my ambitious attempt to answer these questions… Drozdy is a new New York City Russian-American band that is currently recording its third CD under the professional guidance of Shane Stoneback of Treetop Studios. They have performed all around the vast island of Manhattan and are now in the process of planning their first tour, which will be up and down the East Coast. All of the songs have original lyrics; the music is arranged entirely by the band members themselves. In my humble opinion, the band is strikingly original. No one has ever before tried to come up with songs that are heavy in content about the life choices we made as emigrants from the Soviet Union—songs that are enriched with descriptions from the Cold War period, influenced by world music, and that are the same simultaneously subversive, witty, and cool in their final presentation. The main driving force behind the band is Vadim Moldovan (often called by his last name). Moldovan is an incredibly talented man. In his past he experimented with painting, sculpting, and photography. He has been writing poetry, short stories, and even movie scripts for years. But what I find more interesting than the tools he uses are the words that he is trying to express. His view of the world is non-conventional and at times controversial. He does not look for answers; he asks questions. He asks questions that others do not dare ask. He experiments, he wonders, he confronts, he challenges… Vadim collects things. He collects books, magazines, records, old boys’ toys, work instruments, old photographs, paintings, little rugs, and aluminum, amongst other sort of antiques. He wanders around garage sales and flea markets and finds all kinds of delightful artifacts, those things that would never appeal to anybody else, but when he takes them into his hands and tells you his own imaginative story about them, you see these old useless things in a different light... Moldovan is a great deal of fun to be around. My twenty-two year old son said “being with Moldovan is a vacation from reality.” Vadim has a PhD in social work and is presently teaching the subject at York College, CUNY in Jamaica, Queens. In his past, he worked in various institutions for the chronically mentally ill. But, he did not simply work there. He did a great deal more. He wrote short plays and staged performances with his mentally ill patients. As one would imagine, he has a keen understanding of human psychology. He also knows how far people can go in taking advantage of those who are not able to stand for themselves…. He reads, he travels, he observes and discovers the world he lives in every day. Vadim wrote all of the lyrics for the Drozdy songs. Every song is a story, sometimes written, sometimes retold, and often drawn. He paints his characters well and uses different styles in his artistic approach. At times his personages are as scary as Goya’s ghosts and at others, they are as gaudy as social realist paintings; some of them could be compared to Rodchenko’s photographs, which capture an amusing display of people and things, animating the mundane. They make you think. Moldovan loves to write about several subjects – war is one of them. Society’s questions about war, heroism, and patriotism can never be answered in a single-sided fashion. We live in a country were military toys are not sold and boys play with solely trains, blocks, and dinosaurs. Yet, today we find our country at war… What is interesting about Moldovan’s approach is that he is incorporating the Second World War symbolic into his questions about the war today. Do we really need to go to war and die as fallen heroes? Our parents’ generation was inadvertently affected by the war. We were raised by these children of the war and often have difficulty forgiving them for their military state of mind. This generational conflict is another topic that often weaves its way into Vadim’s lyrics. Moldovan is also fascinated by women. He does not really know women or at least, he pretends to not know them, but he definitely wonders about them. A woman for him is a cause of danger, like in his lyrical poem, “Rendezvous”, or a cause of endless desire like in the song, “Navy Blue Bra”, or a cause of surprise like in his beautifully drawn “Railroad Prostitute.” His images are strangely erotic. He finds romance in tiny corners of our everyday life, and at the same time mockingly laughs at all common and overused symbols of love. Drozdy’s songs are multi-layered. The popular song “Leninstrasse” is often perceived as a nostalgic ballad or a sort of romantic flick, especially when the beautiful video collage from the 60s is projected in the backdrop. But the lyrics of this song are actually sung by a character, who is mentally ill and finds himself in the midst of remembering his former life in brief flashes (like we sometimes do in our dreams), blending his memories in with his harsh reality. Moldovan is not musically-trained, but he has what every performer needs, a powerful stage presence. He is like that “Ruthless Hawk” (in the song with the same name) from the mental hospital, who imagines himself flying and hovering over crowds. Certain songs just need to be performed by Moldovan, because only he knows the whole story behind them and only he can share that story with the world. The song “Eight Dollars” (one of my favorites) is a very good example. The song is about a sweet dream that was not realized, but it is written like a gentle fairy tale, where the object of desire is actually pig. Only Moldovan can seriously sing about his love for the pig without losing both the comical and tragic aspects of the song. Moldovan thinks and writes originally, but without Alex Kustanovich the band Drozdy would not exist. Sasha (Alex in Russian) is an extremely talented guy, who has also been experimenting with various liberal arts, applying his creativity. He has labored over various short stories, articles, and movie scripts in years past and is actually teaching script-writing in a college in Brooklyn now. What is most surprising about Alex is the fact that even without a classical musical education he is able to play and improvise on many instruments (piano, guitar, accordion, and harmonica). As a result, he discovered late in life that he would be able to come up with an endless array of melodies for Moldovan’s lyrics. The range of musical styles that Sasha uses is enormous. Some people compare his artistic creations to those of Tom Waits, but his music consists of more than that. He has been influenced by various musical genres from blues and jazz to rock and various Russian, Soviet era melodies to French chansons and even modern pop tunes; as a result these musical schools amongst many more could be heard and enjoyed in his melodies. The band’s sound engineer, Shane Stoneback, is an American guy from the Midwest, who produces popular bands like the widely-followed, new hipster phenomenon, Vampire Weekend. He believes that Alex writes very musically rich pieces and he regularly promotes Drozdy to his American friends, even though he cannot understand the full range of content and emotions in each song. Alex’s melodies provide Shane with a vast field of possibilities for arrangements and he does it in a state of the art matter. The music for each song is tightly woven into the text; many melodies are very catchy. Sasha has a soft and sensible personality. He is very open-minded, which greatly compliments Moldovan’s and stubbornness and at times, overbearing character. Sasha is also very diligent and hardworking, although working on the music is nothing but a pleasure for him. He often leads the creative process by simply being himself, very involved and interested. Alex is modest—a rare trait nowadays… Ilya Sher, the principal singer, comes to the picture when the songs are already written. Being very musical and aesthetic, he is not only the voice of the band, but also the band’s ear. He sharpens the rhythm, incorporates necessary accents, and ultimately brings the songs to life. Ilya is Moldovan’s closest friend. They came to this country at the same time, have been living close by for a while, goofed around in their youth and then matured. They have similar interests, their understanding of each other is impeccable, but their points of view are very different. Their rehearsals are often real battles. And this is how their songs are born… And here are a couple of more people, who make a band what it is. Eldon Simms, percussions, is the heartbeat of the band. He joined the band for the first gig and never gave up on it. Eldon is a mountain of a man with dreadlocks and a big warm smile. He is a truly professional musician, who both plays and teaches drums for a living. Eldon can play any style, keeps the band honest, and manages to add to the music even without fully understanding the lyrics. It is something about Drozdy that makes them universal among different generations, nationalities, and races. I would guess that it is the “Worm of Doubt”, or the quest for truth, or the thirst for understanding. There are two more people, who create the image of Drozdy for us, the spectators. It is Michael Taranov, who does all of the cover art, and Joseph Safronovich, who creates the videos. Both are long time friends of Vadim Moldovan; both know what he is trying to say and expend via their venue of expression, art, and video. Their creative process reminds me of a fiery jam session, where one person offers a tune and the band members beautifully improvise on it. Drozdy is a very fruitful band. They write new songs faster than they can rehearse them for a performance. They have enormous intellectual and musical energy that is constantly created by their mere presence. They bring this talent and vigor to their diverse audience, they charge people with their energy, they make their listeners aware, and they make their spectators ask the question - “Have you heard Drozdy sing?” - Olga Bulanov