Good midnight, Moon Dogs! Somewhere south of my domain, but north of the Rio Grande, Chelyabinsk, the city of revived pipes, lurks. This is where the Ghost Radio, Ghost Radio, a rockabilly band unique to the shores of Miass, thunders. On January 23, 2020, these disc jockeys of the otherworldly ether will turn 8 years old, and in my tenacious little hands is their freshest album, No Time For Fun, which we will listen to, sniff and even lick. Fortunately, the pretty nostalgic design of the disc is encouraging. So that’s what we have here… Madre de Dios, there are five of them! An unprecedented scale for a rockabilly trio… We’ll have to call it a quintet…
The standard set includes drums (Kirill Panteleev), double bass (Viktor Guryanov), guitar (Alexey Dolgov), and saxophone (Nikita Tyurin). and the lead female vocals (Vera Zhulanova). The invited musicians are violinist (Peter Kamennykh) and harmonica player gubami (Konstantin Vlasov). There are nine songs on the album, the author of six of them is Victor, the other three are remakes (do you hear, Bulgarian?) stainless steel from the middle of the last century. Come with me, Midnight Cats, It’s Time For Fun. It’s time to listen to the album!
The show opens with You Better Go, a swinging, moderately fast-paced rocker, native and cozy, like a favorite beer opener. Dense rhythm section, excellent phrasing of the saxophone, thoughtful guitar part – here and further. “You’d better leave,” Vera declares in the ear of a grateful listener, and the chorus of gentlemen behind her confirms – yes, they say, go – in weighty, brutal voices. We leave, dancing…
The second number, Double Bass, greets us with the insinuating elephant tread of the double bass, but after a couple of seconds, the baby elephant gets into the James Bond pose, and then everything is covered with an aggressive riff of intertwining guitar and sax. The disturbing minor harmony, the aggressive beat, the Fuhrer’s intonations breaking through in little Vera’s voice… “My double bass!” she declares, either because the double bassist wrote the song, or she really lent it to him to play. Throw your old “Brand New Cadillac” on the dustbin of history, we have a fresh hit! Definitely one of the diamonds of the album!
Church On The Hill is a solid mid-tempo rock hillbilly with bassist Victor at the microphone, performing the main vocal in a narrative manner. The harmonica adds a touch of prairie to the sound palette. And the cherry on this piece of Nevada sand is a violin that sounds as if Stefan Grapelli, in an oversized Stetson, had called early and decided to play along with the local shepherds. Stefan has a holiday. It’s a solid song, I repeat.
Oh, My Attractive Ghost is probably the slowest song on the album. The most jazzy. Very pleasant. It makes me think of walking together in the small hours. The intimate sound of the saxophone follows the rustle of ghostly drums, the guitar is light and gentle, Vera sings softly and lyrically, as if she were not talking about an alien from another world. I listened, forgetting to call the Ghostbusters…
And once again, Vitya is at the microphone with a neo-swing story Here Or Somewhere. The sullen shuffle of the rhythm section, Nikita blows ferociously into the sax, filling the room with a noir fleur, forgive my French… I’m reminded of the early Royal Crown Revue and Orson Welles’ The Seal of Evil… I wrapped it up too much! Great job (it’s about the song).
Well, once Victor has lost his temper, you can’t stop him! Without letting go of the microphone from his closed jaws, he confidently begins To Wait So Long, another country-western theme, where the narrative style of vocals recalls the legendary cowboy Robert Allen Zimmerman, while the instrumental harmony evokes another, no less famous cowboy, Lennon McCartney (this one, they say, has one foot in the grave). Guitarist Alexey takes up the slide. But the violin is a special treat! Stefan Grapelli is no longer just a bourbon man, he got coke somewhere and now, pale-faced, he’s on the warpath, emitting convulsive trills! A threatening track.
This version of Summertime, a little-known song by some Gershowitz brothers, goes dear Here Or Somewhere, the fifth song of the album, but now Vera is back on vocals. It’s a great sax part, but Yakov Gershowitz didn’t have one. Hound Dog is a song from the Disney children’s cartoon Lilo and Stitch, but our friends firmly took up its arrangement, getting a frivolously twisting frivolous twist. Somebody call Walt!
I’ll Never Be Free was once blues, performed with varying degrees of vaudeville by Ellochka “Ogress” Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and dozens more jazz, blues, and country artists. Gloomy Chelyabinsk residents are not like that to breed music halls – after dissecting the corpse, they revived it back, in the form of an uncompromising bossa nova, resort-warm and bright. Undoubtedly a successful interpretation and a delightful conclusion to the album!
The summary, my Sleepless Bats, is as follows: Ghost Radio did a great job, the album has a mood, a soft drive, subtle nuances, and the musicians have a composing gift and the talents of arrangers and performers. Well, and a light Chelyabinsk accent, which you quickly get used to. Listened to seven times in one evening, which I wish you too!
This worthy album is (for some reason not completely) posted on Yandex.Music.:
