An irascible Skrypka and a late-blooming Elzy dominate rock scene: VOPLI VODOPLIASOVA (V.V.) (01/27/02)

An irascible Skrypka and a late-blooming Elzy dominate rock scene

VOPLI VODOPLIASOVA (V.V.)

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

On stage Oleh Skrypka is an irascible, bleach-haired, trombone-voiced, large-boned whirlwind of arms and legs whose dancing talent lies in his ability to take the most awkward and imperfect pose and make it look easy. He is the front man for Vopli Vodopliasova, Ukraine's oldest rock group of any note and today its most popular - one that mixes the unusual with the comic and the traditional.

It is a band and a style that are difficult to pin down.

"One journalist simply called us a musical psychiatric ward," explained Mr. Skrypka, the 35-year-old front man for the band.

Vopli Vodopliasova, with its unmistakable sound and vivid, comic-like stage personality, is the Ukrainian rock act that has the talent and originality to make a successful go of it in the West. They reached a degree of fame in Paris in the mid-1990s before retreating to Kyiv when lack of management and marketing halted their movement upwards.

In person, Mr. Skrypka, who plays the trumpet and the accordion in addition to taking care of the singing responsibilities and whose on-stage persona evokes images of a somewhat huskier Iggy Pop minus the helter-skelter outlandishness, is soft-spoken, and thoughtful, and portrays a subtle vulnerability. He is the unusually named group's main composer and wordsmith, and its central character.

The band's designation, Vopli Vodopliasova, was taken from a pseudonym used by a hero of a Dostoyevsky novel, explained Mr. Skrypka during a conversation with The Weekly. The members of the group were looking for something that would express their artistic and creative inclinations, and decided the name and what it represented embodied it all. It was, however, not only a term that was difficult to pronounce, but difficult to remember as well, which long ago led fans to simply dub the boys "V.V."

V.V.'s music is equally difficult to describe and categorize. Much of the band's early stuff was minimalist, carrying shades of punk and a lot of elements of post-modernist ska. While the ska beats are still evident, the music has increasingly become fuller, more mainstream and more accessible. It retains much of the herky-jerkiness of the band's earlier rhythms, but with more melody.

The lyrics remain fresh and humor-filled, although somewhat more commercial as of late. Mr. Skrypka still writes songs of sweet love gone sour with a twist of irony, and still takes traditional Ukrainian themes of family and village life and gives them a biting and comic edge, but he has also been more willing lately to pen the more commercial tune. One song, titled "Vesna" and released in 1997, has become their anthem and their largest hit to date across the terrain of the former Soviet Union. While moving towards the center of the rock scene musically, V.V. slowly has become the top musical act in Ukraine as well.

They sing mostly in Ukrainian and their repertoire also includes traditional Ukrainian kolomyiky and other folk songs. Some, especially in Moscow, have pushed V.V. to move more to the Russian language, but the group has resisted.

Last year Mr. Skrypka was asked prior to a concert appearance carried live by Russian television why the group sang songs in Ukrainian. "Why not?" he answered curtly, bluntly and with a hint of irritation, which most succinctly gave television viewers his position on the matter.

Mr. Skrypka explained that the response was more than simply an expression of exasperation because, while the first songs he wrote were in Ukrainian because it was popular to do so at the time, now he does so out of principle.

"It has become a political point with me," said Mr. Skrypka. "The Ukrainian song remains one of the last stands of Ukrainian culture in the east and south [of the country]. When you sing in Ukrainian, the national pride of which there is so little in those regions does stir, if ever so slightly. It is the minimum I can do for Ukraine."

Then, after a moment, he added: "But that does not mean I am ready to go on stage in sharavary and sporting an oseledets" (the distinctive Kozak lock of hair).

The group, which also consists of bass player Oleksander Pipa, whose sad eyes, clown-like smirk and subtle stage antics lend the band a still more humorous shading; lead guitarist Yevhen Rohachevsky, the group's straight man; and Serhii Sakhno, its hard-charging drummer, was formed in 1986 in a student dormitory of the Kyiv Polytechnical University.

The group did not play publicly for a year after they began working together, concentrating their efforts instead on putting together a strong repertoire. They attained acclaim almost immediately after playing the "Rok Parad" music festival in Kyiv, one of their first public appearances.

After attaining a degree of popularity on the Ukrainian pop music scene, which from 1987 to 1992 experienced a period of great energy and cultural rejuvenation, V.V. watched the scene begin to die in 1992 as economic hyperinflation and a general state of cultural malaise set in.

They made the move to Paris, where they had developed personal contacts, at that time. After achieving a good deal of popularity on the local club scene, during which they worked much more often than they ever had in Kyiv, or Moscow for that matter, the band ran headlong into another professional brick wall.

"We were the band that came to represent the current rock scene in what was the Soviet Union," explained Mr. Skrypka. "The cultural politics of us playing was one thing, but the business side, the attitude of the rock labels, was quite another."

Mr. Skrypka and Mr. Pipa returned to Kyiv in 1996 and took up once again with Mr. Sakhno, the band's first drummer, who along with the original lead guitarist had left Paris after a year. They brought in Mr. Rohachevsky and proceeded to become more popular than ever in Ukraine.

Sixteen years after they first came together, Mr. Skrypka ascribes the group members' longevity and continued success to a talent for not limiting themselves stylistically. He also said that their move West not only saved them from financial demise during the difficult years between 1992 and 1996, when most of the bands that flourished during Soviet perestroika and immediately afterwards re-entered obscurity or simply vanished, but also gave them a taste of what the future held for their music.

"Unfortunately Kyiv remains in the third tier musically. The musicians here watch MTV to get their creative energy. What is happening in Kyiv today we saw on the Paris club scene when we lived there," explained Mr. Skrypka. "We were playing then what Kyiv is listening to now."

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