Gogol Bordello
is a multi-ethnic Gypsy punk band from the Lower East Side of New York City that formed in 1999 and is known for its theatrical stage shows. [1] Much of the band's sound is inspired by Gypsy music, as its core members are immigrants from Eastern Europe. The band incorporates minor-key accordion and violin (and on some albums, saxophone) mixed with punk and dub.
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History and influences
Nikolai Gogol, the band's namesake, was an ideological influence because he "smuggled" Ukrainian culture into Russian society, which Gogol Bordello intends to do with Gypsy/ East-European music in the English-speaking world.
[2] "
Bordello" refers to a brothel or a "gentleman's club". The band was originally titled Hütz and the Béla Bartóks, but Eugene Hütz says that they decided to change the name because "nobody knows who the hell
Béla Bartók is in the United States".
The band played their first show as the unofficial band at an after-hours club called Ohuetz on Ridge Street, where they became the house band and DJ Hütz became the house DJ.
Gogol Bordello's first
single was released in 1999, and since then they have released four full-length
albums, and one
EP. In 2005 the band signed to
punk label
SideOneDummy Records. The band has toured tirelessly throughout
Europe and
America on numerous international festivals and toured with such diverse bands as
Primus,
Flogging Molly, and
Cake. In an interview with
NPR, frontman
Eugene Hütz cites
Jimi Hendrix and
Parliament-Funkadelic as among the band's main musical influences.
Singles and collaborations
Category:Articles with sections that need to be turned into prose
- The recording of "Start Wearing Purple", on their first album, "Voi-La Intruder" pioneered their UK success.
- Their song, "Occurrence on the Border", was featured on the 4th Punk Rock Strike compilation put out by Springman Records.
- "Start Wearing Purple" was re-recorded and a video was produced for their third LP, Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
and became their first North American single. The song and variations thereof can be heard throughout the 2005 movie Everything Is Illuminated
. The song is also the unofficial theme song of the Baltimore Ravens.
- James Madison University (Harrisonburg, VA), whose colors are purple and gold, has used the song during the JMU Dukes' 2008 home football games.
- "I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again" has a short interlude of an arrangement of Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 (Unfinished) in B minor played on strings.
- "Not a Crime" and "Wonderlust King" were chosen as the second and third North American singles, both accompanied by a music video.
- "Through The Roof 'n' Underground" is featured several times in the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story
. (In which one of the main characters is based on Eugene Hütz.)
- "Ultimate" was featured during in NBC's tv series Chuck
in the episode Chuck Versus the Undercover Lover.
- "Wonderlust King" was featured in the trailer for the Morgan Spurlock documentary Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?
.
- "Wonderlust King" was also featured in the trailer for MotorStorm: Pacific Rift".
- Several of the band members also take part in a dub and electronic side project with members of Balkan Beat Box entitled J.U.F. (Jewish-Ukrainian Freundschaft).
- Eugene Hütz has also collaborated with the Kolpakov Trio and recorded music with them.
- Gogol Bordello have also collaborated with Madonna (see below).
- Eugene Hütz wrote the introduction for the 2008 Subculture Books release of Taras Bulba by Nikolai Gogol.
- Hütz collaborated with Les Claypool on his newest CD release, Of Fungi and Foe
. Hütz can be heard singing on the song Bite Out of Life.
Appearances
Television
The band was featured on
Jimmy Kimmel Live (March 22, 2006 and September 5, 2007), on
The Late Show with David Letterman ( July 31, 2007), on
The Henry Rollins Show (August 10, 2007), and on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (July 30, 2008). They have also appeared on the Later With Jools Holland show (BBC Television)
The song '60 Revolutions' was featured on season 2 episode 12, 'Trapdoor' of the TV drama
Life.
Music festivals
Gogol Bordello has appeared in many festivals worldwide throughout the past decade. However, a significant step towards greater publicity was made when
Eugene Hütz and violinist
Sergey Ryabtsev joined
Madonna on stage. Hütz and Ryabtsev performed "
La Isla Bonita / Lela Pala Tute" with Madonna at the
London Live Earth concert on July 7, 2007.
[3]
They appeared at the Reading festival UK on the main stage august 24 2007, Gogol Bordello made its first appearance at
Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 1, 2008. The band has also played Coachella and Bonnaroo 2007 and 2008. They also performed with Les Claypool and Kirk Hammett in SuperJam of Bonnaroo 2008 where the songs of Tom Waits were performed. Gogol Bordello also performed on the first day of
Virgin Mobile Festival on August 9, 2008. They performed in Austin for
ACL 2008 on September 26. They performed at the L.A. Weekly Detour Festival on October 4, 2008 along with bands such as Data Rock and The Mars Volta. They also performed at
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008 in San Francisco on October 5, at Tim Festival on October 24 and 25 occurred in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and
Optimus Alive! in Oeiras, Portugal on 10 July 2008. They are scheduled to appear at Sasquatch Memorial Day weekend,
Diversafest on July 24 and the
All Points West Music & Arts Festival on August 1, 2009. The band has also been known to play
Warped Tour. On May 25, 2009 the band played the
Sasquatch Music Festival in George, Washington. On July 4, 2009, they played at
Roskilde Festival on the Orange stage, where they replaced
Lil' Wayne, who had canceled his show due to illness. They got a 6-star review in the festival newspaper, as the only band that year. Two days after they appeared at
Rock for People, the
Czech Republic festival, on the
Ceska Sporitelna Stage. Also recently they appeared at
Mile High Music Festival.
Film
The developing of the band was documented in the film
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop directed by Margarita Jimeno. Jimeno's debut follows the band's rise from underground legends to international fame from 2001 to 2007.
Eugene Hütz was interviewed in
Kill Your Idols
, a 2004 documentary on New York's alternative scene.
In
Liev Schreiber's 2005 directorial debut
Everything Is Illuminated
, which stars
Elijah Wood, the role of Alexander Perchov was played by
Eugene Hütz. It also includes other Gogol Bordello members. The band's music was also the backbone of the soundtrack for the 2006 film
Wristcutters: A Love Story
where a main character played by
Shea Whigham was named after and based on Eugene.
The band's lead singer
Eugene Hütz starred in the documentary film
The Pied Piper of Hutzovina
, about his journey through Europe and back home as a gypsy musician.
The entire band has been featured in another directorial debut -
Madonna's film
Filth and Wisdom
, starring Eugene Hütz as one of the main characters. Madonna also allowed Eugene to add his own dialogue into the script.
Line-up
Current members
- Eugene Hütz (vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion, fire bucket) - Ukraine
- Sergey Ryabtsev (violin, backing vocals) - Russia
- Yuri Lemeshev (accordion, backing vocals) - Russia
- Oren Kaplan (guitar, backing vocals) - Israel
- Thomas Gobena (bass [4] backing vocals) - Ethiopia
- Eliot Ferguson (drums, backing vocals) – Florida, USA
- Pamela Jintana Racine (percussion, backing vocals, Dance, general performance) - Vermont
- Elizabeth Sun (percussion, backing vocals, Dance, general performance) - Chinese Scottish
- Pedro Erazo (percussion, MC) - Ecuador [5]
- Stevhen Iancu (accordion) - Japanese-Romanian, a fill-in for Yuri Lemeshev and also of the gypsy-punk bands Reverend Glasseye, Romashka and Dolomites
Former members
- Karl Alvarez (bass)
- Rea Mochiach (bass, percussion, electronics (on the albums), beat programming (on the albums, backing vocals) - Israel
- Sasha Kazatchkoff (accordion)
- Vlad Solovar (guitar) Romania
- Ori Kaplan - saxophone, (co leads Balkan Beat Box with Tamir Muskat), backing vocals, (no relation to Oren Kaplan) - Israel
- Susan Donaldson (percussion, backing vocals, Dance, general performance)
- James Ward (fill-in accordionist for some interview, has appeared in some videos) (Scottish)
Discography
Albums
- Voi-La Intruder
–1999 (Rubric Records)
- Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony
- September 2002 (Rubric Records), 2XLP - December 2006
- Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike
- August 2005 (SideOneDummy Records), 2XLP - March 2006
- Super Taranta!
- 10 July 2007 (SideOneDummy Records) US #115, [6] UK #67, 2XLP - July 2007
EPs
- East Infection
- January 2005 (Rubric Records)
Singles
- When the Trickster Starts a-Poking
- 2002. Rubric Records.
- Start Wearing Purple
/ Sally
- February 2006. SideOneDummy Records.
- Not a Crime
- August 2006. SideOneDummy.
- Wonderlust King
- August 2007. SideOneDummy. #11 UK Indie
Compilations
- Punk Rock Strike Vol. 4
- 2003. Springman Records.
- 2005 Warped Tour Compilation
- 2005. SideOneDummy Records.
- 2006 Warped Tour Compilation
- 2006. SideOneDummy Records.
- Gypsy Beats and Balkan Bangers
- 2006. Atlantic Jaxx.
- The Rough Guide to Planet Rock
- 2006. World Music Network.
- 2007 Warped Tour Compilation
- 2007. SideOneDummy Records.
Side Projects
- Gogol Bordello vs. Tamir Muskat
- August 2004. A collaboration between Gogol Bordello and members of Balkan Beat Box, under the name J.U.F., an acronym for Jewish-Ukrainian Freundschaft. Stinky Records.
Filmography
- 2005 - Everything Is Illuminated
- Eugene Hütz plays one of the main characters in the movie and members of the band (Sergei Ryabtsev, Yuri Lemeshev, Pamela Racine) make appearances.
- 2006 - The Pied Piper Of Hützovina
- Documentary by Pavla Fleischer about a road trip she and Eugene Hütz took to Ukraine.
- 2006 - Wristcutters: A Love Story
- "Eugene", played by American actor Shea Whigham, is partly based on Eugene Hütz, whose music ("Through the Roof and Underground" and "Occurrence on the Border") features in the film as that recorded by character Eugene's old band.
- 2008 - Filth and Wisdom
- The entire band appeared in an indie film directed by Madonna [7].
- 2008 - Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
- Is a music documentary debut directed by Margarita Jimeno. A behind-the-scenes look at the Gypsy Punk band Gogol Bordello and their charismatic front man Eugene Hütz, documenting their steps from 2001-07. | url =http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477002/
References
- Gogol Bordello at bbc.co.uk
- Gogol Bordello: Music from 'Gypsy Punks'
- Gogol Bordello and Madonna continue collaboration
- Gogol Bordello
- An Interview with Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello
- Billboard, Allmusic
- Filth and Wisdom (2008)