Well, since we still have a tattoo magazine, tell us about your tattoos - why did you decide to get them, who is the author of the sketches, where did you do them, do you plan to continue inking yourself? And then we'll talk about creativity.
I got my first tattoo from a drunk company in Samara (master Zhenya). It was high quality, beautiful, but unprincipled (in in a good way) pattern in the style of the movie "Crybaby". The same master “pinned” “Uncle Papaya”, “Liberty”, “Swallow”, “Frigate” and the “Sufi Labyrinth”. Then “Primitive Musicians” appeared - they were made by master Stoma (Grodno). Then my brother arrived from the planet Circe-9 lFlast (an alien and a glue lover!) and it was completed by the master S. Barankin (Minsk). The painting “Rodina” was painted by the artist Khatson (when he becomes famous, I will kill him and sell his hand with the painting for $3,000,000!!!). Then I collected ideas in three categories: a). stigmata, b). amulets, c). decor. When the ideas were collected, I began to look for a “materializer”, and found the super-master Pasha (Moscow). He is now single-handedly “painting” my epidermis and ethereal body! “Picasso’s Dove”, “Bee and Clover”, “Circus”, “Horseshoe”, “Bottle” and the inscriptions are his work. He got me hooked on the needle... The process continues!!!
Really crazy about your video “lHare” with Sergei Frolov in leading role... Continuous mockery and mockery of “shrines” - a wedding veil and Olivier salad)) ... What percentage of the population do you think is able to understand the banter in your songs?
37% is according to Pythagorean numerology (I do not take “polar” states: lkyr, lsour, lblack, lshalabas, etc. the percentages are different there).
Everything you did before the album “Capital” was a parody of pop and chanson? Why did people take your lyrics seriously?
The modern public (mostly) reacts to the “form” and does not delve into the content... A verse, a chorus, a familiar melody, cliches in the text + “rotations” and any lh..nya becomes a drinking song (I’m talking about my “masterpieces”).
What exactly influenced the rethinking of creativity? Why now?
The abundance of light and brutal, but socially safe humor turned the parody genre into pop music. A bunch of dropout students are making faces, grinning, showing their pink asses and making fun of the stars! We didn’t want to be the last of them... But we became... Now it’s time to fix everything - we have strength, ideas and, most importantly, a great desire to regain the respect of non-conformists, unrecognized geniuses, idiots and other people I respect...
By the way, are tattoos on the arm one of the components of the new image?
Everything in the world is interconnected! But the word “limage” is very disgusting... An ordinary manicure can affect a person’s destiny, and tattoos literally make tangible changes to one’s life. I’m not showing off, but tattoos can be used to build a person’s communications, sometimes they say more about him than clothes, speech, and even deeds.
I remember that the term "simulacrum" began to be actively discussed in our country with the advent of the film "The Matrix")). Then everyone suddenly started talking about the fact that our life is a decoration, that they are trying to “sniff” something that doesn’t really exist... Many used it without even knowing what it meant. Why do you use this particular term in your interviews? What is reality for you and what is a substitute? What doesn’t suit you about the reality that is being broadcast to us? “Capital” is a protest?
“Simulacrum” or “simulacrum” stole part of my life. I’m talking about the image of Lyapis-Trubetskoy... With its illicit pedigree, and its expanded economy, this image forced me out of my place of work! They paid him money, they wanted to see him, they wanted to talk to him, they wanted to listen to his songs... No one was interested in my opinion. The truth and the whole world of show business is a myth and quasi-matter (it was invented and continues to be invented). Only self-irony can remind us that this is all a game, a bluff. I’m not protesting, I’m just saying: “You can’t give a damn about me!”, I’m like that myself! Importance, pathos, bohemianism are the objects of my ridicule. And everyone knows that the world is a lie even without me!!!
Do you think musical culture V former USSR Is it on the rise now or vice versa?
I would not now unite everything under the lUSSR label. For a long time now, everyone has been acting autonomously: they have their own local stars, budgets, trends, and even internal show corporations. Ldegrados and lcal-kitsch are in fashion now - personally, I think this is a good sign. Beyond the limits, everything begins anew, and this is personally interesting to me.
The same Sergei Frolov said that your video “Hare” is prohibited from being shown in Belarus. For what reason? Is the group outlawed in its homeland?
We are the most successful and long-lasting brand in the history of modern Belarusian pop culture. At the same time, we are private capital... This is nonsense for us! Independence is annoying and makes you want to either “tame” or “cover up”.
Why did “Capital” (song and video) create such a sensation (RAMP 2007 award in the category “Clip of the Year”, and also received serious recognition in the West)? Did you take part in the development of the video?
The ideas for the video are bright, international and BEAUTIFULLY designed! Lekha Terekhov (director) is a very powerful counter-culture hooligan, he didn’t need my help.
You have paradoxical thinking, which is especially pleasing. What philosophical/religious views do you adhere to? From your interviews, I get the impression that you are interested in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism...
I believe in Jesus Christ, Zarathustra, Vishnu, Krishna, Zeus, Jupiter, Buddha, Mahakashyapa, Bodihidharma, Gyugesha and Thor with Balder... I honor Huenen, OSHO, Gurdjieff, Absalom the Underwater and Pythagoras. I look up to Theseus, Bellerophon, Lancelot, Count of Monte Cristo, Gojko Mitic, Roy Jones, Rimbaud, Fyodor Emelianenko and other heroes.
Which musicians have influenced you the most?
“Strange Games”, “LAVIA”, “LNOM”, “Zvuki MU”, “lVV”, RAMONES, Tom Waits, Peter Gabriel, CLASH, Leonard Cohen, ska and reggae performers.
In addition to the group, you have projects “Children of the Sun” and “Sasha and Sirozha”... Tell us about them.
This is a project in the style of letele-punk. It can be seen at www .sa -si .tv ╗.
Has the current attempt to go underground somehow affected the group’s financial flows?
We follow a socially adapted pricing policy. A corporate party costs one price, a concert in a rock club costs another (as low as possible!). This flexibility allows us not to sit still. We do not share with holdings, we have no contractual obligations - in short, everything is OK!!! (And it will be even better - I had a sign - mosquito on the monitor!!!) Peace to everyone (except the bastards)!!!
On November 7, the premiere of a new video from the group “Lyapis Trubetskoy” took place - “Not be damned" This is the first single from the future album “Lyapisov” and the first song in the history of the group, written by its leader Sergei Mikhalok to the verses of another author - the classic of Belarusian poetry Yanka Kupala.
Kupala’s poem entitled “Who are you, getki?” (1908) began to be played at Lyapis concerts in mid-2010. These 16 lines, composed of 8 questions and 8 answers, were read by Sergei Mikhalok, among his other favorite poems, between songs. And in September 2011, at a concert in St. Petersburg, “Lyapis Trubetskoy” was performed for the first time () the song “Don’t be to the brutes”, written on the very verses of Kupala.
The song “Don’t be a beast” became the first sign from the future album “Lyapis Trubetskoy”, which will be released in 2012. Like the group’s previous four records, this song was recorded in Kyiv, and the Lyapis filmed a video clip for it there. The director of the video was Alexander Stekolenko, who had previously directed videos for Lyapis Trubetskoy and.
In the new video, the band’s musicians appear in the image of working people of the early 20th century: workers, peasants, and various intellectuals, who at the end chant in unison: “Don’t be a beast!”
“I deliberately changed the name of the song,” explains Sergei Mikhalok. - We call it “Don’t be a beast”, and not “Who are you?”, like the original poem by Yanka Kupala. Because for me now, “Don’t be a beast” - that is, don’t be a silent beast, a ruminant animal, indifferent to everything that’s going on around you and happy with the contents of your feeder - this is generally the main motto. I even got myself a tattoo with this phrase on my stomach.”
Name: Sergey Mikhalok
Age: 47 years old
Height: 172
Marital status: married
Sergei Mikhalok: biography
Sergei Mikhalok is a Belarusian musician who plays music in the styles of ska, reggae and anarcho-punk. The artist gained popularity in the late 1990s thanks to the group, as the frontman of which he is known to most listeners. " Business card“Sergei’s lyrics became deliberately frivolous and specific vocals, uncharacteristic of the traditions of post-Soviet rock.
Sergei Vladimirovich Mikhalok was born on January 19, 1972 in Dresden, then still part of the GDR. The boy's parents were taken abroad by the profession of Vladimir Mikhalok - he was a career officer. Therefore, although the parents sent their son to Belarus every holiday, the subsequent years of Sergei’s childhood were spent traveling. The future singer went to school in Slavgorod, Altai, graduated in Norilsk, and higher education I already received it in Minsk.
The artist’s family belonged to the category of “Soviet intelligentsia.” There were always books at home, and the magazines “Yunost” and “Iskatel” were constantly subscribed to. The parents encouraged their son’s desire for independence: Sergei could choose clubs and sections himself, although the boy often changed them, having lost one interest and acquired a new one. According to the musician himself, he was a restless child and once almost drowned while riding on a raft during the spring melting of the ice.
Sergei’s youth period was not easy, his rebellious nature made itself felt. He was attracted to punk culture with all its attributes: fights, alcohol and drugs. Abuse of the latter brought the musician to a hospital bed. Sergei had an overdose of “Jeff” (aka “mulka”), a common and extremely dangerous drug based on ephedrine in the 1980s.
After resuscitation, he was admitted to a specialized hospital, and the impressions he received there were enough to give up injecting drugs. After a course of treatment, Sergei entered college, but was unable to completely stop drinking alcohol and psychoactive substances, which later had a strong impact on the musician’s life.
Music
Most of Sergei's work is on at the moment associated with the Lyapis Trubetskoy group. Mikhalok founded it in 1989, and gave the name to the team after the character from “The Twelve Chairs” and.
At first the group was organized specifically: its members saw each other mainly at concerts. The situation changed after the musicians performed at the “Festival of Musical Minorities” in the capital of Belarus - from that moment the band began to gather at rehearsals.
At first, Lyapis Trubetskoy gave concerts only in Belarus and could not boast of popularity outside the narrow circles of fans of the musical underground. The band's situation improved in 1996, when they were offered to record an album in a professional studio.
Even then, Sergei, the author of the vast majority of “Lyapis...” songs, was not afraid to enter into confrontation with the authorities. The group literally blew up the rock festival “Kupalle with “Belarusian Maladzionai”” with the composition “Lu-ka-shen-ko” to the tune of a song about from a Soviet film. However, it was still not included in the album “Wounded Heart”.
Sergei’s team earned success outside Belarus thanks to the album “You Threw It”. In the late 1990s, the songs “Au”, “In a White Dress” and “You Threw Away” were regularly played on the radio, and their videos were popular with music channels. From that moment on, “Lyapis Trubetskoy” became popular throughout the entire post-Soviet space.
Song “In a White Dress” by the group “Lyapis Trubetskoy”The 2000s became the peak of the group's popularity. The musicians regularly toured both in Belarus and the CIS countries, as well as abroad, right up to the USA. Besides concert activities, “Lyapis Trubetskoy” has repeatedly recorded songs for Russian films.
Since the beginning of the 2010s, an acute social context began to appear in Mikhalka’s poems, mainly aimed at criticizing the authorities, and not only Belarusian ones. Due to the peculiarities of the political situation in Belarus, the musicians were blacklisted - journalists were not recommended to mention Lyapis Trubetskoy in the media, and the group’s concerts were cancelled.
The peak of political protest of Belarusian punks was 2013-2014: the group openly supported the protests on the Maidan, in Russia they headlined a concert organized as support for a candidate for mayor of Moscow. The team also released the album “Matryoshka”, which many in Russia considered openly Russophobic.
On August 31, 2014, fans of Lyapis Trubetskoy learned that the group had officially ended its 24-year existence. Mikhalok himself explained in an interview that this should have happened back in 2010, but due to political persecution in Belarus, the musicians decided to wait - otherwise their action could have been taken for fear of the authorities.
Song “Warriors of Light” by the group “Lyapis Trubetskoy”After the collapse of the team, Sergei became closely involved in a new project, the group “Brutto”. The artist decided to move away from the traditions that became classic during the time of “Lapis...” - primitive poems with the most frivolous content. The musician himself claims that the group is rather a Belarusian-Ukrainian propaganda team of “creative terror and musical rebuff.”
The work of “Brutto” is closer in form to the songs “Iron” and “Warriors of Light” - in them social issues and the theme of human resistance to society and power come first.
Personal life
In the artist’s personal life there were 2 marriages, in which two children were born. For the first time, Sergei married singer and composer Ales Berulava while still studying at the university; in 1995, the couple had a son, Pavel. Later, the marriage broke up, and, according to Mikhalko, the separation was painful, but the musicians were able to overcome their differences and remain on friendly terms.
Sergei’s second wife was Svetlana Zelenkovskaya, Zelya, a Belarusian actress. On November 13, 2013, the woman gave birth to the singer’s second son, Makar.
The musician has a difficult biography: problems with alcohol and drugs, which began in his youth and almost killed Sergei, only worsened with age. According to Mikhalka, at the time of Pavel’s birth he was a binge alcoholic who did not disdain to regularly use narcotic drugs.
This also affected the singer’s appearance: most fans remember the lead singer of Lyapis Trubetskoy as a cheerful fat man, because at that time he weighed more than 100 kg. At the beginning of 2010, Sergei decided that this could no longer continue, and took up his health. The musician completely gave up drinking and drugs, lost weight, and started playing sports.
The result was excellent physical shape: with a height of 172 cm, the singer’s weight is about 70 kg. In new videos he appears bare-chested. Thanks to this, fans were able to see Sergei’s tattoos: there are more than 10 of them, and each is not just a picture, but also a certain symbol.
Sergey Mikhalok now
In 2018, the musician presented his new electronic project “Drezden”, named after the city in which he was born. Presenting his debut album of the same name, the rocker said that he had long dreamed of trying his hand at electronic music.
Mikhalok made a number of categorical statements about, which even became the reason for calling the singer to the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Belarus. However, the check did not reveal any offenses in Sergei’s words. The musician speaks no less harshly about Russia, whose political course he freely calls tyrannical.
Sergei supports the situation in Ukraine and believes that the Ukrainian people achieved great success in 2014, overthrowing the corrupt and totalitarian power. The musician also believes that a rocker should constantly be in confrontation with social injustice, and if he can’t find one, he has to invent one.
Sergei also subjects other musicians to harsh criticism: he calls popular representatives of the Russian rock scene who do not support the idea of political protest “snarky.” Mikhalok is no less negative about performers in the genre of pop music.
Although, perhaps, this does not apply to some pop compositions: in 2017, Sergei posted an amateur video on YouTube, in which he performs the song “Sunny Days Have Gone” with feeling and without mockery.
Sergei Mikhalok performs the song “The sunny days have disappeared”Fans of “Brutto” can follow the work of the group and the life of Sergei on the official blog on Instagram. There, the singer posts photos from concerts, invitations to performances and shots from everyday life.
Now Sergei continues to perform and go on tour with “Brutto”, and also regularly covers his civic position in interviews - often more intensely than talking about creative plans.
Discography
- 1996 – “Wounded Heart”
- 1998 – “You threw it”
- 1999 – “Beauty”
- 2004 – “Golden Eggs”
- 2006 – “Men don’t cry”
- 2007 – “Capital”
- 2008 – "Manifest"
- 2012 – “Rabkor”
- 2014 – “Matryoshka”
- 2014 – "Underdog"
- 2015 – “Native Land”
- 2017 – “Rocky”
- 2018 – "Drezden"
Sergey Mikhalok. Musician, 42 years old. Minsk, Belarus.
As a child I loved to fantasize, play a war game and make your friends laugh. I'm still true to myself.
If you are new, it is better to immediately fight with the strongest in the class. Even if you lose, in the secret school rankings you will be given a high rating, and the others will lag behind for a long time.
Most of all I loved labor and drawing lessons, although I was not good at these subjects - I burned through the mold with a soldering iron, ripped off my fingers with a file, and the grater I got as a gift to my mother on March 8th was the clumsiest one. He also drew disgustingly - with a thick pencil, without markings, then tried to correct it - but only made it worse. Therefore, I still admire workers and craftsmen, since their talents and skills are not available to me.
At cycling training camps in the Altai Mountains, local hooligans threw stones at us and unleashed dogs. It amused them. I know what “crowd interest” is.
Parents dreamed, so that I can go to music school y, because a military child should be intelligent. They bought me a piano. But I wanted to go to sambo and aircraft modeling club. I went to the music room somehow, the piano broke. My parents called a tuner for 25 rubles, and he quickly found the problem: I hid the slingshot in the piano and forgot about it. Mom lost 25 rubles, and I got a good slingshot and got a beating.
Military marches, parades were a holiday for me. I didn’t think about what was behind all this. I wanted my father to be sent to serve in Afghanistan. Then we would have a car, a carpet, and I would have jeans and a Japanese tape recorder. I didn't think they could kill there.
I got my first tattoo for a company and while drunk, for the sake of showing off, and remade it several times later. The others were already beautiful and to the point, but in that place there was still a crooked portak and what the hell. Sometimes it's better to do something new than to correct old mistakes.
External effect and emphasis on stereotypes convince suckers of any nonsense. Once, at a cultural educational school, I sold the majors boxes of tea in half with worthless Belarusian hemp, and to be convincing, I even lit a joint with them and laughed loudly. They also laughed and praised the “feeling”.
I watched the first performance of “Lyapis” on TV in the 37th department of Durka, where he ended up after an overdose of “Jeff,” a homemade drug made from solutan. Sitting nearby were some Georgians, an authority figure from Fanipol, the head doctor, orderlies, the cop on duty and several other system “screws.” Everyone was unanimously delighted. For the first time, there was a real “dick from TV” next to them, as the bandit from Slutsk put it. I became the star of the department and spent a good two weeks in a closed semi-prison institution.
Review of the first concert of "Lyapis" was devastating. The second is indignant: at the arts festival we didn’t play a single note: the drunk bassist fell with a amp and couldn’t get up, and for some reason the drummer threw away his drumsticks as soon as he went on stage and hit the cultural workers with them. At the third concert, my friend Vasya Gagarin, an artist and karateka, tore my accordion, and we fought backstage at the Mogilev Palace of Culture with the whole group, for which we were removed from the program. Already 100 of our fans came to the fourth concert. Scandals and notoriety gave me my first fans. And all the subsequent ones.
BRUTTO - the band of my life. Why do I say this? Because I see how the puzzle is finally coming together into a motley and large-scale picture, from which you cannot take your eyes off.
I came to Ukraine, in Gurzuf, at the age of 18. Our Minsk gang took part in a fight there against local gopniks and bandits. A film was later even made about this fight - two hippies died in it. We stayed to live in Crimea, and I set a record for the Yalta embankment when I earned 180 rubles in one evening. My repertoire was the best - Tsoi, “Strange Games”, “Zero”, Letov, Boyarsky, Antonov and Blatnyak. And our half-naked informal beauties danced nearby. Crimea is mine.
Cord - my antipode. He poetizes the way of life that real life quickly leads to the finale. Only a comic book hero or Shnur himself - rich and successful - can drink, fuck like a pig, be a cynic and rush like a burning train. Those who imitate him die immediately.
I have a mat - a weapon of struggle. In “Leningrad”, swearing is a cheap show-off of intellectuals pretending to be “thieves”. A peculiar “haberdashery” language of the Oberiuts.
I've been in rock since I was 15 years old. I drank, did drugs, got rowdy and had orgies - did everything to seem like a cool rock hero. But he became a real rock star only when he gave up all that bullshit, took up sports and turned into an exemplary family man.
What I do, is a physical education and health boxing. I won’t be able to get into the ring - I don’t know how to defend myself properly and I don’t move well. During training, I practice hitting the bag and the coach’s “paws,” conduct light sparring, and work with a jump rope, parallel bars and dumbbells. This is enough for a professional artist, but not enough even for an amateur boxer.
Met my wife on the train. I was drunk and wanted to throw the artistic director of her theater out of the car. She fought him off and saved the poor fellow from disaster, and me, possibly, from prison. She hated Lapis back then. Five years later we met again and fell in love at first sight. The first look doesn't have to be the first time.
Hatred and irritation- sometimes the best motivation for serious action is the desire to do good or the desire to save humanity. I have seen thousands of times more good intentions than good deeds.
I love large shapes- films “Metropolis”, “Citizen Kane”, “Brazil”. The scenery, extras, scale impress me more than the psychologism of the monologues or the impeccable acting.
Interview- this is when you confess and wait for consolation, knowing in advance that the priest will then tell everyone about your sins, deliberately distorting the facts and savoring nasty things. And in general, you are a Shiite Muslim, and for some reason you wandered into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Giving an interview is like getting dressed and preening while looking in the rearview mirror.
When my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the doctors gave him at most 10 years to live. The feat of his mother, sister and, most importantly, his personal feat allowed him to live another 17 years. A person does not perform feats alone. There are those for whose sake everything is done, and there are those who create the conditions necessary for achievement.
Recorded Anton Kashlikov, photo - Andrey Davydovsky.
