Gogol Bordello - GypsyPunks

Fri 16th Sep, 2005 in Music Reviews

I’m gathering new generation
That’s gonna stand up to it
To this karaoke dictatorship
- 60 Revolutions

Punk attitude and music are constant players in the eternal it-was-so-much-better-when-I-was-young musical debate. What happened to the sprit of 1977 anarchy the old punks demand of the kids? Is nu-metal and Blink the best you got? This strange idea of the Blank Generation punk rockers caring about their legacy reared it’s greying mohawk in at least two recent docos; Don Letts Punk:Attitude and Kill Your Idols. Both films reached the conclusion that something is awry in the new generation, there’s a lack of genuine snot and bile in new music; it’s apparently a scene all about dress code and formula these days. Really, so what exactly were all those kids doing in leather jackets and safety pins at Pistols and Clash gigs then?

Kill Your Idols was the greater offender of the films, with its thoroughly depressing scenes of tired punks like Lydia Lunch insisting, that new music continually fails to live up to their era of musical experimentation. But where can the sprit of punk possibly go after its been reduced to atonal drones, one randomly stabbed guitar chord and howling? It’s a worthwhile experiment, but it’s also a one way alley with No Future. Eventually unlistenable noise loses its power of rebellion and just becomes, well, unlistenable.

So where else can punk attitude go? The post-punk contemporary New York City bands in Kill Your Idols swerve from the thrills of The Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the laughable pose of A.R.E Weapons, who are surely a joke written by the guys at Vice magazine.  Like any generation there’s both brilliance and banality. But the films revelation came from a band of gypsy’s with a sound that drew from punk without sounding like another study of Television and Suicide. Led by the Kiev-born and superably mustachioed Eugene Hϋtz, with his rolling slur of an accent, Gogol Bordello have staked out their Immigrant Punk on the New York scene.

Recorded by the master of sound grit, Mr Steve Albini, their new record has the direct feel of a live party. Anything goes, so when Hutz drills a drum solo out on a fire bucket it feels like he’s grabbed whatever’s at hand in the studio. Spontaneous music, roughly stitched together out of necessity is the driving principle. Oh No is the noise of a city blackout – a crisis of musical looting, stealing from every style on offer to make the best of the chaos.

Girls are dancing with the flashlights
I only got one guitar!
 ... making merry of nothing
like in refugee camp

Ever the ringmaster of diverse talents Hϋtz, is soon to be seen starring in the film adaptation of Everything is Illuminated as Elijah Wood’s translator or ‘speaking of English servant’. Out the front of Bordello Hϋtz’s vocals tear and chew the English language spiting back sloganeering lyrics; passionate, pointed and political. The mix of folk sounds with a punk snarl and bravado cannot help but recall the swagger and stagger of Shane MacGowan and his ragged crew, The Pogues. Yet while the Pogues shanties can sometimes sound like the soundtrack to a Treasure Island mini-series the Bordello steer their ship away from cliché. There’s no formula, no set language – rap, dub, cabaret, English, Spanish, Russian- it’s all part of the Bordello’s ‘walking United Nation’. Sudden shifts between styles are common. In Dogs Were Barking the manic gypsy wedding story “dogs were barking, monkeys clapping bears were dancing…” drops into a break of deep dubby pulses and bleeps and when the gypsies wrestle control again guest MC Ras Kush’s toasting continues echoing over the swirl of violin and accordion. Instead of the punk gig skanking circle, its an arms-over-shoulders leg kicking circle dance fueled by wine, bathtub swill and plenty of pot.

There’s seems to be a moment in all Emir Kusturica’s films when the gypsy music soundtrack explodes and the Fellini-aping circus antics go into manic overdrive as the screen fills with rampaging moustaches, goats and accordions. Gogol Bordello are that scene played at double speed in a war bunker where everybody has decided it’s the end of the world, so we might as well have a sleazy good time. It’s a party that everybody is welcome to crash, bringing their favourite Jamaican dub and classic punk records into the mix. Hϋtz’s DJ gig in New York has a play it loud and fast no matter what it is attitude: dancehall, jungle, Eastern European jazz, punk and hip-hop; nothing is dismissed and nothing is sacred. It’s an approach that fuels the success of Bordello; as Hϋtz leers over a Clash riff on Underdog World Strike
be it punk, hip-hop, or be it a reggae sound
it is all connected through the
gypsy part of town
let’s go!