Wishes
T-Shirts
How am I supposed to act like a 12-year-old without rock star t-shirts? You can get Viktor Tsoi handkerchiefs and backpacks in a variety of styles... why not even one Akvarium t-shirt? Actually, in all of Moscow I found one and only one t-shirt: a leftover from Boris' English-language period. More! More!Posters
Ditto. Come on, folks... marketing! marketing! Remember: your fans are too attached to their money; relieve them of that karmic burden. The Zig-Zag Rock & Roll shop has a poster of Novii-Russkii-hair-era Boris dressed in purple with a tambourine on his head, but they're not parting with it.Talking Alarm Clocks
Singing, actually. Maybe Boris as Happy Buddha admonishes you that you can’t do a thing about Karma, then sings you back to sleep.Shower Curtains
Novii-Russkiesque Boris takes off his sunglasses to watch you bathe. (Hot item for the ladies.)
Condoms
"Graf Diffuzor" for the big boys. "Dyesyat' Strel" if you’re quick on the upswing or too cheap to buy another pack. "Mal'chik Evgraf" for Dzhon.
Graf Diffuzor bobbina Munchkin Voice Converter
Could be combined with the official B.G. Signature "Wilburizer" Vocal Vibrato.
Radio Afrika Sound Effects Keychain
So we can punctuate conversations with "tchooooooo!"A "Rutman" Bong might sell in certain circles.
Shaped like a head, maybe?Cover song request:
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir should remake "Dzha dast nam vsyoh.""Ivan" brand chai
It would be a huge seller. (We would drink it, at least.)Akvarium Dolls
...to decorate aquariums (replacing stupid sunken boats and skeletons on treasure chests) might give me reason to buy a fish and an aquarium. The underwater Boris could levitate... or maybe take off & put on his sunglasses.Stari Kozlodoyev Protective Undergarments
...when you're too old to need your packs of Dyesyat' Strel.Electric-white Boris Suit, Boots and Taboo Wig
See page 16 of the photo album, plus the "Taboo" album cover.The Wish List Band
The dude himself, plus Doctor Duser from Tequila Jazzz on drums, Adrian Belew on guitar, Dyusha and Ded on everything, Tchaikovsky on cannons--and, of course, Dzhubchik on Shamanic buboes, and the Wish List Albino Tamborine Trio (Dzhon, Dzhrew and Dji).An Akvarium Snake
Every woman must have one. This is bigger than you. This is bigger than me.B.G. Muzak
"Rhapsody for Water" in every mall in America!Nikita Ryazanskii Scuba Gear
Teach us to breathe underwater.Akvarium Underoos
It's underwear that's fun to wear.Gori film
We want to befriend the right Finns and see a copy of the film they shot in Gori, 1980--the film whose soundtrack became "Elektrichestvo." Moy! Kiitos!Stickers
Once again, it's so simple but they aint to be found. Even a simple "A" with circle over it would look great on my Lada or guitar case. WISH FULFILLED! The glorious Maik announced: Got it. It's a red A with a circle over it (attached) and gold "25" below that, "Akvarium *Dvadtsat' Pyat' Let" written around the circle in blue, separated by two yin/yang symbols ... a gift from Lyapin too, no less, how's that for polishing the old lingham? To a mighty fine shine, Maik, a mighty fine shine.Trading Cards
What better way to help Russian children learn the valuable lessons of capitalism in a global economy? Not to mention that barter is the dominant form of remuneration in today's Russian economy. "I'll trade you my Kuryokhin rookie card for your 'Lyapin in bicycle helmet'..." "No way, man! How 'bout my 'Gakkel storms out' action card?"Akvarium Edition "Magic" Game
Akvariumheads can wage imaginary battles such as: Rutman (with a Bo Stick) versus Starik Kozlodoyev (whom Gospodi taught how to breathe underwater) and his endless pack of Belomors (ah! but Rutman pulls out his secret weapon, the Kniga Sartre that he got from Ivanov--now Kozlodoyev is trapped, as all he has is a fiver). Must be updated with each new album.The Akvarium Rock Opera!!!!
Anguished songs sung by our Rok-n-Roll Geroi, the Protect Yer Prick chorus a la Guys'n'Dolls, a stage roiling with snakes, sparkling with stars, cavorting with electric puppy dogs lapping railroad water…
Akvarium Vodka
Only one of the many semi-controlled substances we'd be apt to consume (more of) if it were properly packaged.
An Online Akvarium Humor Magazine
Story examples:- Train on Fire in Regional Capitol: Residents fear disaster as firefighters are stymied by packs of hungry wolves. "They like meat," explained the captain of the squad.
- Man Bites Electric Dog: Listed in "glowing" condition at area hospital.
- Underwater Cult in Lake Baikal: Area resident Igor Kovrigin discovered the "Ryazanskii Cult" by accident when he caught one of its members in his Omul net. "They don't taste like Omul," reported Mr. Kovrigin. "They taste more like Perdue chicken legs. Yum Yum."
Foreign Minister Ivanov
How about a prominent Russian minister named "Ivanov" so we can read headlines like "Ivanov Holds Talks on Balkan Crisis." Aah, if only reality were that much fun…I Got You, Joanna
Joanna Stingray and Boris sing a heartfelt cover of Sonny & Cher's "I Got You, Babe." Or, better yet, "You Don't Send Me Flowers Anymore." Life should be so sweet."Hideous Olle Romo Synclavier" filter
According to Maik, such an invention would remove a major source of heinousity on Radio Silence.
Akvarium Gzhel Figurines
Little porcelain figurines of the Akvarium boys lovingly recast as adorable children ... bearded Seva playing an exquisite miniature cello with a puppy dog licking at his feet ... playful Boris romping in a grassy field of Ivan Chai ... "Desyat Strel" unicorns and griffins (limited editions, natch!) sold separately …
BG Sings the songs of BG
Boris Grebenshikov sings the songs of hip-hop artist Baby Gangsta. Look how much they have in common:- Boris is from Saint Petersburg.
Baby is from New Orleans (home of the Saints and also where the saints go marching in. - Baby has a tattoo on his back which reads "Cash Money Records"
Bootleggers make cash money on Boris' records behind his back - Baby has a song called "Bling Bling"
Boris and Sergei Kuryokhin did an album that goes "Mwaaaauuuu Mwaaaaauuuu" - Baby has been making records since he was a baby
Boris has been making records since before Baby was a baby.
BG Sings the songs of BG, Vol. II
...the Benny Goodman sessions. Ded swinging on his clarinet while Boris croons, croons, croons.Akvarium Lenticulars
Akvarium lenticulars(also called "tinky-winks"; commonly seen featuring a 3D praying Jesus or a "now she's naked, now she's not" bikini-wearing woman) with one of those vertical micro-calendars on the back. Tilt one and watch Boris wink. On another, he's doing one of his Buddhist namaste greetings, and he bows *and* winks at you. On another, Gakkel storms out. Or, in a special request from the ladies, "now he's naked, now he's not" bikini Boris. As David Byrne put it, "It has such humble origins, but could be put to really sophisticated uses. The possibilities are endless." Our motto: "The possibilities are endless: collect them all!"Steely Bo
The comeback album to end all comebacks: "Steely Bo." Boris and Donald Fagen sing a re-make of, what else, Boddhisatva. ...wontcha take me by the hand...? BONUS: Hey, and since "Steely Dan" is supposedly the name of a dildo, how about Bodhisattva dildos to go with the release? Well, wish no more. here they are.
Nikita Ryazanski's Doom Level
Moving among orthodox churches beneath a psychedellic sky, you fight your way from fortress to fortress armed only with bread, wine, and your trusty nail gun. In the scene pictured here, you team up with Boris and two of the Partisans of the Full Ammunition Clip. See This Kleep for a non-interactive example. (Underwater scenes are not included in the preview.)
Oy! Bykhanakh!
BG and a band of Klezmer all-stars tackle the one kind of folk music never yet appropriated for an Akvarium album. Boris, Ded, Don Byron, John Zorn's Masada and the Klezmatics join together for a series of albums and world tours. PBS and the Discovery channel cover the tour with documentaries, concert specials and scientific analyses of how throat singing works.Fish Army Comics!
A line of Akvarium comic books (or at least a mini series). Watch as Boris crushes the forces of evil popsa with only his acoustic guitar and a bottle of overpriced whiskey! See Seva bemoan the state of music today until his foes become so depressed they take to shooting up heroin in a filthy Peterburg squat! Wonder at the powers of Dyusha and his magic flute! Witness Fan spending years as the only member of the band with a real job! Also, guest appearances by Mike Nomenko, Victor Tsoi and others, all in their superhero personae. Hell, if they could do it with Kiss they can do it with Akvarium!A Full Line of Akvarium-wear
An all-Aquarium clothes line, album by album or hit by hit, as the designers wish. My pick would be a set of Black Diamonds with Bird-like Furs, completed with Kittens on Leashes, husbands optional. A tuxedo, champagne bottles bulging the pockets and keys to the safe where the women are, would make your appearance as a Yev-Graffe Boy the key moment of the party. Separate pieces of clothing would also prove to be a success: Old Man Goat-Milkerson's Permanently Wet Pants, the Boot (sold in a yellow cloud-dotted box), and, for the late-stuff lovers, The Kimono, which is impossible to untie due to all the straps and bows being merely a decoration.John Barleycorn Must Die, Mon Amour
Shane MacGowan, Kirsty McCall, Maddy Prior, and other folk rock icons of the Isles join Boris for new songs and Celted-up versions of old folk songs and Akvarium favorites. "A Fairytale of Ash the Beast," would be the album's single.
BG at DK Permafrost
Tuva? Nepal? Tibet? So old millennium. Sakha has it all: edible ponies, rubber-shattering weather, potent mare's milk potables, and (most importantly) an intriuging and little-explored musical tradition. Time for BG to hitch up a team of reindeer and head for Yakutsk, City of Stilts!
Preserved Foodstuffs of Babylon
There must be a pickle left in the jar
There must be at least one pickle left in the jar
I may not recognize it as a pickle at all
But I'm glad there's a pickle left in the jar
2000 Years
2000 Years
Preserved in brine for 2000 years...
This musical interlude has been brought to you as a reminder that we're still wishing for more Akvarium-related foodstuffs. We're so desperate we'd even buy Kozlodoyev Kasha if it was available... and we'd EAT it too.
The Many Moods of BG
The Bodhisattvas have had an insight: what better way to imprint BG on the cerebral cortexes of America than by hawking his wares on late-night TV? Therefore we call upon K-tel, king of the "Available for a limited time only! Just $29.99! Check, money-order or C.O.D.! Three CDs or six cassettes! All the hits!" offer, to bring us The Many Moods of BG. As thematic video footage is tied with snippets of the great songs (we imagine, for instance, BG at Orley jumping up and down while pointing at the Concorde; or BG walking down to a river and finding - surprise! - a Mongolian postage stamp) we can't imagine the average American consumer will be able to resist. After all, it worked for Zamfir, Master of the Pan-flute!! 'Nuff said.
BG Gangsta Gold
Novii Russkii is so out of fashion it might as well be old folklore. Be the first on your block to sport Gangsta Gold's new "Fresh BG" line of Akvarium-related Gangsta jewelry. The full line has yet to be released, but you can get in ahead of the game with these first two Akvarium tooth caps. Soon, you'll be slappin' the Mochalki & jockin' the prostitutki in high fashion, dope style!
RIAA Tchoo Advisory Labels
It's getting to the point where you can't walk into your local Wal-Mart and let your kid buy a CD without fearing that he may go home, plug in his headphones and have his brain just Tchoo'd to pieces. Children have access to Tchoo in ways their parents never imagined. This Tchoo access scares some parents because of the explicit buzzes, violent clicks and strong Tchoos so readily available. Struggling against the steady stream of Tchoo flowing into the home, many parents wish God would just teach them to breathe underwater. It's a normal feeling, just as rebellion is normal for a teenager. As you get older, it may be harder to be hip, but it's much easier to be illuminated. We call upon the Recording Industry Association of America to provide protective Tchoo warning labels. The children must be protected: tchoose to be informed. Help your children eschew the Tchoo.
Nanoborya
We've all been to Giperboria, but now that science has developed The World's Smallest Guitar (tm), it's time for Boris and crew to invite us along on a fantastic voyage to The World's Smallest Akvarium Concert as they add new meaning to the cliche "I've got the music in me." Or, as Alfanov observed regarding the teensy guitars, "If you inject enough of them into your bloodstream, you'll play better. Wait... no, that's smack."
Baltikasattva
Wish already fulfilled? This blurry photo, taken by an equally blurry photographer, allegedly documents the rare appearance of the only beer that can satisfy the most mighty-linghamed of the bodhisattvi: the baltikasattva. "Quench the unquenchable with unceasing quenching."
BG Sings Vinnie Pukh
Кто ходит в гости по утрам - тот поступает мудро!
Известно всем, тарам-парам, на то оно и утро!
In a combined follow-up to both Children's Album and Hyperboria, Boris and company prepare a full-on progressive rock album featuring tunes and themes from the animated classic. Honey is an interesting subject...gluuupii, stariii beeeaaaarrr.
The Boris Blesses You Tour
Boris does a buddhist tour where he blesses everyone and sells little BG icons that ward off bad music from ever entering your headspace. You're driving down the road with your BG beads hanging from your rearview mirror and the car next to you comes bumping up with some bad rap music bass rattling your windows, and suddenly the music changes to "Radio Silence". Whoops! Wrong song...how bout "Nikita Ryazanskii" Now I'd buy one of those! Maybe a couple of dozen.
Steve-Albini-Produced Radio Silence
An alternate-universe review: by mimoza
From its first squeal of inverted feedback to the merciless 3-minute amp-noise drone that ends "China," Boris Grebenshikov's RADIO SILENCE is one of those rare recordings that push the whole game forward. Uncompromising almost to a fault, it belongs in a pantheon of idiosyncratic masterpieces ("Velvet Underground and Nico," "Murmur," "Trompe le Monde") that, no matter how many units they might originally shift, have profoundly influenced the way people think of recording rock.
As the raw, uncompressed drum sound and starkly minimal arrangement of the title track give way to the furious stomp of "The Postcard," seemingly recorded in one take, the realization dawns that this is the true sound of the basement: unlike Westerners, who use the trappings of "lo-fi" as an aesthetic choice, the Russian has EARNED them. The authenticity of the record, tape hiss and all, feels staggering; its flaws are a bold political statement. The emotional peak of the album comes toward the end of "The Wind": the infernal, cacophonous solo, produced by an overmiked stringless thrift-shop guitar repeatedly hitting Annie Lennox. RADIO SILENCE forcefully returns rock'n'roll to its vulgar, brash, primal-scream roots, to an integrity altogether abandoned by the likes of Dave Stewart. This album is a wake-up-call to all of us. It might have only sold a 1,000 copies, but everyone who bought it, learned Russian.
BG Mastercard
Bootleg CD: 5 dollars. Bootleg T-shirt: 15 Euros. Counterfeit concert tickets: 450 roubles. Akvarium: priceless. There are some things money can buy, for everything else, there's BG.
Boris on the Muppet Show
WISH PARTIALLY FULFILLED We haven't gotten to see Boris make pelmini with the Swedish Chef. We haven't heard him do a duet of Iskusstvo Byt Smirnym with Kermit. And we don't yet know how he'd react when romantically pursued by a horny pig (we can speculate, but we don't know). Still, this sneak preview photo from the official Akvarium site suggests we may be getting even more than we'd hoped.
Curiously, only one other member of the current Akvarium lineup appears to have been kept on board...
The Boris Legacy Project
Modeled on The Reagan Legacy Project the BLP is dedicated to the noble goal of erecting statues of Boris, renaming buildings, highways, and airports, and generally enforcing the Boris legacy.
The BLP is working toward a time when all citizens of the world can step off their local commuter train (named after Boris) into their town's central square (named after Boris) and be struck by the inspiring site of a giant statue of Boris, high on a pedestal, pointing towards the endless future of Rock & Roll.
The Traveling Wilburizers
Coming soon: an all-star band featuring Boris, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Stevie Nicks. It's like that olde time music they just don't make like they used to... but warblier! (Sponsored by Nicorette®.)
24-hour Akvarium Helpline
Having trouble locating a great janitor? Building a city, but running out of nails? Need the moon to calm you down? Or was it just snowing this morning? For these and all other problems call the 24-hour Akvarium helpline at (St Petersburg) 2-12-85-06.
Various Sex Acts With Farmers
The 2001 release of three early Akvarium recordings leaves only "Minuet for a Farmer" on the known unreleased list. As our review notes, we once believed "Minuet" could (and therefore should) also be read as "blow-job." We were wrong. (Blow-job's минет, drat it all). But even though we have declared the original notion to be apostasy, it still lurks in our naughty little heads (insert head joke here). And since all concerns with musical maturity, recording quality, good taste and general listenability pale before our hunger for even more recordings. We look forward to the release of previously unknown albums, including "Gang Bang With a Farmer", "Goode Farmere Rimshotte", "The Temptation of Bessie", "Further Farmer's Daughter's Tales" and "Farmer Ivanov Pays the Rent".