Your Sex Is No Good Here

As I reported before, Moscow takes its leisure very seriously, and its annual Nightlife Awards is about as important as the Oscars. At this venerable ceremony, it was officially decided that no one can manufacture the oontz oontz better than DJ Smash.



There’s no love lost between me and shitty techno. Nonetheless, DJ Smash smashed into my heart like the fist of an angry god. Because he knows how to pick a theme that’s dear to the hearts of Moscow clubbers, condense it into a phrase and then loop it endlessly. It’s a formula for success I've even copied. When Lochamer and I briefly DJ’ed as I Hate Your Endomorphic Girlfriend, it was just that over and over.

DJ Smash's first hit was “Pasha Face Control,” after the legendarily dick door control guy at Leto. Have a listen. He concisely sums up the capital’s club entry policy: “Sex Nye Predlagat” (Don’t Offer Sex.) Ditto for tears, ‘cuz Moscow doesn’t believe in them.

His new joint is called “Moscow Never Sleeps,” and it’s pretty much just those words sung like a Soviet anthem, which works like a charm for rousing city pride. It even inspired two kids to shoot a video about how much they like Moscow. Look for one flashing the killer M around 2:35, then go home and practice.




I love this silly clip because it recreates the thrill of zipping suicidally around Moscow by gypsy cab at night. The only thing that’s missing is the hand creeping up your thigh, even though you’ve told the driver repeatedly you’re a pregnant leper nun whose husband is waiting at home with a shotgun.

Photos: djsmash.ru

Tales from the Crypt

Sextogenarian Iggy Pop played B1 Maximum on September 11. How much does old man rawk cost? Just $75 a head.

B1Maximum, 11 Ordzhonikidze Ul., Metro: Shabolovskaya, Tel. 648-6777

Photo: Geometria.ru

Rave New World II

Oh God, the colors. They are still there when I shut my eyes.

New Rave's origins in Moscow are hazy, but some say that two hipster pilgrims from New York, Brainstorm Management's Zak and Ja'Bagh, brought it over last year, much like the smallpox-infested blankets that killed the Aztecs. They shouldn't take all the blame though, especially since what they were originally responsible for was New Wave parties. This is no mere slight of the tongue, but an entirely different palette. Fliers from the end of 2006 show youth of ambiguous sexuality, sure, but no traces of the neon that would eventually stalk Moscow like a big neon stalking thing.


Where did these people come from, with their flamboyant fashion, asymmetrical hairdos and aggressively bright clothing? I believe in historical materialism: it was the arrival of Topshop's Day-Glo spring collection that sent Moscow down the path to New Rave. At any rate, some point in early 2007, New Wave Fridays at Krizis Zhanra gave way to the Idle Conversation nights at Propaganda. A YouTube video dated March 22 shows a complete New Rave onset.

Lost in Red Square: Novy Ravers YogoYogo

As the New Rave's popularity swelled to a crescendo in summer 2007, the Idle Conversation promoters have themselves became celebrities. This month's issue of Hooligan carries an interview and photo spread with main Idle-logue, 24-year-old Roman Mazurenko, and the rest of his flimsy-sunglasses-wearin' crew.


In August, the In Wave party series emerged as a direct competitor for the young and colorful. The main difference is that they're into that whole minimal — sorry, mnml — microhouse thing. Don't trash the wardrobe just yet! The neon is still there, only now the music feels like you're swimming in pudding. New Rave on ketamine. Leave the ironic facial hair, too. These photos are from In Wave's "Muddy Mustache Naked Mistake" on August 11 at Sixteen Tons.


Sixteen Tons, 6 Presnensky Val Ul., Bldg. 1, Metro: Ulitsa 1905 Goda, Tel. 253-5300

Photos: community.livejournal.com/inwave, community.livejournal.com/i_conversation

Wet Hot Russian Summer

You could say that summer culture festival Afisha Picnic, hosted by hipster semimonthly Afisha last weekend at Kolomenskoe Park, is like Woodstock, minus the booze, counterculture, drugs, public sex acts, rock & roll, social harmony, hope or fun. That is, it's muddy and tickets are free. Though in the spirit of not wanting to poop on everything that Moscow does, you could also say that Afisha Picnic turned out nicely for some people, like the American guy who made 11,000 rubles selling his retired club clothing (vintage!). But go back to that first point to understand why it was a doomed from the get-go: no booze. Alcohol was forsaken, spurned, cast by the wayside.

Fields of Pills: You lie, Afisha!

But maybe sun could have saved it. Had it been like Victory Day or City Day, the Picnic could have been a lot more fun. There was a lot of promise: lawn games, an old Soviet arcade, cardboard village, food stands, live musical acts, a special little pit for the Nu Ravers, take a blanket and spread out on the lawn with the kids and a refreshing non-alcoholic beverage. But the Air Force wasn't seeding any clouds for a bunch of hippies. The result — 30,000 soggy, sober, shifty people.


Or drugs. There weren't any, despite the flier promising rolling fields of pills. This guy had the right idea, he brought his own stash, then took off into his own world to the envy of all around. Once, candy-flipping, I grasped for a second how trance music, shamanism, string theory, singular consciousness, lucid dreaming and the objective experience of DMT where everyone sees aliens who tell them to save the planet, are all interrelated. Then I lost it.

Happiness is a Wet Hill.

Idle Conversation groupie shirts: "I Want to be Intimate with (promoter) Dima Loginov" "Be Sweet to Me Danila Polyakov," etc.

Nu Ravers confined to their own ecstatic little pit. The way it should be!

Photos: 44110.com, lookatme.ru

Rave New World

What the hey, Moscow. Taking all the fun out of rave culture again. A Russian Love Psychedelic Trance party already meant beer & glowsticks in the woods — now we get neo-raver street fashion without any of the sex, drugs & oontz that makes dressing like a fool worthwhile? Ok fine, pass the hair gel.


Sure, New Rave — Neu Rave, sorry — originated in the UK underground, not Tulskaya, but that's not stopping new Moscow label White.Trash.For.Cash from biting its colorful DIY style. As I'm not a 14-year-old from New Cross, I don't understand what New Rave is about. But I'm told it involves neon art, 8-bit video games, MDMA, clocks passing through fire, The Klaxons (above) and people who look like The Klaxons (below). Kids are so weird.


White.Trash.For.Cash held a fashion show at Danilovsky Monastary last Friday. To my limited knowledge, they got all the basics right — skinny jeans, over-sized t-shirts, spandex — although, as usual, drugs were not invited to the party.



White.Trash.For.Cash — a victory for copying good. And quickly! Five out of ten British gutter punks will agree that Neu Rave does not yet suck.



The fashion show attracted hip people. Varshavskoye Shosse or Williamsburg? You tell me.









White Trash for Cash, 18 Perevedenovsky Per., Metro: Baumanskaya, Tel. 109-5609

Photos: wtfc.ru, geometria.ru