Rai'd or Die

Sexton was founded by feared Soviet motorcycle gang the Night Wolves in the mid-nineties. Ten years and change later, it continues to party on, Wayne. Who'd have guessed the hog & hiefers lifestyle, with its binge drinking, violent beatings, down-for-whatever chicks and white pride, would resonate so well in Russia? Just doesn't add up.


At any rate, three cheers! Sexton is a welcome breath of stale beer from the tired elitny club scene. No where else can you breeze through feis kontrol in a pit-stained Kiss t-shirt -- unless it's Simachev Bar or Solyanka and you are firmly, visibly, unequivocally steeped in irony.


Normally, biker bars are a good place to get your head bashed in non-ironically. But now that the Night Wolves are upstanding middle-aged Putinites, there's much less chance of gang rape, much more chance of fun.

Viva la Lucha Libre!

Predictably, Rai saw how much fun Sexton was having with biker kultur and wanted in on the action. From the looks of their 2,000 euro Ducatti jackets and gleaming D&G belt buckles, it seems something was lost in translation.

It's not the size of your bike, it's how many Rai hoodrats you can fit on it.

"The South will Rai'se again!"

Sexton, 110 Nizhniye Mnevniki, Metro: Oktyabrskoye Pole, Tel. 8 926 4097149

Photos: geometria.ru, mainpeople.ru

Twipster 'Do-'Do

Mysteries of Russian indie steez revealed! Twipster (Third World Hipster) internet portal Look at Me now has step-by-step instructional videos on how to do your hair like a Moscow club kid. Featured are the vaguely Latin "Idalgo", the ironic '90s throwback "Luke Perry" and the "Decembrist," named after revolutionaries who tried to overthrow the tsar and were exiled to Siberia. History remembers both their revolting and their revolting hair. Noticeably absent from this hair collection is the mythological mullet. Perhaps it was all just a bad dream?

Eagle-eye readers will recognize this крутой stylist from a previous episode of MDBIT.

That's right, it's the Karl Lagerfeld impersonator from last summer's Thriller party! Thanks for playing.

Photos: lookatme.ru

The Friksi Come Out at Night

Being a freakazoid is tough goings in Moscow, where not wearing the right seasonal stockings is enough to put a babushka's panties in a firm knot. Drinking vodka at 4 p.m., demanding exact change, answering your cellphone during dinner/symphonies/sex -- all socially acceptable. But exposing your legs before June 1? You degenerate.

Luckily, Moscow's subaltern experimental hipsters have a voice in photographer/party orgainzer/super attractive man Ja'Bagh Kahgado, who is coming out with a CK1-y photo book, Moskva Raw, of all the skinny tatooed people with weird hair you'll find perculating in the mix at the city's underground clubs (all three of them). His company Brainstorm Management throws/helps throw/threw Idle Conversation, which kickstarted, love it or hate it, the Novy Rave movement in Moscow (RIP); New Wave Fridays, where it was finally cool to be gay, or at least dress like it; and Labelfucker, which makes homesick expats feel less bad about a terrible life decision (Moscow); as well as bangin' secret parties that weed out all of the unattractive freaks and leave just the freak babes. Once, a few years ago, I got into one, but it was definitely an accident.


This last photo of Ja'Bagh's, it's not from the book, but enjoy anyway.

Bumping caviar -- something we've all wanted to do for a long time.

Photos: Brainstorm Management

Wazzup Rockers

Shit, I thought I had my finger in every hole of teen culture. But I missed last weekend’s Trendy Candy 2 party at Proyekt Fabrika, which is some unholy union of White Trash for Cash, 9 Lines internet magazine and a bunch of arty LiveJournalists, to say nothing of Trendy Candy 1. For shame, MDBIT.

Hey, you misspelled, ah — nevermind.

An old-fashioned high school party in an industrial warehouse, where people are staggering around drunk, snapping each others underwear and shotgunning Sovetskoe Shampanskoye, makes for great Larry Clarky photography. In fact, the entire party was staged in order for people to take high-contrast photographs for their blogs.

Like this:


What I like about this party is that it’s overrun with gay guys and riotously drunk, well-dressed chicks, both of whom would be unwelcome in any other nightlife establishment in the city. Maybe that’s why they’re partying in a paper mill. If I were a boy, I would be all over this scene. By 3 a.m., it must be like shooting fish in a bucket.

I mean, shit.
Cheers to the chick in blue vinyl, because there are definitely not enough of her in Moscow. I was going to lie and say she was me, but I already said I wasn't there. Rats. Brother of mine, you have my blessing to marry fair Abnormal Circus. Let's look at her some more:


Photos: 9linesmag.com, abnormal-circus.livejournal.com

Proyekt Fabrika, 18 Perevedenovsky Per., Metro: Baumanskaya, Tel. Uh...

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

Look at Me! No, Over Here

Indie exhibitionism has truly jumped the ocean with the advent of online party photo/lifestyle journo Look At Me, Moscow's budding Cobrasnake. The idea is you, well-connected hipster photographer, go to exclusive underground parties and snap photos of people wearing everything they owned in 1989. The problem is, the pool of kids that go for that shit is small, so you're often scraping bottom.

Sieg Hi, Look at Me!

Case in point: last Saturday, as I was walking out of the bathroom of Solyanka, in the throes of a brew attack, they jammed a camera under my nose. As I mentioned before, I'm too old to understand New Rave, but fly enough to understand I'm not part in it. For one, I'm not neon. I was honored, comma, drunk.


My sun was eclipsed by Karl Lagerfield, or the kid who got up that morning with designs to be Karl Lagerfield. The last time we saw him, he was Michael Jackson. At any rate, eminently photographable for Look at Me on any weekend, and hogged all the camera attention.


The other problem is that its a difficult argument that Look At me is pointing its lens on the underground. They're at Krizis Zhanra, at Propaganda, at the places where friksi like Karl and me go 'cuz we can't get in anywhere else. Solyanka's marginally cooler, though. They charge a 300-ruble cover that weeds out most of the bleating cheapskate expats fleeing cheesy techno.

Watch out! The gun has an owl.

Can we coin a word? Ripsters, the Russian hipsters. Indiscriminately, yet warm-heartedly ripping off everything hipster. All it needs is a little bit of judiciousness. Take the owl with a gun, leave the ridiculous posturing.

He's hot, he's well-dressed, but the camera doesn't capture that he's 4'5''. I know, it's confusing. Hot Midge!

Solyanka, 11/6 Solyanka Ul., Metro: Kitai Gorod, www.s-11.ru

Photos: Lookatme.ru

Moscow: Canned!

Grab a can, young man. Graffiti artists convened at Luzhniki Stadium at the end of June for spray-off "Moscow 2057." The theme was “My Moscow;” crews had five hours or so to come up with a design that expressed how the felt about the city they’ll inherit in 50 years.

Bracketing the ominous have-fun-or-else influence and nationalism of the Department of Family and Youth Policy of the City of Moscow, it was good, innocent fun for the whole family. Also it validated something I realized when they started selling spray cans at indie bookstore Respublica: being “street” has grown in currency.


The event was co-sponsored x-treme sports store Nye-Olympiiskiye Igry and new street art magazine Iron Curtain. Expect big things from this publication: Their marketing campaign is aimed at the hordes of restless youth all over Russia with a penchant for petty vandalism. Better that hoods in St. Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Ufa and Samara are expending the energy creatively than, say, on beating half-Mexicans.


Visual Artifacts shows that, against all odds, there’s actually a growing set of funny and subversive stencil artists and taggers in Moscow.


Aw, cute. I spend most of the day walking around blinded by bloodlust, then she goes and does something like this and I think, we’re going to be OK, me and Moscow.

Photos: ironcurtain.ru, www.visualartifacts.ru