ADAPTATSIYA
MUZIKA-KOMUNIKA Interview 2024
My interview with Yermen Anti,leader of Kazakh punk band ADAPTATSIYA.
Yermen Anti
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See first: https://muzika-komunika.blogspot.com/2024/09/2011-no-pasaran.html
Photos from Prague: https://ermen.antimusic.ru/adaptaciya-praga-22-sentyabrya-2024
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MK: 1/ Hi Yermen, please introduce yourselves first. Who are you, where do you live, what do you do?
YA: My name is Yermen Anti - a Kazakh poet and musician, vocalist and songwriter of ADAPTATSIYA band from Aktobe city in Kazakhstan.
Concert in Prague, 2024,(first time with whole band)
MK: 2/ Let's talk about the band ADAPTATSIYA. When did you form your band? What were your musical influences? What was the alternative/punk scene like in Kazakhstan when you started? How did you discover punk/alternative music in the USSR before 1989? I heard bands like Добровольцы Поневоле, 12 Подвигов Нуркена, Немцов И Немцы, Фима И Мифические ДБ, Алдар Косе И Надувные Баурсаки, Бьрнай Карабасов И Самозванцы. Were they at the beginning of the punk scene in Kazakhstan? Any chance of getting a copy of the Karaganda Garage Band Compilation/Central Kazakhstan's Underground Scene? I am still looking for it. But I am still looking for all 90s cassettes of Kazakhstani punk bands.
YA: We formed on January 1, 1992. I was 17 and I listened to punk rock - such bands as Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Exploited. We knew that there are many bands in the former capital of Kazakhstan – Almaty, but mainly we got information of the bands from Russia, probably it was related to the fact that Aktobe is located 100 km far from Russia and until November 1991 we lived in one country – the USSR. Among the bands listed by you I listened to Aldar Kose and Naduvniye Baursaki, in 2000 in Saints-Petersburg someone played them at 45 rpm for me. Such a garage rock recorded for fun in Karaganda by some people unknown to me. I played there many times but when I made attempts to know anything about them, no one from locals could tell me anything. This often happens in this part of the world: when you come to some city and tell people about what a cool band used to be in their city ten years ago, and they have no idea what you are talking about.
Concert 1992
MK: 3/ Yermen, you play as a solo artist and then with a band. What are the differences between these two positions? Please, can you write down your complete discography here? Can you put both here - solo and with the band?
YA: In the 90s when there hadn’t been formed the club system yet, we often played our concerts in flats where I sang my songs accompanied by acoustic guitar. Further on, this became a part of touring: I went on solo tours to the cities where due to different (mainly financial) reasons they could not invite the whole band. At some point at solo performances I changed acoustic guitar for electric one, added delay and overdrive, and it started sounding more like punk. If you heard the early Billy Bragg, you know what I mean.
YA: For me lyrics always mattered. They are social themes, existential protest, reaction to the surrounding reality and fixation of my existence in this world. Nomad poetry punk is a link to my roots, I’m a descendant of nomads, some call me Akyn (Akyn is an improvisational poet and singer within the Kazakh culture) and this is partly true. Before the war I led a nomadic life: travelled in vast areas of the Eurasia and sang my songs in Vladivostok and Barcelona, Bishkek and Salekhard. The war made its own adjustments to my touring geography: I refused from playing in Russia, Ukraine has other things to worry about rather than concerts, in Belarus the authorities suppressed independent stage. Only Kazakhstan, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and the EU are left. In March 2023 for the first time I played in Prague, and the guys who arranged my concert there, offered to issue a book of my poems translated into the Czech. Half-year earlier my book was issued in Germany in German language. They are interesting projects, and I hope that there will be something issued in English too.
Cover of Wheel Of History
MK: 5/ The first time I heard your band was on a cassette (Wheel Of History) with a cover of a guy. Is that your portrait? The music reminded me of the band Grazhdanskaya Obrona.
YA: I cut out this photo from the Soviet magazine called Family and School. It seemed to me that it reflected my inner state when I was 18-20 years old, at that time those songs were written. Also, it was a hint to the album of The Pogues – Peace and Love. As for Grazhdanskaya Oborona, they had an impact on many people, during the period of country collapse and total chaos, their songs helped survive and go on creating. Koleso Istorii (History Wheel) is the album of Adaptatsiya, which was influenced by Oborona most of all.
Book of poems and DVD cover
MK: 6/ Once I played at the Egor Letov memorial concert in Prague, but I was a bit worried about playing there, because I know about his leanings towards the National Bolshevik Party, and that is a bit disturbing to me. In the end it was a very nice concert with a very nice organiser. Grazhdanskaya Obrona - were they really Bolsheviks or nationalists/fascists? Was Letov a member of the NBP or did he "only" play at their events or whatever? Can you tell me your opinion about this band? I know they had a huge influence on the punk scene in the Soviet Union.
YA: Letov had a NBP party membership card ticket number 4! And this exactly contributed to the big inflow of youth to this party in 1994. I won’t be mistaken if I tell that half of NBP were young fans of Grazhdanskaya Oborona. The NBP project itself was an attempt of Limonov* to unite the left and the right in the fight against a new bourgeoisie and oligarchs who ripped out the country taking for pennies big factories built in the times of the USSR. Letov joined NBP exactly from motives of the left. Being a sincere person, he was very disappointed in Limonov when at the presidential elections in 1996 the latter supported a drunkard Yeltsin, who was behind the privatization in Russia. Since then they hadn’t cooperated.
Concert in Prague, 2024
MK: 7/ What is your opinion about politics? Here in Slovakia you can often read in the newspapers that there are a lot of Russian trolls and Russian agents trying to destabilise the political situation. What is your opinion about Putin's politics? What is your opinion of the European Union, for example? What is Kazakhstan's position in relation to Russia?
YA: I think Putin is the most terrible thing that happened with Russia since the times of Stalin. And even Stalin was clearer as he had an ideology but Putin hadn’t had any for long time and then in 2022 he found it – an ideology of war, and as long as he has power, the war will continue. His propagandists are fooling their people and prepare them for eternal war for revival of the USSR or Russian empire. For a person with common sense this is an absolute nonsense but for the half of Russian it is a reality. The EU in spite of all of their problems is a community of countries the development of which is directed to the future and the government doesn’t interfere the private lives of their residents, there are political freedoms, access to information. I’m concerned with the increasing popularity and influence of the right-winged parties: from “Alternative for Germany” or party of Viktor Orban in Hungary that are the conductors of Putin’s politics intending to weaken the EU. As for the relationships of Kazakhstan with Russia, then one needs to take into account the fact that we have the longest frontier in the world and whatever’s going on in the RF, this will indirectly affect Kazakhstan. Yes, Kazakhstan doesn’t support the war in Ukraine, doesn’t recognize Pro-Russian formations like DPR or LPR but we are the members of several joint military and economic unions, 15 percent of population in Kazakhstan are ethnic Russians, we’re closely connected in cultural and informational spheres. The positive moment is that for thirty-three years of independence in Kazakhstan has grown the generation of people for whom such notions as the USSR or the Russian Empire mean nothing, they were born and grew up in the independent Kazakhstan, they speak Kazakh language and they are the future. The threats of the Russian propaganda and part of politics about territorial claims to Kazakhstan do not contribute to the friendly climate in the relationships between our peoples. A big part of Kazakhstani society are against the aggression of Russia towards Ukraine as they understand that imperial ambitions may be spread to our country as well.
Album cover
MK: 8/ How was your last tour of Europe, what disappointed or pleased you most?
YA: It was great! It was like as if I returned twenty years back into the times when we first started visiting Europe with shows. At that time, we played at squats and anarchist communes in Paris, Dijon, Saint-Etienne. In Berlin our favorite location was Kreuzberg with its atmosphere of freedom, creativeness, autonomism. This time we played at squats as well: Kőpi in Berlin, Punkerspa Bagehl in Rostock. Also, for the first time ADAPTATSIYA played in Warsaw and Prague, before I had been there with solo concerts.
Album cover
MK: 9/ Do you know any Czech or Slovak punk bands? Have they ever played in Kazakhstan?
YA: In the mid of the 90s we had workers from Czechia who trained local builders to do as we call it “euro-renovation”. One of our fellows worked there as a general laborer. The Czechs after knowing that he listened to punk-rock gave him a cassette of TŘI SESTRY/ Three Sisters’ band. We liked it, such an energetic folk-punk.
Band ADAPTATSIYA
MK: 10/ Yermen, the last words are yours if you want to say something. The interview will be published on my blog MUZIKA-KOMUNIKA and maybe it will be printed in some fanzine. By the way - do you have a punk fanzines in Kazakhstan?
YA: Our formation in Aktobe was called Aktyubinsky Punk Club containing around ten different bands. The members intercrossed in the bands: I used to sing in ADAPTATISYA but played bass guitar in Zapadny Front band or played the drum in Muha band. And also, there was and still exists my project in Kazak language – BISHARA BALDAR. In 1999 we issued samizdat (underground press) called Alga and several more projects. At that time, it was relevant, it served as an exchange of information with other creative formations. After the Internet had appeared, the movement waned. Nowadays I see fanzines only when I come to Europe.
Book cover
All the best to you and the band, may you be
successful. / Mišo
Gig in Moscow, 2002
Check: https://ermen.antimusic.ru/
ADAPTATSIYA Discography:
1995 – Parachute of Alexander Bashlachev (Yermen Anti)
1996 – Zapahi Detstva (translation –
Smells of Childhood)
1997 – Koleso Istorii (translation –
Wheel of History)
1998 – Na Nelegalnom Polozhenii (translation – In an Illegal Position)
1999 - Zona Beskonechnogo Konflikta (translation – Zone of Endless Conflict) (live, Yermen Anti)
1999 – Bezvremenye (meaning – Period
of Social and Cultural Stagnation, Hard Times) (live)
2001 – Dzhut (meaning –
Famine)
2003 - Za Izmenu Rodine (translation – Medal for Treason)
2004 – Punk Rock Du Kazakhstan (France, split – Adaptatsiya
& Bishara Baldar)
2005 – Tak Gorit Step’ (translation –
That’s How the Steppe Is Burning)
2005 – Unosimsya Proch (translation
–Rushing Away) (songs of 1993-1996)
2008 – Vremya Ubiyts (translation –
Time of Killers)
2009 – Pesni Lubvi I Protesta (translation – Songs of Love and Protest)
2011 – No Pasaran
2013 – Plastilin (translation –
Plasticine) (songs of 1996-1998)
2014 – Peredvizhniye Hirosimy (translation – Travelling Hiroshimas) (a tribute to the album of Siberian band - Peredvizhniye Hirosimy)
2015 – Tsynga (translation –
Scurvy)
2017 – Radio Resistance
2018 – Old-school
2019 – Orwell
2022 – Cargo 2022 (Yermen Anti)
2023 – Tchorny Karnaval (Yermen Anti) (translation – Black Carnival)
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