Tamtam Without Illusions

Vsevolod Gakkel
St.Petersburg, March 1996

This article, by Vsevolod Gakkel, the founder of TaMtAm, the first music club in the new period in Russia, was written for the American magazine Kommotion during the last weeks of the club’s existence. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and TaMtAm has closed, but the editors have decided to publish this testament to an age.

"I would make you the director of a club,
My flower, my friend."
"Songs of Bailing People"

When I had left the group [Akvarium] for good and didn’t have the slightest inkling of what I’d do next, I got the idea of opening a music club. I was then in an excellent frame of mind and already had had the experience of traveling to the West. My first impression was euphoric: absolutely everything appealed to me. Most of all, the diversity of big city life impressed me, how sensibly and naturally many things are spread out. Of course I wanted to see and hear all of the idols of my youth. I was lucky in being able to catch the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, and many others in concert. But I was struck more than anything by the fact that one could simply drop into a small club and listen to real blues, avant-garde jazz or Irish folk. I realized what I’d never been able to get enough of, that one could simply live with music: it could be an everyday thing, yet beautiful.

Nothing like that could exist in Russia. Many musicians I knew wanted to become stars; some of them had. But on the other hand, they lost all taste for musicmaking and playing for fun—for them it simply had become a business. I wanted to take a break from all that and found a job as a seasonal worker at a tennis court on Kamenny Island. That was just what I needed at the time. But that’s another story.

One day Vitus Kubilius from Zone called and asked me to come to the Sovetskaya Hotel, where Sonic Youth, a group I hadn’t heard of, was staying, to help with translation. I had nothing to do, so I gladly agreed. A concert was planned for the Youth Palace. But the organizers of the concert had not bothered to advertise, and almost no one in town knew about it, however strange that might seem (back then, a concert in Russia by any Western group was an event). About two hundred people came to the concert. The musicians weren’t happy with the sound and refused to play a second concert, and Kim Gordon just cried. But I had had my first taste of a new sound, despite the poor equipment and technical problems.

Their concert was a revelation for me: it turned all my ideas about contemporary music upside down. I thought that someone should take on the job of getting these kinds of groups to Russia. I began thinking about a club and searching for a suitable place, without the slightest idea of where to start. The Western model is an unprofitable movie theater, a factory floor, an old warehouse or just a basement. None of my acquaintances had rich parents with a garage, which, as worldwide experience has shown, is an ideal place for rehearsing and performing. Everything was government property.

At some point Andrei Otriaskin invited me to the Youth Center on Vasilievsky Island, to a concert in which some visiting Frenchmen were playing. I forgot all about the music, because suddenly I saw a place ideally suited for making my idea come true: a medium-sized theater hall with a large foyer and a small cafe on the first floor. Two theater troupes rehearsed in this center; sometimes, about twice a year, there were concerts. I met the manager of the center, Sasha Kostrikin, and requested his permission to organize a concert for my friend Zhenya Guberman, here from Holland, and Sasha kindly agreed. Several musicians and about fifty of my friends came to the concert, and everything came off really well. Sasha wasn’t against having such concerts weekly, naming just one condition—that we clean up the place thoroughly after every concert and finish at 11 p.m. on the dot (there’s a law forbidding noisemaking after that time). Besides, there’s a police dormitory, where policemen live and sleep, directly over the concert hall. The second concert was also blues, but this time about a hundred people came.

Two weeks later young people started coming up to me and asking whether they could play there. I let any group have a gig, since I didn’t have the slightest idea what these kids—who were young enough to be my own sons—were playing.

In about three weeks the rumor had already spread around town that there was a new place where anyone could play. People started inviting their friends. Planning to continue this work, I proposed to Sasha that we somehow establish our relationship legally, but he said there was no need for that. About a month later some strange guys came—the group Messer fьr Frau Mueller, who play hardcore. Around two hundred even stranger young people came to their concert, and the music turned out to be absolutely on a par with Sonic Youth. Thus began my acquaintance with the group that later defined the club’s style and anticipated the appearance of an entire wave.

I wanted this to be a contemporary music club, but what, specifically, contemporary music at that time was—avant-garde jazz, free improvisational music, modern chamber music—I didn’t know. Messer fьr Frau Mueller became the indicator of the club’s style, and I saw that everything was moving in just that direction. I was forced to become choosier: I began listening to demo tapes before groups took to the stage. The criterion was that a group should not be influenced by the music of the leading groups of my generation, those which had defined the main trends in Russian rock. And, of course, the club was off limits to those groups themselves. My many friends and acquaintances, who already thought I was an oddball, decided once and for all that I’d completely lost my marbles.

When the club’s musical orientation had become clear, the time came to think about organizing business, which I had no clue about either. There was the undeniable feeling that everything was going as it should, but where things were headed didn’t matter much. I felt this way even after the Pupsy concert, which took place immediately after the first coup and was attended by three hundred people: a sink was torn from the wall and a toilet smashed in the restroom, and graffiti and swastikas were painted on the walls. (There were very few skinheads in town, and I didn’t attach much significance to their showing up, taking them for punks).

I thought that we’d be evicted, but Sasha was the very picture of understanding and tact, and we managed to keep things going.

Gradually we got the hang of it, though nobody was able to offer a rational explanation as to why we kept at it.

Any cafe or restaurant in our country is unavoidably linked with some kind of criminal element. People who own cafes either pay off the bandits or are themselves criminals. The cafe located in the Youth Center was no exception, but I had no choice other than to get along with them. At first I suggested that they sell beer during our concerts, buying it wholesale based on calculations of how many people were coming. As I had seen during my travels, any place of this type survives on profits from sales of alcoholic beverages. In our case, however, this turned out to be unfeasible, since we had no legal rights besides the gentlemen’s agreement with Sasha. The cafe owners tried to sell beer, but after a while they refused, explaining that they simply didn’t like our clientele and what I had undertaken. They also said flat out that sooner or later I would have to clear out of there. All that was left was for us to sell beer ourselves.

Having no license to sell alcohol, having no rights to commercial activity at all, we bought several crates of beer at our own risk and went into business. The musicians played for free, but every group got a crate of beer, not in payment for their performance, but as refreshments. We gradually switched to working twice a week, Fridays and Saturdays. There were more and more people coming, and in order to limit their numbers, we asked for a cover charge, although we tried to keep it as low as possible. This allowed us to keep out those people who would get drunk in the cafe and come upstairs not out of love for music, but just to fight. We had to think about maintaining order.

Pot was being smoked everywhere. In the restrooms they were shooting up almost openly. Dealers came on the scene, and they say that it was possible to buy any type of drug. A racket stepped in to try to control the drug dealers, and sometimes they gave me a hard time as well. This ceased being funny, and after the latest big brawl we started thinking about possible means of protection and settled on the simplest—the police. To our surprise, the guys from the police dormitory willingly agreed to work in the club as security, and since then two, sometimes three, policemen in uniform are on duty. They’re very loyal to us and to what we’re doing, without meddling in how and why we’re doing it.

From time to time Western groups would come who were also ready to play for free. In return, we provided them with room and board. M.D.C., Dave Thomas, and Sabot from the U.S., Holy Joy and British Summertime Ends from Great Britain, and several groups from other European countries, mainly from Germany, performed in the club. I myself also had the experience of playing in two groups from the new generation. The first, Never Trust a Hippie, appealed to me because of their style and the contradiction in the name, since I belong precisely to the hippie generation and even now wear my hair long—true, without attaching any meaning to it. The other group, Wine, plays 1967-vintage psychedelic rock, which is very close to my heart. I didn’t have enough time for all the projects I had to do simultaneously, however, and, not being able to rehearse often, I was forced to leave these groups.

A lot of new kids joined our crew: they took care of all kinds of jobs, and a few we simply provided with work by inventing some kind of job for them. In the summer I worked, as before, at the tennis court, where many kids from the club gathered, and this became such a habit that I had the feeling one place simply could not exist without the other. Almost every morning we would meet at the court and play a relaxed, noncompetitive game of tennis, and towards evening we’d get on our bikes and ride to the club. By the way, I forgot to say that a year had already passed. Everything was simple and serene, as is the case in summertime.

In our latitudes summer is short: towards fall moods sour. This was already our second fall. By then we had some authority and pretty much knew what we were doing. The club was getting notice in the press. Journalists tried to get a hold of me, but I "proudly" turned down interviews. Around then we received an invitation from the bandits who ran the cafe to get out. Interestingly enough, they took us completely seriously as rivals, letting us know at the same time that they were much stronger than we were. But there was a fire one evening in the foyer on the second floor: abandoned theater props caught fire. The firemen came, doused everything with water, and all activity at the center had to be stopped.

Though the fire wasn’t big, it was a terrible sight. The walls were a dark-gray color and the ceiling was covered with black soot. It was easy to believe this was the end, but it turned out that the electrical wiring had barely suffered, and the concert hall was altogether undamaged. In just a week we were able to hold another concert. The cafe owners began repairs, but one fine day, without finishing them, they vacated the cafe and vanished into thin air.

Sasha assured us that soon the new cafe owners, with whom he’d already reached an agreement, would show up. Everything suited us, since as before we had no rights and were grateful for anything they let us do. We moved to three concerts a week. A bit weary of punk rock and the stress, customary as it had become, we tried to extend our limits and on Thursdays we began putting on experimental concerts, exactly the sort I’d imagined orginally.

Once in the summer the group Hardheaded Soul came for a visit. As usual, we had to feed them. We needed to come up with something special. In our explorations of the abandoned rooms of the cafe, we discovered that there was a huge kitchen there, with all the necessary equipment. So we prepared an excellent vegetarian meal. The foreign musicians were happy and played a first-class concert, once again showing how they differed from Russian musicians, at least as far as guitar playing is concerned.

It occurred to us that we could also also feed ourselves at the same time, and we developed a taste for it. The girls bought vegetables and came in earlier. They would prepare salads for the beginning of the work day; everyone would sit down at the big table, eat their fill, and then gladly get down to work. By this time evening tea had long been a tradition, one carried over from the tennis court, where we’d practiced hospitality for quite a while. At TaMtAm all this was heading towards the absurd: the poor and suffering started congregating around five o’clock, and a few people arrived from other cities and began living in the club. I was against all that, because I had certain obligations to Sasha. Since I was almost twenty years older than everyone else, however, I didn’t want to become their mentor or parent, and I didn’t interfere in their lives until they walked all over me.

On the whole I was euphoric from all that was happening at the time. I don’t remember the exact chronology of events, but apparently yet another year had passed.

At that time or a bit earlier, there appeared in our company a charming, cheerful German woman who began to help us out and who taught us a marvelous craft—cleaning the restroom. A word or two has to be said about that, insofar as restroom traditions in our country are also something peculiar. A restroom has always been a place where a Russian would, without fail, feel nauseated at the sight and smell alone. To do your business you need to endure a hundred humiliations (this is especially true for women) and to display extreme inventiveness in order to exit with your conscience unsullied and your head held high. Our club was no exception. True, I had already tried to clean it, but it was Kirsten who taught us all to treat the restroom as a place where a person did not have to lose his dignity. And for that you simply have to clean it often. Ever since then, despite the bad reputation of our club as a drug den, the restroom has become a place you don’t have to feel ashamed for. Kirsten’s involvement in our lives gradually grew into a youth cultural exchange with Hamburg, and since then our groups go there regularly to perform at the Vutzrock festival.

Everything was thus developing peacefully, according to its own internal laws, without our coming into acute conflict with society. Though we knew we were a powerful disturber of the peace, everything stayed quiet. But one day an event occurred which turned all our subsequent activity in a new direction. That was in the fall of 1993, when we already had a lot of experience and were dealing with our problems ourselves. During a regular concert, a cohort of machine-gun toting masked men—about fifty of them, maybe more—burst into the club. The band was still playing when one commando jumped on stage and, pointing his automatic weapon at the musicians, announced that the concert was over. He didn’t need to say that, since by that time everyone in the house was already lying face down on the floor or standing "face to the wall, hands over your head."

The last time I’d seen such a thing was on television in August 1991. I’d always known that it was terrible, but what you see on the screen you perceive abstractly. Someone had to do something in this situation, and in all likelihood I was the one who should have done something. Everyone was frisked. Those who resisted were beaten mercilessly. People were also beaten just like that, out of hatred, in a display of force. For some reason they didn’t touch me (probably it was apparent that I was significantly older than many of those present), but all I could do in this situation was to try to appeal to the reason of the officers in charge of the operation. As became clear later, this was a planned raid by the committee to fight narcotics, in the course of which one hundred and twenty people were arrested, the majority of whom they didn’t manage to charge with anything. The percentage of young people found with a pinch of marijuana was so small that armed men weren’t needed, and they hadn’t found any drug dealers.

The next day the festival orchestra Ramba Samba from Germany played, and even more people came to the club. Everything calmed down, but two weeks later the raid was repeated—true, this time with less severity because they came with a television crew. Fifty people were arrested, and the raid was shown on the program "Criminal Dossier." According to the program, the police were models of tact and politeness (if they’d only filmed the first raid). While this was not at all amusing, it was becoming funny all the same. Yet another edge was added to our game: approximately a month later, during a routine raid, we were arrested for the illegal sale of beer. We paid a large fine and found ourselves in a financial hole from which, to this day, we have not climbed out of. True, after some time we began selling beer again, at our own risk, but we did this carefully, under the table, and we’ve never had such profits again.

We tried to get a license for the sale of alcohol, but that turned out to be impossible for a number of reasons. A license can be bought only for sale in a specific place, for which a rental contract is needed. The Youth Center, in the person of Sasha, had such a contract, but the district administration had not extended the contract, and the City Property Committee passed a resolution that the premises would be vacated.

Now I’d like to draw your attention to one recurring circumstance—whatever we dreamed up, we tried first off to do by legal means. We were always coming up against obstacles that didn’t permit us to use those means, however, and we were forced to do things illegally. We soon got used to that. Jumping ahead, I’ll say that three years have now gone by since the above-mentioned resolution was passed. Police raids have become an everyday affair.

Despite the instability of our position in the city, the endless searches, and the constant rumors that we were closing, our contacts abroad were developing, at times in the most unpredictable ways. I decided to try my hand as an impresario, thinking I could earn money to develop the club. We agreed to do a Peter Hammill concert; he’d come to Russia with the support of the British Council. Despite my respect for this artist and the fact that it was a big success, the concert was a loss for us and only multiplied our debts. Incidentally, since we’ve begun walking down memory lane, among a chain of other coincidences was David Byrne’s visit to our club: he came to Russia to do an exhibition of his own photos and dropped by for a cup of tea.

Soon TaMtAm was chosen, with myself as representative, for a cultural exchange with Harvestworks in New York City. As a result, the head of that organization, Brian Karl, came to Saint Petersburg for three weeks, and I got the chance to go to America on an internship. Finding myself in New York, I of course made a pilgrimage to CBGB’s and saw a tired man standing in the doorway: Hilly Kristal. Though I was introduced to him as the person who’d done in Russia roughly what he’d done in his time by opening CBGB’s, he reacted with absolute indifference to me. I saw myself as I might become in the near future, a person with no emotions, living only in the past and on memories of the Talking Heads.

When I got back from America, where I’d made many new friends, instead of jet lag I had "a bad trip." I heard straight off from several sources that material incriminating me was being gathered by the appropriate agencies. That is, the people arrested with drugs from time to time in the club were being forced to give testimony against me—namely, that they were paying me off. I was supposedly running the entire drug business on St. Basil’s Island. During the last huge raid, which occurred in my absence, it seemed they had been searching not for drugs, but for me. Unfortunately, the situation is hopeless: if they really wanted to arrest me, it would be very simple to plant a few grams of some kind of dope in my pocket.

TaMtAm is no longer the only club in town: the scene has spread out. Clubs have now divided according to genre. In the TaMtAm’s first years all the coolest and, in many senses, most okay young people came here. Now some very conveniently located places have opened, downtown, with bars and cafes. True, with higher cover charges, but with a certain amount of comfort, which a lot of people need. In some clubs it’s become possible to play for money, to which musicians have quickly grown accustomed. Sometimes, when negotiating to play concerts here, musicians start talking about pay, which we aren’t ready for yet. In addition, the constant threat of searches in our club isn’t a draw. Obeying some unknown law, the skinheads have become active: their appearance in the club is always reason for anxiety. Thus we’ve gradually lost a significant part of our audience, and now only the most devoted come. True, sometimes, during the performance of some group that’s already become well known (but is willing to play for free), a rather large number of people show up, reminding us of days gone by when that was routine.

I’ve waited for this moment. We’ve done our job and TaMtAm has become just one of a dozen clubs in town. The wave has rolled past, but I hope that another one is coming after it.