My anthem for this weekend, and, perhaps, forever (I go through phases with this band, DDT – sometimes I worship them, sometimes they strike me as uncool, sometimes they are the nucleus of my nostalgia).
And, just because this goes along with that faded, fluttery image of the early days of my childhood, here is a little lick of poetry.
Natalia A. 
This might sound like a dumb question, but do you like Gogol Bordello? I get the impression that as much as I love GB, I’m missing certain things by not being Slavic-American.
If you haven’t heard them;
I listen to them every once in a while! The name alone is a gem, because, well, if you think about the influence Nikolai Gogol has had on so many aspects of world literary culture (though he often goes uncredited and unsung in the English-speaking countries), it’s pretty damn amazing.
The good thing about the band is that they’re from all over the place – Ukraine, Ethiopia, Israel.. And so on.
Oh, I thought everyone in the band was Ukrainian like Eugene Hutz. I’m just making all kinds of dumb assumptions lately!
I first got into Gogol purely by accident; I was dumpster diving one day years ago (haven’t done it in a while) and on one particularly good haul found a box of English translations of Russian lit, which had Dead Souls, several books by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy etc. My Siberian roommate later informed me that I would never really understand their work if I couldn’t speak Russian, which may be fair but I think I’ve understood enough to make it worthwhile.
I think Gogol translates rather well! Well, from what I’ve seen. Although no one beats Dostoevsky in that regard – so far.
I enjoy Gogol Bordello’s music, but the one concert I saw was a turn-off. Hutz was really drunk by the time he went on stage, and it showed. The music itself was still pretty good, but Hutz behaved in a slightly assholish way throughout, and then at the end when he was giving credit to the other members of the ensemble, he introduced all the men and didn’t bother introducing the women. Just another indie good ol’ boy, perpetuating the myth that women don’t belong in rock, punk, name your musical genre here.
That just sucks. 😦