Word: brigada
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Meet Brigada S, the hottest, hippest band in Gorbachev's Soviet Union. After a history of often bitter confrontations with police and schoolteachers, Brigada S (or the S Brigade, christened by lead singer Igor Sukachev because he liked the letter S) has become one of the most popular of the new generation of rock bands. Although the four-year-old group has yet to produce an album, the self-described "Proletarian Jazz Orchestra" enjoys a tremendous following. Teens from Tallinn to Vladivostok spray-paint the band's name, with the Russian equivalent of S drawn like a Communist hammer...
...crest of this new wave is Brigada S. "It's almost an accident we became so popular," says Sukachev, 29, who worked in a factory before he could make it with his music. Only two years ago, Sukachev and fellow band members were routinely hauled into local police stations and asked to explain their hairstyles and unusual dress. When the band's photograph appeared in a French magazine in 1986, Sukachev was taken to KGB headquarters for questioning. These days, all that has changed. On a recent trip back to his high school, Sukachev was surprised to hear himself described...
...Brigada S has an unusual sound that draws on several sources. As a child, Sukachev listened to black-market Glenn Miller and Andrews Sisters albums, and their influence can be heard in the group's Big Band tinge. In style, the group also owes a tremendous debt to the futurist poets of the 1920s, whose revolutionary verse inspired a generation with its early Communist iconography...
Like it or not, things are moving quickly for Brigada S. This summer the group will release its first two albums, following the top-selling unauthorized concert disk put out last year by Melodiya, the country's sole record label. There is talk of a U.S. tour as well, possibly in June. "We're hoping to sign a few small contracts," Sukachev admits. Still, he says he wouldn't give up the band's underground years for anything. "Those years are our strength," he says. "We'd be nothing without them...
...Fidel Castro to attain his goal of a record 10 million-ton sugar harvest. Last week the 216 docked at St. John, N.B., and another 600 young militants boarded the same ship to replace them. The achievements of the first group may prove difficult to duplicate. Taking the name Brigada Venceremos (rough translation: the We Shall Overcome Brigade), they worked alongside Cuban workers, including, on one occasion, none other than Fidel, who is said to spend at least four hours a day cutting cane. After nearly two months, the 216 Americans reached their goal: a harvest...
| 1 |