Videos of the Week: Leningrad punk pioneer Svin
To go along with the piece he and Tommy Dean wrote in the new issue of MRR, Alexander Herbert sent us some videos of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) punk progenitor Andrei “Svin” Panov. Pick up MRR #375 for an in-depth look at the life and work of Svin…
This is one of our personal favorites. This is Svin in the middle of a set expressing his typical indifference and distain for his role as a “punk rock icon” by singing one of his songs on an upper balcony behind bars to the crowd below while they are piling out like sheep. The lyrics he is getting them to chant go like this:
The bullet flew, hit me in the chest
But I saved on a spirited horse
Commissioner got me with a sabre
Bleeding on the horse I fell
Chorus:
Hey, my black horse!
Hey steel rifle!
Hey, dense fog!
Hey, dad, chieftain!
Without one leg, I came from the war
Tied my horse I sat my wife
But soon came to me Commissioner
Unhitched the horse and stole my wife
Its important to note that his song is very down-trodden Soviet-esq in that the words are old, but it deals with the Commissars. Andrei “Svin” Panov singing the “Comissar” acapella, written by Mikhail “Solidnyi” Tinkel’man. Video used with permission from the AU and Svin digital archive at www.svinpanov.ru
AU at the 6th Leningrad Rock Club Festival, 1988 with Valery Marozov, Evgeni Titov, Dima “Donkey”, and Andrei “Svin” Panov, 1988. This is a classic, guys, in which Svin plays with his two bands, AU and then Arkester AU (ÐРКЕСТРÐУ) later. It’s a stadium setting, so his interaction is limited, but he still unbuttons his pants :) Used with permission from the Svin and AU digital archive at www.svinpanov.ru
Arkester AU At the Zenitovskii Festival #2, Club “Jam” St. Petersburg, 1998. Used with permission from the Svin and AU archive at www.svinpanov.ru
