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Musical mayhem

The big band with the big hair is back in town

By Darrell Jónsson
For The Prague Post
February 7th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Neither from Leningrad nor cowboys, the Finnish rock pranksters fuel their audacious act with plenty of alcohol.
For serious hard rock fans, “Stairway to Heaven” is either the pinnacle of the early 1970s or its ultimate scourge. But arguing such points seems moot to anyone who’s heard the Leningrad Cowboys, accompanied by the 160-member Russian Red Army Ensemble, take the song to its ultimate pomp extreme.
That this faux-Russian Finnish ersatz-rock band manages to sandwich such over-the-top numbers into a set that includes tunes like “La Cucaracha” and the Ghostbusters theme is nothing short of mock ’n’ roll sacrilege. Still, when the lead guitarist, flanked by dancers in G-strings, pushes his axe into a metal grinder bolted onstage, sparks literally begin to fly.
Hilarity and flash is what it’s all about for the Leningrad Cowboys, who first came to wide public attention as characters in Finnish director Äki Kaurismäki’s road movies Go America (1989) and Meet Moses (1994). Both films follow the misadventures of a clueless Siberian band touring America, only to end up in Mexico, where several members overdose on tequila.
It may all sound wacky enough. But, after the first film, there were plenty of fans who either believed or wanted the band to be real, and were begging to hear the Cowboys live. As the band’s leader, Sakke Järvenpää, fondly recalls from the group’s Helsinki office, “The phone was ringing a lot, and there were promises of free beer!”
With beer, vodka, Siberia and questionable taste forming the core of their cosmology, the band released their first CD, We Cum from Brooklyn. The Cowboys followed this with the 1993 “Total Balalaika Show,” which packed 70,000 people into Helsinki’s Senate Square. Again captured on film by Kaurismäki, this event included a massive collection of guests, including members of the Russian Red Army Ensemble and a large troupe of African dancers and drummers. Although Variety magazine lauded the event as “the most incongruous – and inspired – cross-cultural pairing since Nureyev danced with Miss Piggy,” most of the band’s nine-CD output over the subsequent 15 years has been critically ignored.
The Cowboys' latest CD, Zombie Paradise (on Sony), mostly contains the sort of Las Vegas-gone-berserk covers that the band is known for. This includes a nearly convincing take of David Bowie’s “Starman” and a swaggering, pumped-up version of the Johnny Cash country classic “Ring of Fire.”
Leningrad Cowboys

When: Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 7:30
Where: Roxy
Tickets: 690 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue

Exactly what the Cowboys will do with this new material onstage not even they can predict. Järvenpää describes the group’s antics and theatrics as “somewhere between Alice Cooper and Zappa, with a little touch of Funkadelic. Lots of people onstage and you never know what’s going to happen next. Surprise is the key!”
If you’re thinking this sounds perfect for a first date with someone new and special in your life, you might want to have a quick chat beforehand about how your date feels about not-quite-street-legal big hair. As to the gig’s G-rating, the band’s Helsinki office would not reveal whether G-stringed dancers will be part of the current lineup. Sadly, the Cowboys’ Russian Red Army Ensemble friends will not be in tow. This they regret as much for musical reasons as they do for missing the company of the many good-looking Red Army Russian women.
Yet, with their standard entourage of approximately 13 band members, which varies “depending on the alcohol usage level,” the Cowboys offer assurances that special guests will not be needed. To fill out the cast, Järvenpää says they plan on inviting audience members onstage.
Given the sort of atmosphere the Cowboys create, there’s no telling what those volunteers will be asked to do once they’re in the spotlight. Whatever altered states of consciousness the performance ends up generating, concertgoers are advised to reduce the size of their pompadours before driving home.

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at features@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (7/02/2007):

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