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  Dr. Bajan Sovietabilly Band

 Emotional, raw, savagely passionate and virtuoso all at the same time: sovietabilly is modern urban folk music Dr. Bajan-style.  His wildly intensive stage presence, his gift for improvisation and his sheer charisma catch everyone up into his spell right from the start. Dr. Bajan plays his audience and himself into a form of ecstasy.

   In its present makeup for three years, the band has played numerous festivals in Germany and abroad, where they’ve performed with other World Music groups like “Fanfare Ciocarlia,” “Di grine Kuzine,” “Folkabestia,” “Apparatschik,” “Dikanda,” and more.

   Dr. Bajan comes from Leningrad, where the electric guitar and rock music once represented the only way he could distance himself from the [hyperbolic?] facade that was Soviet existence at the time. Even back then it was already clear that he had a soft spot for fast solos.

   After a while, the guitar wasn’t subversive enough for him and he turned – back to his roots – to the bajan, the accordion. A totally new perspective on his own musical tradition opened up for him. Up until then, the revolutionary anthems and Soviet pop hits of his musical environment provoked more eye-rolling than anything else, but now, exploring the roots of his musical heritage more deeply, he uncovered its connections to klezmer, jazz and folk music. Dr. Bajan drew on all of these influences – plus a hefty dose of rock’n roll – to create a totally original, contemporary new form: sovietabilly, music that conveys an intimate view of the dry-eyed and playful take of one post-Soviet cosmopolitan on life, the universe and groove. Balkan meets Charlie Parker in the kitchen of a Berlin walk-up flat, Manu Chao meets Odessa pentatonic. From the covers of Deep Purple right up through the much-loved “Kasatschoks” – whatever he touches is transformed in the blink of an eye into Dr. Bajan.