Gogol Bordello founder Eugene Hütz’s journey from Ukraine to the U.S. is a tale of how an “immigrant punk” (Gypsy Punks) comes to America, urges fellow travelers “Let’s Get Radical” (Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony), pays tribute to his “Strange Uncles from Abroad” (Super Taranta!), becomes a “Wonderlust King” (Super Taranta!) traveling the world looking for understanding of the times that we live in, and invents a new kind of roots rock.
Embracing his and the planet’s circumstances, he declares “there never were any good old days … it’s a stupid thing we say” (“Ultimate”, Super Taranta!) so you must trust yourself to “Dig Deep Enough” (Pura Vida Conspiracy) even as the world makes that hard to do. The songs pay tribute to the determination and perseverance (historically and in the present) of Ukranians and all marginalized peoples. All while musically reimagining Emma Goldman’s admonition about dancing and revolution.
And that is where Eugene Hütz’s music compliment his words. First the music hits you with an infectious beat that clearly is rock, even as it summons Eastern European and sometimes South American folk music. Drums and bass drive the music forward as violin and accordion reach out and grab the listener. And yes there are plenty of electric and acoustic guitars but I bet you will be surprised (if you didn’t know already) that this is a fundamentally a punk rock band. Just not what you might normally think of as punk rock.
By the time I discovered the band just before release of their 2013 Pura Vida Conspiracy album, it already had been around a bit more than ten years. Hütz founded Gogol Bordello (named after influential Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol) in New York City in 1999, after leaving Ukraine in the aftermath of Chernobyl and eventually settling in Vermont. Having been embedded in punk rock and international musics, especially Eastern European folk music – Balkan and Romani, for instance – while in Ukraine, Hütz evolved a fusion that has been dubbed “Gypsy Punk”.
The band – intentionally intergenerational, multinational, and multicultural – quickly became underground cult favorites. The group’s high energy music also has at times incorporated elements of reggae, metal, Latin rock, and polka (and probably others I haven’t discerned). The energetic music and spirited concert performances have earned the band a global following. I’m told they average 200+ shows each year internationally.
And at a Denver show on July 14, just as expected, Hütz and bandmates Sergey Ryabtsev (violin), Ashley Tobias (accordion), Pedro Erazo (percussion), Boris Pelekh (guitar), Korey Kingston (drums), and Gil Alexander (bass) were nonstop energy, exuberance and joy as they played through a set of songs that kept the crowd moving and singing and fist pumping throughout.
Many of the songs, like “Suddenly… [I Miss Carpaty]” (Super Taranta!), begin temperately and build to a crescendo. Others, like “I Would Never Wanna Be Young Again” (Gypsy Punks) hit the ground running with a glorious Gypsy Punk aural onslaught. The concert also featured a couple of songs from the new album Solidaritine – “Focus Coin” and “Fire on Ice Floe” – that continue the energy of this seeker’s struggle to build unity as we all search to “make sense outta nonsense” (as Linton Kwesi Johnson would say).
On another Solidaritine song “Blueprint” (actually an inventive cover of a Fugazi song), he sings, “nevermind what they’re selling; its what you’re buying”. Well, I’m definitely buying what Eugene Hütz and Gogol Bordello are selling.
Intrigued? Of course, check out the referenced albums and the band’s website (which has a page dedicated to resources for supporting Ukraine). And look for the new documentary, Scream of My Blood, A Gogol Bordello Story (which won an award earlier this year at the Tribeca Film Festival) and the charity single “United Strike Back” (All proceeds will go to Kind Deeds to help wounded Ukrainian defenders regain mobility with prosthetics.).
