Boris Grebenshchikov

Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov (Борис Борисович Гребенщиков; born November 27, 1953) is a prominent member of the generation which is widely considered to be the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music.

Grebenshchikov was born on 27 November 1953, in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg.

Songs played on Aerostat vary from 1960s and 1970s rock (e.g., The Beatles, Bob Dylan) to reggae, new wave, alternative rock, electronica, punk, world music, jazz, classical, and avant-garde.

He is the founder and lead singer of the band Aquarium which has been active since 1972.

Grebenshchikov is frequently referred to as BG (БГ; pronounced "Beh-Geh"), after his initials.

In 1972, he founded the band Aquarium with his childhood friend Anatoly "George" Gunitsky as a postmodern theatrical endeavor that included poetry and music.

Grebenshchikov was accepted into Leningrad State University.

Due to his musical activities, he started missing exams and failing classes.

Grebenshchikov eventually received a graduate degree in applied mathematics.

Inspiration from The Beatles and Bob Dylan transformed Aquarium into a low-fi electric blues band that moonlighted in acoustic reggae.

The Communist Party of the Soviet Union regime routinely suppressed experiments in non-standardized self-expression as a matter of policy, so decent recording facilities were out of reach.

The several two-track recordings hacked out over those years, such as Temptation of St. Aquarium (Iskushenie Svyatogo Akvariuma), Count Diffusor's Fables (Pritchi grafa Diffuzora), Menuet for a Farmer (Menuet zemledel'tzu), and a motley bag of "singles" were of unprofessional quality but showcased his interest in Oriental thought and mysticism that eventually became his trademarks.

In 1976, Grebenshchikov also recorded of his first solo album S toy storony zerkal'nogo stekla (Beyond the Mirror Glass) and a double album with Mike Naumenko titled All Brothers-Sisters (Vse brat'ya - sestry).

In 1980, Artemy Troitsky, the first public Russian rock critic, invited Aquarium to perform at the Tbilisi Rock Festival.

The festival was a state-sanctioned attempt to control the Russian rock music movement, but the group's performance caused a near riot and was wildly out of line with the Soviet officials’ expectations.

A covert KGB-bound report caused Grebenshchikov to lose his day job and membership in Komsomol.

As Western rock music was still officially banned at the time, Aquarium started giving unsanctioned underground concerts at their friends’ apartments, while their music was reaching wider audience among the Soviet youth through bootlegged cassette tapes.

During this time, all music had to be vetted by Soviet censors, and only officially sanctioned bands were allowed to perform in public or record in professional recording studios.

The first Aquarium music available in the West was in 1986 when a double album entitled RED WAVE, 4 UNDERGROUND BANDS FROM THE USSR appeared in record stores in the U.S. Besides Aquarium, Kino, Strange Games, and Alisa were recorded on a four-track machine, smuggled out of the country, and released by a small record label from Hollywood.

In 1989, Grebenshchikov released Radio Silence, produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame.

Radio Silence featured covers of Alexander Vertinsky's "China" amid songs by Grebenshchikov, including a song written to Sir Thomas Malory's Death of King Arthur.

Annie Lennox, Billy MacKenzie, and Chrissie Hynde helped out, as did several of Grebenshchikov's bandmates from Aquarium.

The single "Radio Silence" was his biggest hit outside of Russia, reaching number 7 on the Billboard Hot Modern Rock Chart in the United States in August 1989.

By the time Aquarium disbanded amid internal discord in 1991, they had 11 official records under their belt.

Perestroika had ushered in a new era of opportunity for rock musicians.

Grebenshchikov returned to Russia and came out with a Russian album (Russkiy al'bom), backed by the eponymous BG Band, in 1992.

The Aquarium album Favorite songs of Ramses the 4th (Lyubimye pesni Ramzesa IV) was mostly filler, and Archive vol 4 was all outtakes.

The band's next three albums are effectively Grebenshchikov's solo albums published under the band's brand.

Navigator, Snow lion (Snezhniy lev), and Hyperborea have a stylized Russian feel.

He issued another English-language album, Radio London, in 1996, which consisted of demos made in 1990 and 1991.

His 1997 album Lilith is still mostly Russian in lyrical theme but is recorded by way of a chance meeting with his idol Dylan's former backing group, The Band.

His 1999 album Psi features an interpretation through a post-modernistic lens with use of keyboard samplers.

His 2002 album Sister Chaos (Sestra Haos), 2003 album Fisherman's songs (Pesni rybaka), and 2005 album ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM had Armenian, Indian, and African influences respectively, particularly from Jivan Gasparyan.

Since 2005, Grebenshchikov has had a weekly radio program on Russian radio station Radio Rossii titled Aerostat (Russian: Аэростат).

It is presented as "author's program of Boris Grebenshchikov" and he is the creator and speaker.

Aerostrat is about alternatives in music and the music not played on today's radio despite its artistic value and originality.

Grebenshchikov states that it is mostly independent music which would "otherwise would not be played at all."

In 2014 he released Salt, "one of the best albums of Grebenshchikov’s long career, an astonishing, visceral piece of work that more than lives up to its moniker: earthy, vital, biting, life-enhancing".

As of April 2019, more than 700 shows have been created and broadcast, each approximately 46 minutes long.

The track lists and the scripts of all programs are available at official site of Aquarium and Grebenshchikov.