We meet with film director Olivia Litchenstein and BBC Russian Arts presenter Alexander Kan to hear about the extraordinary musician Sergey Kuryokhin, ‘the Soviet Punk Frank Zappa’ who with his underground cohorts in Leningrad tried to soundtrack perestroika as the cold war crumbled around them.
Olivia tells of the strange circumstances of the making of the BBC TV series Comrades during the twilight of the Soviet Empire, with tales of tapes smuggled in diplomatic bags and a bizarre intervention by Ronald Reagan.
Alex tells of his friendship with Kuryokhin, an incredibly talented, charming musical provocateur whose live performances astonished Russian audiences. And we learn of the bizarre prank Kuryokhin played on National TV claiming Lenin was a magic mushroom, just one of many dadaist interventions he made before his tragically early death.
The Comrades program featuring Sergey Kuryokhin: https://youtu.be/ibY2lXdgdnM
For more on The Bureau of Lost Culture:
www.bureauoflostculture.com
The Sounds of Black Power
The Rise and Fall of the '80s Free Festival
Child of the Commune
Liberation Part 2: Glad to be Gay
Liberation Part 1: Coming out in the Counterculture
The Beat Goes On: The Sounds of Allen Ginsberg
London's Lost Street of Song
Countercultural Libido: A History of 'Perversion'
The Incredible String Band Part 2: Inside Looking Out
The Incredible String Band - Part 1: Outside Looking In
In the ’60s: The Birth of the British Underground
How to Expand Your Consciousness Part 3: The Dreaming
Remembering the Crazy Diamond
How To Expand Your Consciousness Part 2: Tripping
Songs of War and Peace - with Boris Grebenshikov
Riding The Oblivion Express - with Brian Auger
The Soho Bibles: The Secret Porn of Post-War London
How to Expand Your Consciousness Part 1: Philosophy
The Music of the Cults
Rock, Radicals and Racism
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Everything Everywhere Daily