Igor Sandler revealed the real secret of the appearance of the hit Smoke on the Water
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Everything burned with a blue flame
Last time I talked about festivals in general and one of my favorite festivals in Swiss Montreux in particular. But while I was preparing this material, I realized that the festival theme occupies such a huge part of my life that it is absolutely impossible to single out just one story. Festivals are meetings, emotions, acquaintances, and as a result of all this, what I have come to now.
A wonderful musician Adrian Belew performed at Montreux (I already talked a little about my meetings with him last time), with whom I was also lucky to meet and make friends. King Crimson were one of the first bands to play progressive rock music, and Adrian has written music and lyrics for almost all of their songs since the 80s.
Probably, already at the stage of my passion for this group, I realized that progressive rock is exactly what modern high-quality music should be. I emphasize quality. Anything can be fashionable, but since the 1980s there has been this popular notion of “company”, and it was the kind of company music that I was once inspired by, including King Crimson, that I wanted to see at my festival. That is why the word “progressive” appeared in the title.
Adrian told me many times that he loves Russia and Moscow very much. At his Moscow concerts, according to him, a completely unique, special atmosphere reigned. This is an amazing, sensitive person. Having its own musical and moral guidelines, able to be grateful. Now this is a rarity for modern stars. Belew told me that he considers Frank Zappa to be his only teacher. It was his influence that became the starting point for all of Belew’s work – not only as a professional musician and songwriter, but as a person involved in the music business as a whole.
When we were talking about the Montreux Festival one day, Adrian told a very interesting story about Frank, which proves once again how small the music world really is. On December 4, 1971, he performed with The Mothers of Invention in Montreux. A day later there was a Deep Purple concert there. At this concert, one of the spectators, obviously too imbued with the atmosphere of rock, shot at the ceiling with a rocket launcher, after which, of course, a fire started in the room. Adrian said that there is even a story that it was this incident that caused the appearance of the legendary song Smoke on the Water (“Smoke on the Water”). And 37 years later, it was with this song that one of the musicians based in my Center passed blind auditions at the Voice talent show, forcing Basta to turn to him already in the first second! Apparently, the energy of a shot from a rocket launcher is forever preserved in this song. And the sad part of the story is that the date of that Zappa performance coincides with the date of his death – December 4, 1993…
Adrian impressed me with his erudition, views on the world and life, how much he is interested in, how much he knows. It turned out that we have a lot in common. In his youth, Belew, like me, was fond of classical music. He loves Stravinsky very much. And with Frank Zappa, in addition to friendship with Adrian, another close friend of mine, Yura Balashov, connects us. He designed the Zappa album cover and won a Grammy for it! This is a Civilization Phase III album. Yura started working on it in 1993. It took about two months to create the drawing. The artist himself explained his idea as follows: “mountain Chomolungma, on top of which there is a piano, a flame blazes from the piano, but there is no way to get close to this piano, just fly up by helicopter, and below there are skyscrapers, giant buildings” … And I have old studio, he once painted all the walls. At that time, the concept of “loft” did not yet exist, it was new and unusual. And after Yura’s work, our walls looked like a real work of art!
Every time I am amazed how life collides with such incredible, amazing and congenial people. But time goes by, the world changes. Yura, unfortunately, is no longer with us, he passed away last year. Adrian, who has been to Russia many times, always performed here with pleasure, but now, for obvious reasons, he cannot come. But Zappa’s album, painted by Yura, will remain forever.
Newspaper headline:
Smoke on the water – a hit in the wake of a real fire
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