we all want the music

I woke up at Andrei's place. I scanned the cabinets for food or water, but couldn't find anything and I didn't yet trust the taps in Kharkiv. It was best to stick with bottled water. But my mouth was dry and my belly aching from hunger, so I needed something. While I was shuffling around, trying to figure something out – and being distracted by Andrei's strange collection of cacti in pots on the floor of the kitchen – Andrei woke up. He sat me down and showed me a band that he worked with, Orkester Che. Orkester Che was a local band from Kharkiv, carrying on the “gypsy punk” tradition made popular in the States by Gogol Bordello. I, of course, instantly loved the band.

“Here is the plan,” Andrei told me. “First we will go see a church in the country. It is my favorite church. Then we'll go eat and then we'll go to a recording studio. But we'll come back here first. Okay?”

“Sounds good.”

We left the apartment, crossed the now snow covered streets, to a small “beer-a-ria” (roughly translated from the Russian) where we met with his friend who ran the place. He poured us two morning beers and we stood around and talked for some while. Two security guards came up and talked with us as well. Mostly they were talking about how the guy was remodeling his beer-a-ria, with fresh coats of paint on the wall and soon they'll paint two large images of Popeye with beer drinking quotes that went something like, “When I want strength, I drink beer” or “even if I'm without my woman, I'm still happy with my beer.”

We hopped into the car of the bar-a-ria owner, who drove us to another restaurant of his he was renovating before he took us to the church. The church looked new, the inside covered in bright and shiny murals that look like they were painted yesterday. I asked Andrei if it was a new church, but he said it had just been renovated. Which explained why it looked new. The church appeared as if they took painstaking efforts to restore it to what it must have looked like during its peak, each paint stroke replaced with professional accuracy.

From the church, the guy brought us to the center of town to drop us off so he could get back to work. Andrei took me to a native Ukrainian vareniki restaurant to eat some proper vareniki. “Puzata Xata is not real food,” Andrei told me. “I want you to try real Ukrainian food.” He was very insistent on this. He also ordered some real Ukrainian homemade vodka, something that tasted between honey and ass. We drank it waiting for a dumplings, watching on a giant projector screen Ghostrider, with Nicolas Cage.

After the dumplings, we picked up my accordion and went to Andrei's friend's house. He was the guitarist for Orkester Che. We sat around drinking beer and vodka and listening to Guns 'N Roses, when Andrei finally said, “Come on, play that song that I love for us. That 'Drink my girl, drink my sweetheart' song.”

“Sure thing.” I pulled out my accordion and played. 

The guitarist was equally excited about my playing, affirming with Andrei that I needed to get to the studio. When a couple of other band members arrived, we all went back out onto the streets and tried to hail a taxi. The taxis kept passing, full of passengers. People who would otherwise walk didn't want to bare the cold, snowy weather, so the taxis were pretty occupied. But one black car, which was not a taxi, pulled to the side of the road and agreed to drive us. We went by the liquor store, picked up some Scotch and made our way to the studio.

We were sitting around, drinking and waiting for the studio guys to get ready. This was the same studio that the regionally famous 5nizza recorded at, as well as Orkester Che. I felt a bit overwhelmed that I was playing at the same place. When I was first introduced to the production engineer, I felt a bit embarrassed and he looked a bit confused, “An American on accordion?” he seemed to think. “What nonsense has Andrei brought me?” But when I got bored and pulled it out to play my version of “Me and Bobby McGhee”, he came up to me and said, “What are you waiting for, let's get you into the studio.” His demeanor had changed completely, now a lot more excited about the recording process.

We took three takes, one of “Pei moya milaya, pei moya devotchka” (Drink my sweetheart, drink my girl, an accordion adaptation of I wrote of the early 20^th century poem of the same name), “Ochi chiornie” (black eyes, a Russian gypsy folk song) and one of Tom Waits' “Hold On”. I had grown accustomed to playing to live audiences, since there's a bit more leeway and I can gauge the audience response regarding how I play. Now when I play in front of people, I don't get near the nervousness that I first had in the streets of Vilnius and Regensburg when I first started to perform truly publicly, outside of at parties. Once I started playing in the streets though, my nervousness completely vanished when playing at parties.

I came back into the main green room. Everyone was there clapping. “You did amazing man,” Andrei said. “Maybe you want to play at Divan after Orkester Che? It would be great.”

“I don't know man, if you want me to,” I said. “I don't think I did that well playing. This is all weird to me, you know?” They gathered around the table to drink more Scotch, which they traditionally drank with a chaser of milk.

“I don't want to get too drunk, I still have to meet my next couchsurfing host. And I don't want to make a bad impression.” We took two more shots chased with milk. The rest of the members of Okester Che arrived and they began to work on their next album. Later, I went on my way to find my next hostess.