Danya Yushkov (Valiant to Vile, Watching Opossums, Strange Walls)
www.myspace.com/valianttovile
www.myspace.com/watchingopossums
www.myspace.com/strangewalls
This story began in the small Russian town called Perm where Danya Yushkov was born. Some time later his family moved to Saint-Petersburg. «I spent my early childhood in the remains of the 80s, wandering around Baskov pereulok where I lived, exchanging bottles for pocket change with friends», – Danya recalls. Just in Saint-Petersburg Danya discovered rock music for himself. During house parties where he was sometimes invited by his older friends, as well as his brothers short lived punk band «K.P.D.(Koefitsient Polezdnogo Deystveya)» he faced the music of such bands as Auktsion, Spinki Menta, Kino, Objekt Nasmeshek, Gr. Ob., Televizor, Bowie, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Pogues, Joy Division, The Birthday Party and others. In the beginning of the 90′s, 11 year old Danya moved to New York City. There he met Steve Kurlat and, inspired by the punk movement, they created their first band in 1997. «It wasn’t really good music, it was terrible. We were just kids making noise.» One time, Steve’s friend Yuri Khorodzie visited their rehearsal and decided to join them on bass. He couldn’t play at all, but as it usually is, it didn’t matter much for that period. However a few years later, the band development reached a deadlock and the band broke up.
After that, Danya had been strongly fascinated with the music of a more obscure and darker sound, including bands such as Virgin Prunes, Sex Gang Children, Legendary Pink Dots, Tom Waits, Clan Of Xymox, etc. Infused with their works, he was looking for musicians to realize his new ideas. He got together one night with Steve and Yuri, since he had moved back into their neighborhood, and they suggested to him to play together again despite the fact that they didn’t have many common views on music. «They wanted rock, I hated rock.» Aside from the differences, the union was keeping itself alive for a rather long time. Shortly after reconnecting, the band which was now called Valiant to Vile recorded the songs «Veils Of Ashes,» «All That Was Human,» «Knife,» and «Carousel Days.»
During that time Danya was trying to open a post punk/goth club in an old church, so he was looking for local bands which could play there. He found the band Strange Walls and met the band’s leader Jon Vomit. They rather quickly became friends because they found that they have many shared interests and ideas. Soon Danya visited a Strange Walls show at CBGB’s and stayed impressed by it. «I felt that we were on the same page, in what we were trying to do…» Jon, in turn, tried to become Valiant to Vile guitarist, but Yuri rejected his candidacy. However, Jon and Danya kept in touch, getting together on roof tops and playing old acoustic Irish and Scottish folk songs. Later, Danya helped record Strange Walls’ latest album, The Robber, which featured his guitar work as well as vocals interspersed throughout. Even later on, he was invited by Jon to play guitar in the Strange Walls’ Halloween show. So, after that show he became the official band member. Unfortunately, after putting so much effort into opening a club to promote the post punk/gothic movement, the idea stayed unrealized because the owner of the building decided to refuse even after initial agreement.
During the summer of 2007 keyboardist Kira Hosbein attended a Valiant to Vile show and, impressed by the music, decided to join them, since Danya originally recorded the keyboard parts but was unable to play them live, being busy with the guitar and vocals. Kira renewed the old keyboard lines by adding her own diverse melodies that were not previously conceived by the band. The renewed line up quickly finished recording the album Ugly Little Children. However the tension in the band was building up. Yuri and Steve absolutely didn’t like the changes the band went through. They often rejected a lot of the outlandish vocals or new ideas coming from Danya and Kira that would stray from sounds they were familiar and comfortable with. Rupture was only a question of time. Soon the band came to such frequent disagreement over this evolution that progress was stunted. They thought that since they were unable to find compromises when it came to recent joint creations, making new songs in the project would have to be put on hold. But just recently the band, now without Yuri, put aside their musical differences and decided to continue a creative process together. Steve, Danya and Kira recorded a new song, called ‘Figment of Imagination’. After a few seconds of listening to this song, a listener can recognize Steve’s manner of playing. It’s probably one of the most recognizable things in Valiant to Vile. The next six minutes of the song can really astonish. The sound became more light and clear, Danya’s vocals seem more melodic… probably in these minutes the band can be conceived as more mainstream than it actually is. But the next part of the song which begins after a few seconds of silence breaks all doubts. This part is filled with energy and that Valiant to Vile cynicism. It shows that this ‘lightness’ actually comes from the depths of feelings. Like that condition when a person is above his feelings and emotions. When they become absolutely clear…. So it’s difficult to say, according just to one song, what Valiant to Vile will be in the future. I hope it won’t loose its individuality anyway.
In that quarrel period Kira suggested creating a separate more intimate project to realize all the songs created and rejected by the full band. Therefore, the project called Watching Opossums, whose name is still a riddle to me, began to exist during the summer 2008. Watching Opossums, which is the duet of Danya (vocals, guitar, bass, drums) and Kira (keyboard, conventional and unconventional drums, vocals), rather quickly recorded new songs and compiled a 12 track album out of these and some works created by Danya that predate Valiant to Vile even. They are playing shows currently.
Danya Yushkov. Watching Opossums
It’s really difficult to characterise the style of this project. The only thing I can say is that the music became more experimental in comparison with Valiant to Vile. The songs combine many different styles altogether or one after another. Rather typical deathrock sound can be suddenly covered by a noise sound canvas and then sail out of it again. In addition the music can become absolutely unnatural and stay filled with emotions as well. Some songs have typical folk motives. The song character is absolutely unpredictable too. It can be artificially positive in the diversicolored «Technicolor» or have dark depths swelling in «A Lullaby For Heavy Dreamers». Unfortunately both albums (Valiant To Vile – Ugly Little Children, and Watching Opossums album) are not printed yet. But they are going to be at the end of 2008.
Pall ‘Nattsol’ Zarutskiy,
«Grave Jibes Fanzine»
