And there isn't just chicken!

Along with seeing posters for the Chicken Fest upon my descent into or ascent out of the Kyiv metro system, there has been one other poster that has been hard not to miss. It's the advert for an event called Trypilske Kolo eco-cultural festival, which will be taking place on the weekend of June 28-29 just outside of the town of Rzhyshchev which is located on the right bank of the Dnipro River, south of Obukhiv but north of Kaniv. For those who are interested I have included a map below:


The two day festival according to its website is conceptualized as being the following:

"The task of the festival is to awaken a live interest to historical heritage, in particular, that which was left to us by the Trypyllian culture, to provide alternative types of organized recreation for families and youth, to renew and integrate multifarious ethnic traditions into the contemporary world, integrating them with elements of contemporary achievements in the areas of culture, education, manufacturing, management and other spheres of people's lives. The festival integrates within itself, health, sport, musical, ecological, educational, presentational an other cultural-recreational and cultural-educational programs in the "ethno" style. The "TRYPILSKE KOLO" festival has a four year cycle, each festival year has a theme based on one of the four elements of nature: Water, Earth, Wind and Fire."

As it turns out this year's festival is in the Water cycle. Expected to perform on day one at 18:00 at the opening of the music program are: Dakha Brakha, AtmAsfera, Taruta, Rune, Rusychi, Spolokh, Vertep and Trigon from Moldova. The second, however there is no mention of a starting time, will feature: Zoryaniy korsar, PoliKarp,Tin' Sontsya, DrymbaDaDzyga, OSIMIRA, YoGurt and Ruslana.

So if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, or want to take a day trip out of Kyiv, check out this festival... and even get back to me about it and I will post your thoughts here. I unfortunately already have a commitment for that weekend, so no travel for me.

Eastern Europe and its influence on Eurovision

Over the last couple of years we have witnessed a change in the type of music which is being presented at the Eurovision Song Competition, and it would be fair to say that much of the change began to happen with Ruslana's win back in 2004 in Istanbul. Ruslana's winning performance introduced ethnic elements into the competition which previously were less present.

New countries to break onto the Eurovision scene in 2005 included bands like Zdob şi Zdub of Moldova and Kaffe of Bulgaria. They brought a new flavor to the made-for-tv song contest. And while the 2006 Eurovision Song contest didn't feature as many ethnic influences, the 2007 Eurovision Song Contest did seem to have many more such elements present.

I think things will get much more interesting during the next couple of years. More diversity, more good music, and more quality. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Okean Elzy's New CD Mira goes Platinum?

According to some Internet reports OE's new album had 170,000 advance orders as of the CD's release date on April 25. While this may or may not be the case, the problem of accurate numbers when it comes to CD sales in Ukraine has always been difficult and will continue to be.

An number of years ago when Ruslana held a press conference announcing that her CD had gone platinum there was a lot of anti-PR regarding this announcement from other groups in Ukraine, including OE. I guess Sviatoslav Vakarchuk has learned that if you want the press to write about how many CD's you've sold you have to put the numbers out their yourself.

Many musicians I have spoken to who have deals different labels in Ukraine or work with distributors can never get the clear figures of the number of CDs they have sold, let alone whether if their CD is selling at all.

Word in the industry today is that in order to get a new talent known you have to spend a minimum of 200K, however, unfortunately there are people who put their money behind non-talents.

While watching CITI TV's Hit Parade the other day no other than Sting broke into the top 20 of the local chart.

Now for a little Parody, imagine this scene:

Sting gets up at an industry event and says. Will I have been awarded so many different awards in the music industry, but the one that accomplishment that I cherish the most is breaking into CITI TV's Top 20 chart. As usual, I would like to thank my publishers, my management, and all the people who assisted to ensure I would make it on to the charts of such a prestigious chart at CITI TV's Top 20... Thanks go out to all the viewers of CITI TV for having at least a clear conscious and a little bit of taste when voting for me and helping me break into the ever so competitive Ukrainian music market.