A musical cross-walk

Well this morning I arrived in Ternopil via the Chop train at 7:39 in the morning. Visiting my godson and family it was a relaxing morning and a hectic afternoon. Finally at about 15:30 we headed out to by my godson a mountain bike, but before that we headed off to Koza a WiFi hot spot in the center of Fayno Misto Ternopil, for me to check some e-mail and to check the suggested retail prices of some bikes on the Net. From there we went shopping... You can all very well imagine the excite of a boy who will be turning ten at the end of this month as we headed to a bike shop on Slipetskoho in Ternopil.

After the wicked dead was done and some 1700 UAH later my Kum and his two sons headed home. I am now back at Koza taking care of some correspondence, but on my way here I had an interesting experience.

As I was standing at the corner of vul. Ruska in front of the Univermah across from the main square in Ternopil. As I as standing there I heard an old tried but true song: "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. I thought it was coming from one of the cars turning at the intersection then I truly got a surprise. As I stood there waiting for the walk signal to change I heard a voice: "Teper dozvoleno pereyty vulytsiu Rus'ku" and then coming from the same speaker echoed Smoke on the Water.

I thought about it for a moment... I will be writing some letters and will be requesting that they change this to a song which would be more appropriate to the city given that Serhiy Kuzmynsky of BH just passed away and that a song like Fayno Misto Ternopil would be much more appropriate.

Somehow, it may have been a little bit of a signal to me when I heard that tried and true tune from my teen years... But Ukraine, has plenty of its own to be proud of and what they did for music in this country. Time for Ternopil to change this tune to something that honors both their city and those who did something for Ukrainian music.

Hadiukyny's lead man passes

Photo from Sumno.com

While I have been silent for some time, this I cannot be silent about, as it touches anyone who followed Ukrainian contemporary music back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Today through various sources - but primarily by word of mouth from a friend of mine from Ternopil, that the lead man of Braty Hadiukyny Serhiy Kuzmynsky passed away today. He was 46 years young.

According to the Hadiukyny website and other sources the cause of death was a malignant tumor of the larynx. Regardless, of what the cause of death was, a loss of life is still a lost of life and particularly at such a young age.

I recall so many of the songs that the Hady gave the Ukrainian music industry, and I was first introduced to them from cassettes from the first Chervona Ruta Festival back in 1989. Yes, that was twenty years ago! How time flies...

When I arrived in Ukraine for the first time in 1990, well albeit it was still part the USSR, I was here on invitation from Studentske bratstvo of L'viv. There wasn't a place that we did not go that we would hear our fellow student's singing Hadiukyny songs. To us it was something new, but it stuck! And it sticks to this day!

Unfortunately, many musicians who acquire a certain level of fame fall into the ills of the industry. In 1994, Kuzyu, as he was know by many of his fans and friends alike, left the group to Belgium to go through rehab for drug addiction.

May he Rest in Peace!