The visiting card of Vasily Vasiliev may be: pseudonyms Vasya Vasin, Vasya Glass, Tsar Vasilich, Vasya V.; baseball cap with the logo of the first letter of the name; print on clothes and nickname in social networks Tzar Vasilich. And also - the lines from the program hit "I Spit", which are heard by fans of recitative to a guitar riff: "Here is the group" Kirpichi ". And my name is Vasily. I am a very strong master of words."
When the media representatives asked how to address him, the cult personality of the St. Petersburg underground from the 90s to the present day answers as follows: “Now I am not Vasya Vasin, but Vasya V. - What's the difference? - Vasya Vasin - a member of the group“Kirpichi . And Vasya V. is the oldest St. Petersburg MC”. Tsar Vasilich, he generously allows himself to be called on the Internet. Well, Vasya Glass is for friends.
Petersburg to the bone
Vasily Vladimirovich Vasiliev was born on December 01, 1972 in Leningrad. He is a boy from a good family - a colloquial cliche used in the USSR to denote the status of a stratum of Soviet citizens of non-proletarian origin with an above-average income level. Educated in special school number 207 (in those days, this was the name of elite educational institutions with in-depth study of foreign languages and teaching some subjects in English, similar to the current lyceums). The question of continuing education, in order to acquire a profession, arose in the family more than once. Vasily studied for two or three semesters at different universities - FINEK, MGNIP LITMO - and was expelled from each. To resolve the issue of how to avoid military service, it was necessary to resort to the help of psychiatrists. The student period was 6 years in total. In the end, the choice was made in favor of underground and alternative music. So at the age of 24, Vasily got on the professional stage.
Having gone through the traditional hobbies of youth, the growing up changed them to drinking craft beer with a simultaneous adherence to the system of rational nutrition. Later, support of your body in optimal physical shape came to the fore (exercising in the gym, daily half-hour swimming in the pool, walking 9000 steps a day). Collecting vinyl remained relevant until the 90s. Among the records were many rarities such as the original editions of "10" Pearl Jam, "Rattle and Hum" U2, "Never Mind the Bollocks" Sex Pistols. His hobby changed, he began collecting replica Japanese guitars from the 70s.
The 2011 marriage to the singer Nina Carlson ended in divorce two years later. Vasily Vladimirovich overcame the midlife crisis with the help of psychologists. As for his personal life at the moment, in an interview with the Daily Storm correspondent, Vasya V. said that his wife supports him in everything. Waiting for her husband from the tour at home, watching the movie "Sex and the City" with a bottle of porter. The increased attention to the cult personality of the underground on the part of female fans is sympathetic.
A Leningrad resident of St. Petersburg to the core, a patriot and a statesman who has the status of an exemplary family man, Vasily Vasiliev lives on the corner of Nevsky and Pushkinskaya. For more than a quarter of a century, Vasya Vasin, frontman, vocalist, guitarist and lyricist of the Kirpichi group, has been presenting the so-called root art - incomparable “music from St. Petersburg”. Ironic rhyming and MC Vasya V. is firmly convinced that the place of birth leaves its mark on all creativity.
Career as a Kirp ideologist and a sarcastic rapper
The formation of Vasily's musical taste began with Joy Division and The Cure. Then there was an acquaintance with Nirvana, RHCP, Pearl Jam, Bauhaus. Parents lived abroad, at the embassy in Sweden. Even at school age, visiting them, the guy went shopping, looking for records. That is why he brought the main music to the get-together of his peers. In 1987, from his classmates, he assembled the Kerogaz group. They played art rock. Then there was a VIA called "Multloto" at the House of Pioneers and Schoolchildren on the Fontanka. The group Rah Rah Music, created later, represented a mixture of the Manchester wave, blues and rap and gave only one concert at the Sterkh club.
The spring of 1995 was marked by a chance meeting with the legendary man Sytnik. On May 15, the first concert of a group called Bricks Are Heavy took place. After some castling of the band members, Vasya became a free vocalist. The language has changed to Russian. The name has also changed - "Bricks". The first album of the group "Bricks are Heavy" was released in 1996.
The beginning of the musicians' career is associated with 1997, when "Kirpichi" appeared in the mass media - the performance was shown in "Program A" on the channel "Russia". For an independent musician in those years, it was like flying into space. Stylistically and culturally, "Kirpichi" was in the stream of good Petersburg style from the clip Tequilajazzz, "Mine surveyor Kunst". Mike Naumenko and Boris Grebenshchikov had a significant influence on the formation of Vasya Vasin as a performer of root music.
Keyword - alternative
While Vasily gravitates towards pure hip-hop within the framework of his solo work, the Kirpichi group, of which he is the ideologue, is the pioneer of heavy rap in Russia in the 90s, and remains so in genre. The phenomenon lies in the fact that for almost 25 years of the existence of the team, it has not disintegrated, and experienced only periods of ups and downs. According to the leader, there were several periods of decline: 5 in New School rock and 3 in rap. Today the statistics are as follows: out of four stable concerts a month, for each concert of "Kirpichi" there are two or three solo performances of Vasily. It can be old school hip-hop shows, extreme ravers, concerts as part of a creative meeting with answers to notes. This variety of formats is connected with this. The average age of the audience is 31 years old, his peers among the listeners are at most 20%. Without pretending to be the attention of young people, Vasya V. addresses an older audience, but rather hip-hop oriented. For example, to those who listen to "Caste" or "Krovostok". The musician himself from modern Russian rap notes the following: Lil Dik, Harry Ax, Ernesto Shut up, Noize MC and Vitya AK. Vasya V. does not recognize everyone who is not included in this list.
The image created by Vasily is a caustic ironic lyric poet who speaks with humor on various topics, composed of contradictions and alternatives:
- positioning oneself as a statist and patriot, in defiance of variable opinions about capitalism. And all this against the background of pressure from the authorities on informal musicians;
- reflections in an article for the journal of the St. Petersburg diocese "Living Water" about faith and Christian ideas, as well as an alleged church career, and a song from Reverend Vasily "Yo, Orthodox Christians!" in the album "Triumph";
- moralization on the inadmissibility of disrespectful treatment of women (in an interview for the Uchitelskaya Gazeta) and cynicism that comes through in songs such as "I am a feminist" and "Damam";
- recommendations on rational nutrition and sports fitness, which he gives out at concerts - in parallel with the hypertrophied alcoholic theme in the new solo album;
- Sharp condemnation of Shnur for obscene language and individual texts of his own compositions full of "simple Russian words";
- Vasya V. responds to criticism about pathos and edification in the texts with the statements given on the website colta.ru that he will turn to people and is ready to forgive them a lot. At the same time, in social networks, Tsar Vasilich ruthlessly sends to the ban everyone whose commentary on posts on his blog did not like at least something.
The master of the word is very strong
The current calendar year in the work of rap-core classic Vasya Vasin is represented by the following events and projects:
- traditional participation in the Art custom draft exhibition in Moscow;
- the group "Kirpichi" - on the stage "Ultra" of the status festival "Invasion";
- performance at the multi-format musical opera "Wild Mint";
- the recording of the song "Let's exclaim …", included in the collection-tribute of informal musicians, dedicated to the 95th anniversary of Bulat Okudzhava;
- recommendations as an expert on the definition of the "Golden Hundred" at the WDP (World Poetry Day);
- participation in the St. Petersburg legion in the project "Poems as they should be";
- an application for an early presentation of the biography of "Bricks" - "Whatever may be said, if only to speak."
The main event of recent times is the release of a solo album in the power-pop genre called "Triumph". Eleven ironic tracks of the old radical and extreme raver were recorded with the participation of a galaxy of his friends - both old comrades in the hard rock scene and heroes of the new time. Among them: the leader of Psyche, the Birtman group, Decl, the soloist from Masha and the Bears, PPR, 2rbina 2rista and others, as well as fellow Kirpas. The idea is simple - to demonstrate how musicians of different age, spirit and beliefs come to a common denominator and preach the same values. The author himself characterizes the resulting release as "a dazzling apotheosis of kindness, love and peace between all people on the planet."
Music critics today describe Vasya V.'s work as an attempt by the "king of the primordial old school" to be in trend and support the popularity of the long-playing group "Kirpichi". The jubilee date, the 25th anniversary of the "kirps", is not far off, and there it is a stone's throw to the personal age of the golden age. In an interview with Afisha, Vasya Vasin describes his professional state as follows: “Continuous creativity and continuous shooting. The internal censor plows without drying out. " This means that Vasya V. is not going to become a character in circulation.
