Italian folklore once told that the only cure for a tarantula spider bite was to dance the most frenzied, inspired dance of your life or you would surely die a result of its hallucinogenic venom. Those bitten danced as if possessed, losing themselves in the feverish mandolin music played by villagers, and so the ritualistic Tarantella dance came to be. Another story suggests the dance began as therapy for disaffected female sexuality. Women who were perpetually numb from the complacencies of day-to-day...
I saw Gogol Bordello after a 8 hour roadtrip from Canada, down in Seattle at Bumbershoot. At the end of the show, the guys came out to find my girlfriend and Ito get us backstage. Gave us all this free shit and offered a ride home in the tour-bus as a thanks for rocking out so hard at their show.
We're idiots.
We declined as to not piss off the other friends we had there with us... And long story short, the driver fell asleep at the wheel (because he's a fucking moron and wanted to show off his driving skills to one of the girls we were with, and he lied about being "fine to drive"... He neglected to tell us he hasn't slept for 3 days due to nerd-parties). We smacked into the meridian doing 180km/hr. Ripped the car in two. Took like like 14 hours to get home.
Amaazing interveiw! Gogol is my absolute favorite band, they put on the best live show I've ever seen; so full of exuberance and life. If only they'd come to Minneapolis more often =(
It's been fun to see these guys take off! Five years ago I saw them at a tiny club in Lawrence, KS called the Gaslight, then cooked 'em all omelets the following year as they played another Lawrence show ten times the size. I wonder if they remember that first show in Lawrence, three of them came over to my house for a late night jam and to score some.... the cops came ten minutes after they left for noise complaints! Oh to be 24 again!
eugene is a brilliant man.
a romani genius.
i got his mouth and mustache with "radical" tattooed on my arm.
not done by the best artist, but it's all about GB.
love. love. love.
fantastic interview.
great questions. so conversational!
not Q&A sounding at all
Zoetica
NEWSWIRE
Portola Valley, CA
OCT 02, 2007 06:00 AM