Boris Grebenshikov’s Irish follower

Johnny Casey – Irish follower of Boris Grebenshikov following recent gig in Dublin’s Murrays PUB told as his story about Aquarium.

In 1996 my wife and I began taking Children from the Chernobyl affected area of Belarus, into our home. And each time they would come they would bring Russian pop music on cassette tapes. For the most part I liked the music but in 2000 when I finally went to Belarus as a volunteer worker with Adi Roche’s «Chernobyl Children’s Project», a good friend of mine introduced me to Aquarium.

One of the first albums I got was «Snow Lion» and I was immediately taken by the music. Over the next 4 years I travelled many times to Belarus for the Project, and on each occasion I would buy more Aquarium Discs. Even on one such trip I had so many CDs the customs wanted to prohibit me from taking them out of the country and it cost me a few dollars to sort it out.

In 2008 I finally got to see Boris perform live at The Olympia in Dublin with Aquarium International and it was after that gig that I began emailing him. I missed the Whelans gig in 2012 as it was over before I knew about it.

But I finally met up with Boris last year when Aquarium played the Royal Albert Hall in London.

In January of this year I travelled to London again to see him perform «The Faun» and some other acoustic songs with The Russian Virtuosi of Europe at the Cadogan Hall. This was a wonderful concert and once again I met him briefly afterwards.

Last Saturday I had arranged to meet him at the venue at 6pm and as a result I was sitting at the table in front of the stage when the gig started. This is why I got such good pictures.

Through discovering Grebinshikov I also am very familiar with the music of Victor Tsoi and Kino as well as Nautilus and more recently “Utro Polini”

I both speak and read a little Russian (though very badly) and my prized Possession is a signed copy of the recently published B.G. Pesni

One final thing regarding myself. As a part time musician, I have my own website, which I always put up stuff from some concerts I attend. www.johnnycasey.ie