MESSER CHUPS

 

Surf,  rock’n'roll

Country: Russia

Label: Ipecac Recordings, Solnze Records

Messer Chups are:

Oleg Gitaracula – guitar, horror laugh, video
Zombierella – bass guitar, vocal, scream
Ghost drummer – drums

In their music Messer Chups combine surf, beats, film samples, scratchy historical recordings, loungey and cartoon sounds from the 50′s and 60′s.The show is combined with video from trash cult movies of the middle of the last century – Betty Page, Bela Lugosi , zombies, Russ Meyer’s and Ed Wood’s heroes all mixed in videocollages of the master Gitarkin. Messer Chups is the project of Russian composer Oleg Gitarkin, and while the band’s instrumental rock is hard to neatly categorize, it’s safe to say that it would be enjoyed by fans of rockabilly, horror punk, scratchy surf records, Italian slasher films, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, pulp fiction, lounge music, Ed Wood, the theremin, the Cramps, Russ Meyer movies and the theme song from “The Addams Family.” Gitarkin incorporates all of these elements and more, layering samples from Russian B-movies over weird vintage keyboard chirps and groovy horn loops.

Messer Chups have already released over a half dozen albums and a greatest hits collection, which is a little extreme unless you’re a diehard fan of this kind of stuff. The trashy sci-fi horror sound of Messer Chups is not very common within the context of Russian rock music. The reason for this is the good old cold-war/iron curtain commie agenda. The majority of Messer Chups’ musical and visual aesthetics come from trashy western pop-culture of the past century. This includes horror/sci-fi b-movies from 1930′s through 1970′s, as well as music such as surf (The Ventures, Dick Dale, Trashmen), big-band lounge (Henry Mancini, Les Baxter, Martin Denny) and rock n’ roll of the 60′s.Since the Ipecac release, Messer Chups has slowly developed a cult following around the world as one of the most unique and genre-defiant bands.
Gitarkin formed Messer Chups in 1998 during an extended stay in Hamburg. The original lineup was Gitarkin on bass and Annette Schneider, a German music promoter, on synths. Though amicable enough, this lineup did not work as Gitarkin and Schneider lived in different countries, leading to hellish logistics. In 1999, Gitarkin returned to St. Petersburg and found a keyboard player in Igor Vdovin, former vocalist for the band Leningrad. They toured as a duo in Russia and the United States in 2000-02. In 2003 a world-famous theremin player Lydia Kavina joined the band. She is the grandniece of Leon Theremin, the Russian inventor of the theremin, an instrument whose ghostly waw was a fixture in horror movies of the 1940s and ’50s. Oleg and Lydia released together CD’s – Black Black Magic , Vamp Babes Upgrade Version. Lydia participated on few tracks of most famous through licensed to Mike Patton’s IPECAC Recordings album “Crazy Price”.
Zombie Girl came to the band in 2004.The founder of the project Oleg Gitarkin, is one of the most talented modern Russian composers, who became famous with his another project MESSER FUR FRAU MULLER in Russia and abroad. He is also making music for movies, theater and adverts.

MESSER CHUPS were participants of international festivals: Donau festival (Austria), Crossing Europe Film Festival (Linz, Austria), Transmusicales 2005 (France), I.D.E.A.L. (France), Eurosonic (the Netherlands), Fusion (Germany), Bavarian Open (Germany), Les Nuits Sonores” Lyon (France), Grimaldi Forum (Monaco), Musiques Volantes (France),Trollofon 06 (Bergen, Norway), Les Invites Villeurbanne (France), Furia Sound (France), Dour festival (Belgium), ArezzoWave (Italy), European Film Festival Palic (Serbia), Jours de Fetes Festival (France), Rockomotives Festival (France), ZXZW (Netherlands), Pohoda (Slovakia), Freek fest (Spain), Italia Wave Love (Italy), Poulpaphone festival (France), Primavera sound (Spain), Psychorama – Psychobilly Burlesque Festival 2009 (Finland), Distortion 2009 (Denmark), Les Nuits Europeennes festival Strasbourg 2010 (France), Festival Invisible Brest 2010 (France), Mediawave Festival 2010 (Hungary) , Cosmic Trip festival Bourges 2010 (France), Exit 2011 (Serbia) and others.

MESSER CHUPS performed in many countries – Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Monaco, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Serbia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, Ukraine, the USA .

PHOTOS

LINKS

facebook

http://www.messerchups.ru/

PRESS

“Embracing elements of decadent capitalism that even most Westerners would shy away from, zany Russian lounge mutant Oleg Gitarkin plays twangy sci-fi music for people who know that the future actually happened over 40 years ago… This is the start of the Leatherette Revolution.” (THE WIRE).

Messer Chups is the project of Russian composer Oleg Gitarkin, and while the band’s instrumental rock is hard to neatly categorize, it’s safe to say that it would be enjoyed by fans of rockabilly, horror punk, scratchy surf records, Italian slasher films, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, pulp fiction, lounge music, Ed Wood, the theremin, the Cramps, Russ Meyer movies.” Gitarkin incorporates all of these elements and more, layering samples from Russian B-movies over weird vintage keyboard chirps and groovy horn loops. Messer Chups have already released over a half dozen albums and a greatest hits collection, which is a little extreme unless you’re a diehard fan of this kind of stuff. www.graveconcernsezine.com

“If Tom Waits and Add N to (X) covered the Munsters theme, hit the syrup and went crazy Soviet-Bloc electro, it would sound like European surf loungers Messer Chups. Their latest features rickety Moog-playing, creaky bass and echo guitar. All that — and suspenseful voice samples — just sort of floats over beats ranging from modestly funky (nearly hip-hop) to driving, Dick Dale suspense. It feels like the soundtrack to the best Halloween party ever; strange voices enter and leave the mix, and you can’t tell if they’re being scary or just kidding. Give Tarantino two years and these guys will score all of his movies. “ (By Adam Bulger -- October 20, 2005 www.hartfordadvocate.com

“Imagine Ed Wood meets Davie Allen & The Arrows, and they go to a covert Soviet-era studio on the moon. Maybe they bring along Lux Interior of The Cramps for the ride. And a theremin. Strange sounds emerge and are broadcast in Eastern Europe on scratchy old radios. People listen and begin to dance in strange formations. Then they all turn into vampires, or huge flesh-eating robots, and destroy America and Western Europe to the tune of this entrancing, psychotic beat. Or something.
That’s Messer Chups. They hail from Russia, but beyond that, these spy-surf-horror space cadets remain largely shrouded in mystery. Cloaked in prehistoric Soviet analog synth sounds, their enigmatic catalog of hits features a retro style that has as much to do with scratchy old vampire films from the ‘60s as it does with easy listening and surf styles”. Ipecac Recordings Releases

DISCOGRAPHY

Surf raiders from the Swamp lagoon (2011) CD
Bermuda 66 (2010) CD
Heretic Channel (2009) CD/LP Solnze Records , CopaseDisques
Best of The Best (2008) LP/CD CopaseDisques
Zombie Shopping (2007)CD Solnze Records
Vamp Babes Upgrade Version 2004 (2004)CD
Crazy Price (2005)CD Ipecac Recordings
Hyena Safari (2005)CD Solnze Records
Vamp Babes Upgrade Version 2004 (2004)CD Solnze Records
Crazy Price (2003)CD Solnze Records
The Best Of Messer Chups: Cocktail Draculina (2002)CD Solnze Records
Black Black Magic (2002)CD Solnze Records
Vamp Babes (2000)MC,CD Solnze Records
Bride Of The Atom (2000)MC,CD
Miss Libido (2000)MC,CD
Chudovishe & Chudovishe (Beast and the Beast)(aka Monster & Monster) (1999)MC,CD Solnze Records