Gadjo’s Video Jukebox #4

Gadjo’s Pickin’ Kiev Tonight*!! Yes, as promised. When I danced with the Balalaika Dance Group in London I found that Ukrainians have the butchest Soviet-bloc dances, and music to match. Then I happened upon The Ukrainians, a band from Leeds with some Uke ancestry and the willingness to have a laugh. They’ve done great versions of songs by The Smiths and The Sex Pistols - here, especially for Barry Teeth, is their version of Anarchy In The UK(raine) - and here's something more with the spirit of the Cossacks:



Then I discovered other great genuine Ukrainian bands. Bands fast and unintelligible enough to form the background music to many years studying at my computer terminal. First up it’s Perkalaba. On the map it looks like I could easily visit them from here in their Hutsul hideaway, but flying around the world would actually take less time. They named themselves after their local psychiatric hospital and act as dodgy as possible, as you would too if people had called your homeland "Little Russia" for 654 years!

* There’s a pun there somewhere; find it and you could win a weekend for one in Dnipropetrovsk.