Something strange and colourful is going on in Auckland's inner city rock scene, care of a bunch of bands sounding like they've fallen off the back of a caravan somewhere in Eastern Europe. Scott Kara reports on why guitar rock is making way for a wave of partying weirdos wielding accordions, clarinets and fiddles
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As Benka Boradovsky sits down for a quiet afternoon pint, it doesn't take long for someone to recognise him. One of his fans is at the next table.
"You're crazy," she says, having witnessed a few of his band's shows.
And she'd be right. In concert the Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band are mad, conjuring up a theatrical mix of eastern European folk cum Romani gypsy music. Out front there's the bearded shirtless Boradovsky clutching his clarinet and swigging a bottle of vodka or whiskey ("I believe alcohol is a very important thing to free one's spirit."), as his quartet band play this exotic style of party music.
"I think crazy is a good word to describe it," he declares. "All the best people are crazy and what's the opposite of crazy? I think it's mundane. Boring. And who wants boring music when you can have crazy music?"
Along with other Auckland acts like Balkan-based weirdos Dr. Colossus and eastern psychedelic drone rockers An Emerald City, the Bordello Band is part of a global movement of folk-rock bands using similar reference points - Beirut, Devotchka, Gogol Bordello and, perhaps the most high profile of all, Canadian arthouse seven piece Arcade Fire.
"There is something about it that is universal," says the mysterious Boradovsky, who has a strong accent that you can't quite pick.
"Even if people have never heard this style of music before there is something about it that sort of sinks inside of everybody. I think it's just something primal and with this sort of music it does drive people into a frenzy and people explode in the audience sometimes. I love that feeling that you are in control of this lovely frenetic and chaotic ball of people moving and you are pulling the strings of people dancing in crazy ways."
Boradovsky wasn't born to play this style of music, according to him, he was born playing it. If you think the Bordello Band's music sounds odd then wait until you hear how they got together.
"I was playing music for about nine months before I was born," he says, as he rolls the first of a constant stream of cigarettes. "I was already playing the clarinet which made the birth very difficult for my mother but she got through it and very much encouraged my music."
He had a happy life until "very much later on" when he had a black out, lost two years worth of memory, and woke up in Auckland Domain.
Following this incident his one main calling, apart from scavenging for food, was to make music and he happened to stumble across other lost souls like Senka Senyaglaze ("Blue Eyes" on bass), Anna Rehkitz ("The Deer" on flute), Philka Cherbyakov ("The Worm" on guitar) and Yelyena Yareiach ("The Moon" on percussion), who make up the Bordello Band.
Believe what you want about his fantastical tale, but Boradovsky is one of the movers and shakers of this gypsy rock scene.
To him it is party music and he says there is a big gap in the New Zealand market for this sort of music.
"It is very old music, travelling music, and it has migrated with people. Everywhere it has gone it has picked up influences from things and influenced other things so there are little bits of this music in all the other music of the world, like classical, pop, and Swedish metal. It has infiltrated the global consciousness."
Leon Radojkovic, the leader of eight piece Balkan-influenced band Dr Colossus, refers to the songs they play as "soul music".
And the reason for this music's current wave of popularity?
"It's that eternal quest for authenticity in a time where western culture is increasingly commodified and calculated," says Radojkovic. "So I guess people are looking for something with a little bit more purity. And also, it's great music. It's got real soul."
The 22-year-old who is part-Croatian and plays guitar, accordion, and keyboards, grew up with relatives who played traditional Balkan tunes but it wasn't until he was 16 the songs "really started speaking to me".
"I like it rhythmically, like some of the traditional dances from that part of the world are quite complex rhythmically, in terms of odd time signatures but they still have a groove. But I don't know, I just heard it and it struck me strongly."
Dr Colossus play instruments as varied as guitar, drums, accordion, violin and saxophone and they are the new kids on the gypsy rock block having only played a handful of gigs.
While the band's roots are Balkan they are also influenced by everything from soundtracks of the Hollywood and Bollywood variety, twisted metal and electronica, surf guitar, and avant garde musicians like saxophonist John Zorn.
"So all that stuff goes in and just comes out. But I think the Balkan [influence] is the defining aesthetic."
For example: The Eleven is a sinister and mystical saxophone driven track, which breaks into twisted avant garde thrash, eerie spaghetti western touches, and ends on a more traditional note.
"I'm not a traditionalist I don't think but I love that music. I'm not looking to the past, I'm trying to create future music."
For An Emerald City, a six-piece who combine Eastern influences with droning psychedelic rock, the fact they are playing this style of music came as a complete surprise.
"It snuck up on me," laughs guitarist Reuben Bonner. "I taught myself to play [guitar] but I certainly never learnt to play Eastern music, that's for sure. I've always liked how Led Zeppelin tinkered with stuff like Kashmir. But I don't think any of us consciously thought that this band would ever evolve the way it has and the real surprise has been the response to it. People have got into it."
Since starting in late 2005 they have gigged regularly, played to 1200 people at this year's WOMAD, and the track Quing Song, from their excellent four-track EP released earlier this year, was used as the opening song for fashion designer Karen Walker's show at New York Fashion Week.
The band, Bonner and Sam Handley on guitars, drummer Reyahn Leng, violinist Felix Lun, lute and sitar player Ede Giesen, and percussionist Matthew Hanson, had hardly listened to world music before getting together.
Recently they went through a stage of "getting stuck into" American gypsy folk musician Beirut, they are fans of Mali desert rockers Tinariwen, and were inspired by WOMAD guests Taraf de Haidouks from Romania:"They played violins like they were on P, man.
"But the range of music we listen to is so wide, like everything from Dragonforce to Brian Jonestown Massacre, to Beirut, but I don't think it really affects what we create," says Bonner.
"We just kind of tinkered with this whole strange psychedelic buzz but tried to get this nice beautiful Eastern sound in amongst it.
"It wasn't like we were listening to world music, nothing like that. It's just that we've always wanted to make music that's interesting and we didn't just do it because no one was doing it, but we just thought, 'F***, this is rad'. It's just a big cooking pot of all these weird sounds."
Now, as they look to record their debut album, they are "tinkering" with piano, mandolin, finger harps, and accordion. "Anything we can throw at it really to give it a bit of a nicer flavour."
Bonner loves the celebratory feel and universality of the music they are making. "I invited my dad to WOMAD to come and check out the band and he'd never listen to this music, but he reckoned he had the weekend of his life."
And while Bonner says it is slightly unusual playing this curious and colourful music in New Zealand, they don't feel as though they're ripping anything off. "It feels really natural because it's music that we all enjoy as a group. It fit's our personalities and the whole thing with this band was, 'We can do anything we want'."
LOWDOWN
Who: The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band, Dr Colossus, An Emerald City
What: The sound of gypsy and eastern music today.
Live: Gypsy Fever 4, featuring the Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band, The Jews Brothers, and Club Manouche, Kings Arms Tavern, August 2. Monster Mash, featuring Dr. Colossus, John Titor &The Time Travellers and Chalk Jones, Thirsty Dog, August 2.
Listen: An Emerald City - An Emerald City, out now; The Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band - Danse Macabre, out now.
