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EESTI ELU reedel, 13. novembril 2020 — Friday, November 13, 2020
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EMW presents: Marcus Kolga Tallinn Calling: Jazz, Punk, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Youth Culture in The Soviet Union Vincent Teetsov Marcus Kolga is a well-known figure in the Estonian community of Toronto. If you aren’t already familiar with him, you should know that he is a political activist, film maker, and human rights advocate. His writing has appeared here in Eesti Elu, as well as in The Toronto Star, The National Post, and Maclean’s. You may have heard him speak publicly on the news or at Estonian events. If you’ve heard a speech from Kolga, you may have been surprised to hear him reference The Clash alongside foreign policy. On one occasion a few years ago, he spoke of the im pact that their song “Spanish Bombs” had on him, especially the imagery of a DC 10 plane flying through the night sky. Through ringing acoustic guitar and the popping of the snare drum, the song examines the history of the Spanish Civil War alongside violence in late 70s Spain. These references aren’t out of context, because at the core of what he frequently discusses is the past and how that informs present day action. The music of The Clash, or any band with punk rock values for that matter, is founded on commen tary and knowledge. Not in a textbook, but in the liner notes of an album like The Clash’s third LP, London Calling. The
front cover of the album shows Paul Simonon smashing his bass guitar on stage. Inside are impassioned tales of rude boys in Jamaica, the flooding of the Thames river, and individual ism. Non-conformist? Yes. Loud? Sometimes. Without thought? Absolutely not. Kolga is not only inspired by the implications of music as a form of communication and art. He’s taken an active part in the music as a member of the band Megapop. The four-piece was formed in 1994 together with Jaan Silmberg (vocals, guitar), Markus Saks (drums, backing vocals), Mart Leppik (bass, keys, backing vocals), and Kolga on guitar, vocals, and ac cordion. Paul Nanuwa has also been the band’s drummer, per cussionist, and backing vocalist later in the band’s journey. Between their 1997 EP Casino Royale (https://megapopmusic. bandcamp.com/album/casi no-royale) and their 2015 selftitled album, Megapop (https:// megapopmusic.bandcamp.com/ album/megapop) has brought out Britpop sounds. Their tunes are rollicking and cheeky. The band’s grooves and distorted guitar riffs splash and crash like the hair of an audience member in the front row of a concert. Music like this is free and outspoken.
Marcus Kolga Montréal.
performing
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For all of these reasons and more, Kolga is giving a one-ofa-kind lecture on November 25th at 7 PM. It’ll be taking place live, in English, on Esto nian Music Week’s Facebook page and the VEMU YouTube
channel. In his lecture, Kolga will guide the night as a rock and roll historian, venturing through the motivations, political cli mate, and push-back that make up the stories of music behind the Iron Curtain. On such legend is of the Russian band Akvarium (AKA Aquarium), whose rambunctious concert in Tbilisi, Georgia caused a judging committee to walk out of the venue while a great deal of the audience clapped with gusto. For a long time, music in the Soviet Union was seen from an outside-in perspective, like Billy Joel’s 1987 tour of Russia. This lecture is a chance to see it all from the inside-out. Turn your dial to this lecture if you want to hear about the impressive power of music to make change or if you’re look ing for something new and educational for your Wednesday night.
What happened to Estonian music?
when it comes to Estonian musical heritage.
stored at ERR. The lion’s share of Estonian music cannot be bought or listened to online today.
One of the world’s foremost memory researchers, Estonian Endel Tulving has a hypothesis according to which if a child lacks contact with a part of the semantic system at an early age, it will be very difficult for the person to obtain later in life. A child living in Saaremaa who never hears the “õ” sound in Estonian will find it very diffi cult to pronounce later. It will be very difficult for a person to compose Estonian music if they have grown up without it. We have, unbeknownst to ourselves, sawn off one of the legs of the chair on which our national culture rests.
Martin Aadamsoo, ERR, November The lion’s share of Estonian music cannot be bought or listened to online today. If our musical heritage fails to make it to streaming services, it will not exist in the future, Martin Aadamsoo writes in Müüri leht. Estonia’s national self-aware ness and cultural self-image have always been closely tied to music. Jakob Hurt and Matthias Johann Eisen launched a global collection campaign in the 19th century that resulted in a nation of just one million people having one of the largest folk music and folklore collections in the world today. The first major mass events of national awakening were the song festi vals. We called the process of restoring our independence the Singing Revolution. Arvo Pärt is the most performed living composer. The list goes on for ever. And yet – paradoxically – most of that heritage remains beyond our reach. Locked in repositories, most of which are
The first sound recordings in Estonia used wax cylinders. The first record of Estonian music was recorded in St. Petersburg in 1901. It is sculptor August Weizenberg’s song “Paistab sügisel ka päikene” (The Sun also Shines in Autumn) per formed by Jewish-Russian tenor Mihhail Goltisson. Next to and following vinyl records, music has been recorded on tapes, CDs and many other mediums. Every switch has resulted in a discontinuance and the need to carry the entire collection to the new format. However, the greatest disruption in Estonian musical history is the advent of streaming after the internet was invented. The majority of our musical heritage remains on physical sound mediums or is locked away in music reposi tories as files to which there is no online access. That massive gate through which we get our daily information – smart de vices with screens – is locked
2020 is the year of digital culture. One of the greatest goals we have set for ourselves is to help develop children’s digital creativity. So that the generations that follow us would not be mere digital con sumers but also digital creators. Digital creation, just like any other, consists of innovative de velopment, remix, recycling and complementing of existing knowledge and experience. In a situation where the core of our
Dear Estonian abroad, We invite you to take part in the joint collection initiative of the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom and ETV2 for films recording the lives of Estonian communities abroad. The initiative is set to last until 31 December 2020. The Vabamu’s executive director Keiu Telve said, “The goal of the initiative that started on 1 November is to invite Estonian communities abroad to send us their old films re cording any meetings, birthdays, weddings or other important events in their communities that show how they maintained Estonian traditions and culture abroad during the occupation. Even if you feel the film only shows the simple day-to-day lives, such films may prove to be one of a kind in the context of recording history and telling the story of how our country regained its independence. Therefore, we encourage all Esto nians to go through their film archives and take part in the initiative.” Keiu Telve added, “This is not the first time the Vabamu has received films from Estonian communities abroad. For example, we have unique images on 8 mm film of the con cert-demonstration that took place during the Estonian meetup day in Montreal during the international exposition Expo 67. This film was taken by Estonian Lemmik-Jaak Sirk, who worked in the Expo pavilion of the Soviet Union. This film is an excellent example of how they have always wanted and tried to stay in touch with their roots and culture.” The collection initiative targets films recorded on 8 mm and Super8 film. A selection of the collected films will be shown on ETV2 in a series called 8 mm ELU (LIFE on 8 mm) and stored in the Vabamu’s collections. Existing and newly acquired recordings can be seen during Foreign Estonians Day, celebrated at the Vabamu on 28 November at 18:00. The event will also be broadcast online. Details for the event will soon be available on the Vabamu’s website. The series 8 mm ELU (LIFE on 8 mm) has successfully aired on Estonian Public Broadcasting channels and gained significant views. The first two seasons focussed on films re corded by local Estonians. Now, the show makers want view ers to see the stories of Estonian communities abroad. The initiative targets both digital and analog film tapes. Visit Vabamu’s website at https://vabamu.ee/collections/ film-collecting-campaign-of-estonian-communities-abroad to read about conditions for film submission. Lisainfo/ Further information: Ingrid Piirsalu Marketing and Communication Manager Phone: + 372 5646 4035 ingrid@vabamu.ee Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom Toompea 8, 10142 Tallinn www.vabamu.ee
musical heritage remains largely inaccessible, it cannot be added to, remixed or reused. Our children will have to start from scratch, whereas that starting point will not lie in Estonian culture. It will very likely be an English product manufactured by corporations. Estonian pop group Apelsin released its second album in 1981 that might very well be one of the widest spread record ings of Estonian music. Tõnu Aare, who helped write most of the album’s tracks, wasn’t sure whether the album sold a million copies or more. Apelsin received a total of 26 rubles for the album. In 2015, Daniel Levi Viinalass and Cartoon released a track called “On and On” that has over 375 million hits on YouTube or several dozen times more than the Apelsin album
ever sold. There is no clearer proof of the fact that if out musical heritage fails to reach streaming services, it will not even exist in the future. Therefore, what I suggest we do is this – let us invest a little money, time and energy in sort ing and attaching metadata to our grand musical repositories that hold a big part of Estonia’s musical heritage. Let us invest in making it widely available, being just a few clicks away on streaming services. Making a few hundred thousand recorded pieces of Estonian music avail able would cost under €1 million. Let us give our authors and performers the chance to receive worthy pay for their work. Let us make this invest ment so that our children could grow into digital creators and not just consumers.
