Newton's Garage: Some Nervous Movement Away from Anonymity

Newton's Garage (Garazh N'iutona) are a very young outfit from the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. The band's four members are Iaroslav Raff (vocals and rhythm guitar), Sergei Surin (guitar), Egor Marynenko (bass) and Sergei Beketov (drums). Thus far, this description is in no way extraordinary; the musicians themsleves go to no great efforts in order to change or lessen that sense of normality. In fact, over the four years of their existence, almost all of their promo blurbs, scattered around various websites and portals, begin in the same, slightly tedious manner.

Typicality is the order of the day. Beer bottles and rain-soaked concrete; it could be anywhere.

Thus begins their everyday epic, too: "The story of this group started when one of the musicians had an idea to form a rock band, using people in his same year at school." This, surely, would be true of the vast majority of bands across the western world. Nonetheless we continue. "Inspired by their new idea, the four guys found a place to rehearse. They chose a garage that belonged to one of their families. For the next few years that same garage would become their favorite place to hang out. This period was the most important in the band's development - and perhaps the most carefree, too."

The story of this group started when one of the musicians had an idea to form a rock band, using people in his same year at school.

The music got better - as the furniture and fittings both grew discernibly worse.

"After a few years, the band members came to see that they'd actually learned a thing or two. They gathered all of their music and decided to show it to the public. On 26 July, 2006, they played at a Kharkov festival designed to showcase new groups. It was evident from the crowd's reaction that those years of practice and rehearsal had not been spent in vain; the band was on its way to further success! Newton's Garage decided to get busy with serious promo work. As a result, the following two years were full of both concerts and the preparation of new material."

By this point, the garage was on its last legs. The ceiling fell slowly victim to heavy snow and post-Soviet building codes.

Or the lack thereof.

"Right at the end of 2007, in fact just before New Year's Eve, the ensemble played their first concerts beyond the city limits of Kharkov, in the northern town of Sumy. A wonderful reception from the public, together with the crowd's undivided attention, gave the band both new strength and inspiration, too. After returning home, the foursome decided that now was the time when they absolutely needed to make some quality recordings. By the summer of 2008 they had started recording their debut EP..."

All this time, people were no doubt wondering about the group's name. No great, dramatic, or shocking information would be forthcoming in order to ruffle the tidy feathers of this typical outfit. "We named ourselves in honor of the great physicist Issac Newton. To be more precise, in honor of his garage!" Out of curiosity, we ran a quick search for images tagged as "Newton's Garage." Apart from a few EP covers and concert shots involving our Ukrainian musicians, there was little else - except for some images of a middle-aged man fixing a car in a suburban garage near Birmingham, England. Those same pictures were so dangerously dull we dare not upload them.

And - in any case - it is precisely at this moment in the band's history, when demo materials are almost ready for release, that the provincial peace and calm is disturbed. Nasty notions began to loom in the distance.

One can sense impending problems even at the end of the band's potted bio. "We're a Kharkov independent rock group. If asked to define our style, we'd say it's closest of all to 'indie.' But we're not very keen on those kind of limitations; we don't like the constraints of anything concrete. Despite the fact that the majority of [Russian and Ukrainian] indie-bands sing in English, Newton's Garage will continue to perform exclusively with Russian-language material. Even if we do strive towards British levels of quality... In a word, it's better to take a listen than read 100 descriptions!" Choosing even one culture over another proved troublesome.

In May of this year, as the EP was being recorded, worries again emerged about the need to somehow provide those generic markers. Maybe it would mean they'd be "branded" - once and for all, destined to live and die with the fleeting modishness of tags, labels, and trends. Mutual understanding amid long-term friends required no name. Now, however, things were different. The panic set in. "Please, if there's anybody out there who knows about music, HELP US! We're often asked what style we play in... and we never know what to say. So far we've been able to dodge the issue. But pretty soon we're going to be famous[!] and young rock musicians will start comparing themselves to us. And they'll need a clear definition of our style!"

Tears of anxiety seem to have already begun on the left.

The first response was mildly cynical - and markedly dismissive: "When you become famous, music critics will invent names and definitions for you. So THERE!" For more than a month, the suggestions went back and forth, growing decreasingly useful as they did so. The upshot of all the proffered ideas was the following, completely useless label: "OK, here we go.... alternative bardo-chanson-like funk-indie-stoner rock with grunge riffs. :-) :-) "

OK, here we go.... alternative bardo-chanson-like funk-indie-stoner rock with grunge riffs. :-) :-)

A silence ensued, followed by a single voice from one fan in the distance. "You know what? I like it!" The members of Newton's Garage did not agree. They tried to convince themselves that if fame did indeed come their way, they could somehow avoid the pointed pigeonholing that is the very raison d'etre of music journalism. Maybe four friends, working together in perfect, unspoken, and wholly mutual understanding, could turn a blind eye to the decentered workings of modern music, where small numbers of predictable journals have been replaced by the endless, anonymous chatter of blogs? "What's the difference whether we choose a definition or not? The main thing is that the music sounds GOOD. The genre's neither here nor there."

Aware that their valued friendship might be a little naive and unprepared for the rough and tumble of Eastern Europe's music business, the band recently posted this mock image of themselves. "Out of step" would be a huge understatement.

Needless to say, the outside world would pay scant heed to the "belief" that journalistic stereotyping is somehow avoidable. The implied addressee of those (unconvincing) assertions was, of course, not even the general public, but four friends themselves, pondering the universe from inside a garage. Recently they asked some fans to suggest some suitable record stations around Ukraine to which the band might send a few recordings. Once again, with the help of admirers, Raff, Surin, Marynenko, and Beketov were nervous about the horrors of renown - and the distribution of their work too far.

Maybe they'd be better off staying behind those corrugated iron doors and reinventing yet another genre - garage rock itself. The raucous rough and tumble of angry men from Detroit could become a salon genre, conducted in safety among friends. Where nobody speaks, and everybody's happy. Because the burrow always remains an option, whether it's made of iron or prairie soil.