Bedroom Boogie
By Rachel Romond, now-professional music snob

Bedroom Boogie was written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Zhenya. Mr. Rock and the boys have come up with a good old-fashioned rock album. It moves, it's simple, subtle, and FUN!

Now, everyone knows that all the good rock songs are really just references to drugs. Pilot John, the first track, is a good rock song. Is this a drug song? No, Pilot John is about a real guy. John is a friend of Zhenya, and he flies an emergency helicopter ... hence the name. As Zhenya says, "a Russian runs into an American and they make peace, not war." (Apparently one of the better things about working with an independent label is that you get to write about your friends.) Pilot John should be very happy about Pilot John; the song sets the tone for the whole album. It brings to mind the carefree young pleasures of high school summertime. The core is a simple but effective falling guitar line, which - oddly - seems to soar. Electric guitar and power chords on the chorus contrast with acoustic rhythm guitar and chuffy bass on the verses, and all highlight the happy, daydreaming, almost naive character. The stringy acoustic sound brings us back to earth before we take off for the last chorus, then fade out. Pilot John doesn't so much end as take off into stratosphere, leaving a big grin on your face.

Bedroom Boogie is the second track. Bedroom Boogie is frickin' weird. Bedroom Boogie is Beck Through the Looking Glass. A mosaic of strange and funny, sometimes creepy images - where did that quack come from? This song displays Zhenya's orchestration philosophy: "layer it on, pack it in." We start with Zhenya's bare voice plus a wood block and rhythm guitar. We add a few twisted circus sounds, add bass, percussion. Now a cheesy tambourine and bari sax lounge chorus. Each new verse has slightly different instrumentation, which changes every 4 bars or so - you never can tell when something new will show up. So many things have happened since the start of the song that it seems very dense, but the laid-back rhythm and smooth vocals trick you into thinking this is a very spare, suave piece. The end effect is one of dense elegance, plus a duck.

Tell Me Who's Your Daddy is by now an old favorite. It starts with a crunchy electric guitar riff and piles at least 3 percussion lines and 3 more guitar riffs before the beginning of the first verse. Overloaded vocals and perpetual motion bass start out a series of pyramids that drop back to basics before you notice how big they've gotten, or that the groove has gotten stuck in your head. At only 3:20, the song is suddenly over and you're left to deal with the disturbed looks complete strangers are giving you as you walk around town singing "who's your daddy now?" Go home, turn this one up & annoy your neighbors downstairs.

San Antone is a semi-sarcastic tribute to white trash. Well placed pick scraping and the low-tech option of singing through a pipe put the comedy over the top. As always, Avi's skill with all things percussive is self evident. The Flaming Cheese of Texas guitar solo in the break is a brief but welcome trip back to The Early Days of Red Elvisdom. You can almost see the parade of beer bellies barely covered by sleeveless undershirts marching over the horizon.

You will need a car to listen to Ready to Fly. Rimshots on 2 and 4, and a bit of pick scraping kick it off. Then a flying guitar line and a tambourine on 16ths join in. True to the name, Ready to Fly is into the chorus before it hits the 1 minute mark. But you will want to be in the convertible cruising with the top down before it hits 40 seconds. There's a little bit of techno stuff in the break, but it doesn't scream for your attention: "I am a digital effect! Listen to me!" The distorted guitars, tambourine and rimshots give punctuation and provide the motor that makes this basically an irresistible head-bopper. This is the ultimate summer cruising song.

Speaking of summer songs, the Powers That Be at The Red Pages have been waiting for Sticky Little Girl since November, when Zhenya told a few people what was running around in his brain:

I was standing by the jukebox / chewing on my peppermint gum.
I felt nutty as a fruitcake / sexy as a hamburger bun.
Sticky little girl / she was a sticky little girl.

I Will Come Back - Think Brian Setzer plus Southern Culture on the Skids for this piece. The minor melody oozes with expectation in this dark song about a musician who hopes to hit it big. Through the magic of multitrack editing, Zhenya does his own backup vocals and the blend is unbelievably smooth. Great dotted stickwork by Avi snaps in with the basic 1-5-1 oom-pah bassline, and a distortion guitar solo at the break provides only brief relief from the longing. There is a left-to-right slapback on the lead vocal that's a little too slow to be heard as reverb and too fast for a discrete echo. With all the s's and t's in the lyrics, it is very distracting if you're listening on headphones, so just listen to this one on your stereo at home, or in the car. Even better would be mono, but then you'd miss the best and most elegantly executed stereo trick on the album. After the last chorus, the bass line fades into a mass of party conversation. An easy guitar and tambourine groove pans across and makes a niiiiiice segue into Track 8.

If you have any doubts about Zhenya's's ability to create a landscape, the lush psychedelia of If I Set You Free will put them to rest. This is a cool groove that you can sit and stare at the wall to. It makes for very good wig-out music. In keeping with Zhenya's compositional style, each new element that appears moves the song along, then fades into the background. Nothing ever completely goes away, it just becomes part of the texture. Subtle time smearing and stereo effects soften the ride. Is this another drug song? No, this will be the angry lover song from the next David Lynch movie. With cutting lyrics like

I've been poisoned by your kisses / and it made me blind
I've been marked with all your colors / it took away my mind

Happy That I Am Straight starts with a hi tech intro to pull you out of the psychedelic reverie. After all that ambience, a straight jump into trumpets & distorted guitars would be too harsh. This is the happy end-of-concert song. It's upbeat, it's loud, it's an "I love life!" song. You've gotta be in a good mood to say I love the people in LA. Happy That I Am Straight drives home that Doctor Z is as comfortable behind the studio console as he is behind the microphone. After Y2K's hyper-techno Shake Your Pelvis, he has learned how to make more graceful use of the digital tools available. The Hallelujah smarmy Vegas MC schtick at the end is pure cheesy gold. Zhenya thanks various influences, and if you listen closely, you may be able to identify your favorite special agent, roadie, or fast food restaurant.

If ...Straight is the finale, then Naked Rock Star is the encore. The steel guitar and shy whispering vocals paint a very intimate, and somewhat lonely, letter from a fan to his idol. The tone is "poor little rock star" sarcastic, and the fan is concerned that the star is taking care of himself in his tough superstar life. However, the fan's complete earnesty in lines like maybe I could carry your guitar case makes it kind of sad. True to the rules for writing an emotional ballad, the second verse is scored the same as the first, plus a lone tambourine. Naked Rock Star bookends as a down-to-earth chill-out to the party that started with Pilot John. Also a great answer to Straight, it's a not-so-subtle nudge to forget about the rock star junk, and remember that it's about the music.

On the whole, Bedroom Boogie is a strong album. Each song really moves and has been pared down to only those elements that further the main idea. As a producer and composer, Zhenya is more comfortable than ever before with electronic sound and has learned how to make a more graceful blend with the traditional Red Elvises instrumentation. Electronic music seems to be more of a means to an end now. The dense orchestrations don't seem obtrusive, and continually draw your attention back to the style and idea of each song. Each song in Bedroom Boogie stands on its own as a complete thought, and each song relates to the others to make Bedroom Boogie what an album is meant to be: a journey and a return.