Pustye Hlopoty (Useless Troubles)

PUSTYE HLOPOTY in 1995: S. Arkhipov, M. Sokolov, A. Baturin

The student rock group PUSTYE HLOPOTY (Usless Troubles) was originated at the Chelybinsk State University (Chelyabinsk, Russia) in January of 1993 by a graduate student Maxim Sokolov. By that time Maxim, influenced by Yuri Naumov and some other rock musicians, had written several songs which did not sound well without a group. A couple of his friends got enthusiastic about the idea of creating a new group, so they found a place and some instruments and started rehearsals.

The initial name of the group was Province. The first performance (3 songs) took place in the ChelSU's 2-nd Hall in the spring of 1993. Besides Maxim Sokolov, who was singing and playing acoustic guitar, the group consisted of Evgenii Fominykh (guitar, vocal), Slava Arhipov (bass), and Maxim Klimentiev (guitar). The drums were played by a "session drummer" Ilia Leontiev. First success came with the performance in the Chelybinsk Drama Theater packed with ChelSU students in November 1993. Maxim and Slava (Arkhipov) with support of the group Plaksy (Cries), performed one of the group's future hits "Retro".

By the end of 1993 the group was on the edge of dying. Most of the times only Maxim and Slava attended rehearsals. Besides all the troubles, the guys found out that the name Province was already taken by another group, so they decided to change the name for PUSTYE HLOPOTY (Useless Troubles), or, shortly, PH. The first performance under the new name took place at the club Sizaja Cherepaha. In the beginning of 1994 a ChelSU alumni Igor Kaymov organized under the roof of ChelSU (3rd Hall) the student rock club Minotavr. The environment for student rock groups improved dramatically. By the spring, PH was joined by a new guitarist Evgenii Portnov and a permanent drummer Alexei Kulikov (also a good pianist). The group started performing on a semi-regular basis. During April and May of 1994 the guys performed about 10 times on different stages of Chelyabinsk. Such frequency has been never achieved after that. Sinse then, Minotavr became the main scene for PH. In the fall of 1994 Evgenii Portnov left and was substituted by a talanted guitarist Alexei Kakshin whose playing can be heard on the album "Omut" (Whirlpool).

In 1995-1996 academic year the group consisted of three members: Maxim Sokolov (vocal, guitar), Slava Arkhipov (bass), and Alexei Baturin(drums, vocal). The guys became well known among Chelyabinsk rock underground. In the summer of 1996 Maxim Sokolov left the country because he was accepted to George Washington University (USA). Since then the PH performs only during summer breaks, when Maxim visits the hometown.

There is a web page created by Ivan Strelec, devoted to some Chelyabinsk rock groups. It contains plenty of .wav and .mp3 files with songs by PUSTYE HLOPOTY and Maxim Sokolov.

Check the Albums page to listen to some of the songs recorded in the RealAudio and .mp3 formats.
After rehersal...