Bambir Midnight Bash, The Club, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

An email message posted to subscribers of a civil society mailing list bills tonight’s show by Bambir as their first in Yerevan, but what they mean is the first in a long, long time. For six months last year the Gyumri rock band played the club circuit in Los Angeles and other cities in the U.S., before returning to Armenia in December.

Tonight will be their first show here in something like eight months, and ironically coincides with Army Day in Armenia — as the email explained.

MURDER IN A UNIFORM IS HEROIC, IN A COSTUME IT IS A CRIME!

Abbie Hoffman

THE BAMBIR

On

The day of Armed Forces

LIVE SHOW AT “STOP CLUB” ON JANUARY 28, AT 09:00pm
Moskovyan 37, Stop Club

The concert is likely to be packed, and after meeting up with the band for some drinks last night, that does seem to be the case. It’s no wonder, I suppose, as the Yerevan rock scene is very small, but more than that, there is no other singer or band in Armenia in any genre with the same kind of attitude and spirit as Bambir.

It’s well past midnight when Narek Barseghyan and Arman Kocharyan, lead guitarist and bassist with the Armenian rock band Bambir, return home. For once, they’ve decided to call it an early night, providing me with the opportunity to interview them over a bottle of vodka diluted down with orange juice.

Narek says he feels like drinking screwdrivers tonight rather than the more customary vodka drunk straight.

At the very least, it means that it will take a lot longer before speech becomes slurred, and the whole point of the interview is lost. An early Bob Dylan recording is playing in the background as we start to speak about the band in an old apartment building now overshadowed by half a dozen high-rises being built on Yerevan ’s prestigious northern avenue.

[…]

“Our life is rock ‘n roll,” says Barseghyan. “Our parents were some of the first hippies in Soviet Armenia, and that wasn’t easy back then. As a child, whenever I couldn’t sleep, my parents would put on Jethro Tull for me to listen to. I couldn’t fall asleep to Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix – only Jethro Tull.”

Narek, the band’s guitarist pictured above, came round to my apartment last week to take a look at some of my photos for possible use on one of their music videos. The song some hundred plus images of socially vulnerable families in Armenia will be used for is about children and those deprived of their mothers because of poverty and war.

Narek said he was listening to an early recording of that song while coincidently looking through my book, Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy, and said the idea for the video came immediately to mind. Well, let’s see. It sounds good to me. Anyway, in case any of you pop along to Stop tonight, don’t be surprised if you don’t recognize Narek, pictured playing guitar above.

He’s shaved off all of his hair and now sports an earring.

Rock ‘n Roll.

Agarak, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003

Hostel, Erebuni, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003-4

Berd, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004