Vopli Vidopliassova

History

The band was formed in 1986 by guitarist Yuri Zdorenko and bassist Oleksandr Pipa, who had played in the band SOS since 1984. It took its name from Vidopliassov, a character from The Village of Stepanchikovo. The band had their first performance at the Kiev rock club on 30 October 1987, with vocalist and accordionist Oleh Skrypka and drummer Serhiy Sakhno.

In 1988, the band played its first concert in Russia at the Rok-Artel festival. The concert was taped and released as Pershyy koncert v Moskvi.

In 1989, the band recorded a session at the Faberge Hall of Culture in Kiev, and released it as Tantsi. That same year, they appeared on the French compilation De Lenine a Lennon, the soundtrack to a French documentary on Soviet rock.

In 1990, they released the album Hey, O.K on Kobza International and appeared on the Canadian compilation This Ain't No Polka (a recording of the 1989 Chervona Ruta) with the song "Tantsi". The following year, they played at the Eurockeennes festival in France, and the recording was released as Abo abo on BSA Records a year later. In 1991, Skripka and Pipa moved to France and would divide their time between it and Ukraine, using Phillip Mozha (guitar) and Stefan Muflie (drums) as replacements for Zdorenko and Sakhno when touring in France.

In 1992, Skripka, Zdorenko, Pipa and Sakhno entered Komora Studio in Kiev to begin recording what would become their debut album, Kraina Mriy, released two years later.

In 1996, Skrypka and Pipa, who had just returned from France (having lived there since 1990), moved back to Ukraine and began recording the album Muzika, released in 1997. A single was released in 1996 with 4 tracks from the album. Skrypka sang, programmed the drums and played accordion, traditional Ukrainian folk instruments and some guitar, while Pipa played bass. Zdorenko played guitar on the track "Gei, liubo!". On the album, "Hei! Liubo!" is crossfaded with "Bogi", but on the single, it wasn't crossfaded and its natural ending rang out, however on recent compilations, it just cuts off at the part of the end where "Bogi" is expected to begin.

In 1997, Sakhno rejoined the band and Evhen Rohachevsky joined as guitarist. With this new lineup, they began recording their third album, Khvyli Amura, released in 2000. Around that time, Skrypka became interested in Indian music, and the album reflects that, particularly in the song "Den narodjennya".

In 2000, the band contributed tracks to tribute albums to Grazhdanskaya Oborona ("Pops") and Kino ("Pachka sigaret" and "Solnechnye dni"), and appeared on the Sprite Driver 2 compilation in 2001 with the song "Osen". The latter three songs were translated into Ukrainian and appeared as B-sides to the single "Mamay" that year. In 2002, the album Fayno was finally released, featuring "Solnechnye dni" (by then renamed "Sonyachni dni"), "Osen" (by then renamed "Zoryana osin"), a remixed version of "Mamay", a partially re-recorded version of "Pachka sigaret" (by then renamed "Pachka tsyharok") and a censored version of "Pops". The original presses on Lavina Music and Misteria Zvuka contained three bonus tracks: the original Russian version of "Osen", "The Pack of Cigarettes" (an English version of "Pachka sigaret") and "Les jours de soleil" (a French version of "Solnechnie dni"), demonstrating Oleh Skrypka's multilingualism.

In 2006, Oleksandr Pipa left the band and was replaced by Oleksiy Melchenko. They then recorded the album Buly denky, a compilation of old songs from the late 80s and early 90s which had never got the studio treatment before, but which had been played live. That year, they played the first "Rok-Sich" festival, a festival started by Skrypka with the intent to foster local talent. The rules for the Rock Sich are that any genre other than pop is acceptable and that all bands must sing in Ukrainian, however VV broke their own rule and played "Pops" at the concert in the original Russian and with the original uncensored lyrics. The performance was released on CD in 2008, DVD in 2011 and double LP in 2012. The standard one-CD version of the Rock Sich album had two tracks cut due to space constraints, but a two-CD version was available with the missing tracks restored. The missing tracks were also on the vinyl and DVD.

They released the singles "Lado" and "Chio San" in 2009 and "Vidpustka" (a reworking of a track from 1987) in 2010.

The band is still active. Their next album, "Chudovy svit", was released on 18 October 2013. "Lado", "Chio San" and "Vidpustka" were included on the album.

The group have been carrying out a vinyl rerelease campaign, with Kraina Mriy, Muzika and Xvyli Amura being the first to be released in 2013. Fayno and Chudovy svit followed in 2016. Buly denky had already been released on vinyl in 2008.

Current members

Former members

Discography

Video clips

In video clips traces the love of Ukrainian car industry. So in the video for the song Musika can be seen ZAZ-1105 Dana, and in the video for the song Polonyna except car LuAZ Volyn-1302 also tractor HTZ T-150 and T-64B. In a recent video clip Vacation attended two convertibles based on ZAZ-965 and ZAZ-968