Ken's sleevenotes to the sound files:

1. Time Talk. Timetalk

Our 1990 tour of Russia covered immense distances - from Leningrad to Vladivostok. And that often meant several dramatic changes of time zones in a single day.
This conversation took place in an Aeroflot hostel in Novosibirsk. For reasons far too complicated to go into here, we were effectively stranded in Novosibirsk airport.
After at least 24 hours of frustration and disorientation - fuelled admittedly by dry Georgian white wine and vodka - we finally secured a flight to Leningrad at 3am (something to do with the spare seats the KGB always kept on flights for emergencies).
Or was it 3am?
The trouble was that all flights were scheduled on Moscow time. And in the capital of Siberia we were several hours adrift.
The discussion in Russian and English attempts to resolve the problem.
Note - we did make the flight on time, only to have a similar conversation when we arrived in Leningrad - where the driver failed to meet us having decided to go drinking instead.

2. Vladivostok.Vladivostok
On many of the tour dates, Boris spend a long time trying to get permissions to go to the next city. The only way we could get into Vladivostok - a closed city - was to get a special invitation from the City Council. And Boris succeeded in obtaining it.
One short flight later and we were greeted enthusiastically at the airport as the first British musicians to play in Vladivostok since the revolution.
The organisers had plastered our names and "Friendly British Invasion" over the front of the theatre we were to play in.
When we inspected the stage however it had a set resembling a mountain on it - making it impossible to set up a drum kit.
However an actor/carpenter stepped forward and announced that he would construct a special stage for us in time for the evening's concert.
And he did.
Russians were always doing things like this, demonstrating great improvisational skills.
At another concert's sound-check we discovered there were no cymbal stands with the drum kit. Again, a stage manager said: "No problem, I'll make some." When we expressed some doubt, he added: "Not to worry. I used to be a tour manager for a rock band. We once did a gig on a nuclear submarine. No problem."
And sure enough, he later produced a couple of improvised cymbal stands complete with a tilting mechanism.

3. Moscow. Moscow

The thing I remember about the Moscow concert was how well organised it was - except for one thing. The drum kit was in a locked room - and nobody had the key. I explained to them I had been in the same position before, in Slovakia when organisers had to break into a community centre to retrieve the instrument as police cars patrolled nearby.
Clearly, the Russians weren't going to be outdone, and a kit soon materialised onstage. This was the last concert of the month-long tour.
We had had a glimpse of Russia, and we had acquired a taste for Siberia.
As we flew back home, we realised that this tour would change our lives, but it was only on subsequent tours we discovered just how much our spiritual, political, and musical attitudes were going to be reformed.

And for this we owe a considerable debt to Boris Podkosov.


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