U.: Recorded in the same basement. There's only one new song, the last (title) one, written after I visited one of my old friends (the one who had named me Umka and whom I'd had a great crush on). "I've known you for 20 years, first time at your place.. Your wife is like an angel, cooking cakes, your children are eager to recite poems for us, you're a bit sick but it's OK. You were spinning this heaven over your head, you could lift the earth with one hand, you were the lonely warrior fighting with the war, and now you are in this paradise, the Veterans' Heaven". (Unfortunately, the guy died in 2005 of blood cancer). All the other songs are back from '86-87, rather well known among our crowd, but the old versions on the home made tapes were unbearably improper, so I decided to make them all right. The nightingale of the hidden track was recorded to a home tape recorder put on the window pane; it was in May, we lived near one of the Moscow best parks Izmailovo, large and beautiful like a real wood.

Umka & Bro
Veterans' Heaven

  1. Low Start (1997)
  2. Hitch-Hiking Blues(1986) MP3
  3. Fish of Glass (1986) MP3
  4. Brother Frank (1986) MP3
  5. Sparrow (1998)
  6. Freedom Ass Backwards (1986) MP3
  7. Junkie (1986)
  8. Just Better (1998)
  9. High Society Street Cleaner (1986)
  10. Here and Now (1986) MP3
  11. Loving Way (1997) MP3
  12. California (1986)
  13. Veterans' Heaven

Songs by Umka, music by Umka & Bro

Umka - voice
Boris Kanunnikov - first guitar
Denis Dudoladov - second guitar
Mikhail Trofimenko - bass
Boris Markov - drums
Igor Oistrakh - harp
Masha Rabinovich - violin
Pavel Freichko - keyboards

Recorded in Spring 2002 with the help of A.Kalagov and his computer. Mixed in Fall 2002 by Ian Survillo (MYM) and Bro. Mastering by E.Gapeev. Artwork by Roman Furman (influenced by Alton Kelley's Jefferson Airplane - Grateful Dead poster, 1968). Black and white sketch by Boris K. Design by D.Dziuba and Umka

Otdelenie Vyhod & Bro :) 2002. All rights allegedly reserved


Fish Of Glass

my footsteps are so slight and weak
I'm feeling oh so light and meek
I feel so easy as I pass
I'm feeling like a fish of glass

the wind is whistling through my bone
the crowd is leaving me alone
the cloud of crowd around me spins
they are afraid of needles and pins

so narrow is my path to step
I've got little horns beneath my cap
I've got little hooves inside my boots
to scare the cops and other dudes

so light to pass, so hard to catch
I feel just like a burning match
I feel just like a leave of grass
I feel just like a fish of glass


Loving Way

When you walk loving way
Is it loving away
To & fro
Round the clock night and day
Always ready to stay
Or go
Way of seeing a flash
Way of losing your flesh
Snow & rain
Lie - lay - my - may -
Loving way

I will never complain,
Never show me your pain
Loving way
Here's a gun for the killer
We all may be killers, I say
For delay or decay
There is no one to blame
And claim
Game - flame - no name -
Loving way

Chorus:
I will paint my guitar
All lilac and purple
I will rush through the backdoor
Into silvery world
I will enter your glass store
In heavy big boots
Smash - crash - flash - splash
Loving way

You may say anything
You may take it and sing -
It's a song
Once I dreamt of two rivals
Trying to fight for a girl
The mistake was the lake
Both naked in bright summer day
Oh, and water is hard to be cruel and smash
Only flash - splash - slow - blow
Loving way

Chorus:


California

oh my friend
when we wake up, in the end
on the beach in California, then
I'll hand you a handful of sand -
but now you wait  -
here at night
we share one cigarette's light
flying high as a kite
and you'll just hold me tight

but later on
time will pass
the light was too small to last
and a room was a thing to pass
destroyed by a mighty fire

bells will ring
and we'll remember life's a dream
and the water will be so clean
in the dream forever blue and green
la la la la
in California, by the sea
and the dream is so clear and free
forever for you and me