Югендштиль

Югендштиль (The Jugendstil band) was formed in St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad) in late 1980s. After trying his worth with various musicians, the founder of the band Герман Подстаницкий (German Podstanitsky) (bass, vocal) started collaborating with the guitarist Андрей Градович (Andrey Gradovich) and the twosome began rehearaing the music which later they would play live with the original line-up. They were joined by an inventive, technically accomplished drummer, Виталий Сокульский (Vitaly Sokylsky). Jugendstil freqienrly played many Petersburg venues: they were nearly the home-band of the famous TamTam club; Moscow and other Russian cities as well as Germany also had had a chance to appreciate them live. They made themselves quite renowed participating in some Indie-festivals. Their cassette-only albums which brought them a considerable following were actually taped during reheadsals with further sound-effects overdubbed while re-taping from one recorder to the other. Many live concerts were taped from the engineer’s desk and then became popular among fans; some sets were videoed and later spread from one home-video recorder to the other («friends to friends»). The band had its heyday in the early 1990s, with their music committed to tape at professional studios in Petersburg (Antrop Studio Tropillo’s; Lenfilm; Melodya). In 1995 the drummer Sokulsky left, being replaced by Александр Браун Alexander Brown; this line-up played some city clubs and also dissolved. Later Podstanitsky and Gradovich tried to revive the band with another drummer, Игорь Мосин (Igor Mosin) (ex-Bad Influence, or Дурное Влияние), but this met with little success. Band memvers became involved with their families and other persolal affairs.
In 2017 German Podstanitsky died in a tragic accident.