Mashina Vremeni

Mashina Vremeni
Mashina Vremeni meets Russian president Dmitri Medvedev. L-R: Medvedev, Yefremov, Margulis, Makarevich
Background information
Origin	Moscow, Soviet Union
Genres	Blues rock, Rock and roll, Progressive rock (early years)
Years active	1969–present
Website	www.mashina.ru
Members	Andrey Makarevich Alexander Kutikov Andrey Derzhavin Valeriy Efremov
Past members	Evgeny Margulis Sergey Kavagoe † Petr Podgorodetsky Alexander Zaicev † Sergey Rizenko Yuri Borzov Maxim Kapitanovsky Yuri Foskin

Mashina Vremeni (Russian: Машина времени, Russian for Time Machine) is a Russian rock band founded in 1969. Mashina Vremeni was a pioneer of Soviet rock music, and remains one of the oldest still active rock bands in Russia. The band's music incorporates elements of classic rock, blues, and Russian folk music. Mashina Vremeni's best known members are Andrei Makarevich - the founder, principal singer-songwriter and the band's public persona, Alexander Kutikov - the bass player and producer/sound engineer, and guitarist/songwriter Evgeny Margulis.

Andrei Makarevich's musical career can be traced to a school band called The Kids that was made up of two male guitarists and two female vocalists. The group sang mostly English-language folk songs and performed primarily at talent shows put on in Moscow schools. According to Makarevich, the momentous event in his musical career came when the Soviet group VIA Atlanty (Russian: ВИА «Атланты») visited his school and allowed him to play a couple of songs on their equipment during a break in the performance. On the heels of this experience, Makarevich joined with other musically talented students from his school and another school to form Mashiny Vremeni (Time Machines - in plural form imitating The Beatles, Rolling Stones etc.) The most significant founders included Sergey Kavagoe and Andrey Makarevich. The band's repertoire consisted of eleven songs in English, now lost.

Mashina Vremeni's sound is eclectic and incorporates multiple different genres. Contributions to song composition have been made by almost every band member, and often reflect each member's particular stylistic preferences. Makarevich is a renowned fan of The Beatles, and many of his songs reflect the Beatles' influence. He is also influenced by blues music and Soviet singers-songwriters, the so-called "bards". Kutikov is a quintessential rocker, he composes guitar-oriented hard rock. Margulis is one of the Russia's best known bluesmen, and his songs are usually blues rock ballads.