Yegor Letov
| Yegor Letov | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Igor Fyodorovich Letov |
| Also known as | Yegor Letov |
| Born | 10 September 1964 Omsk, USSR |
| Died | 19 February 2008 (aged 43) |
| Genres | punk, post-punk, noise rock, garage rock, psychedelic rock, shoegaze, hardcore punk, noise, industrial, experimental music, avant-garde, musique concrète, plunderphonics, conceptual art, singer-songwriter |
| Occupation(s) | poet, musician, vocalist, songwriter, producer, painter |
| Instruments | singing, guitar, bass guitar, drums, noises, tape loops |
| Years active | 1982–2008 |
| Labels | GrOb-records,Zolotaya Dolina(on LP 1992–1994), BSA, HOR, Misteriya Zvuka, Vyrgorod |
| Associated acts | Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Kommunizm, Kuzya UO, Egor and Opizdenevshiye, Yanka Dyagileva |
| Website | http://www.gr-oborona.ru |
Igor Fyodorovich "Yegor" Letov (Russian: И́горь Фёдорович (Его́р) Ле́тов [ˈiɡərʲ ˈfʲɵdərəvʲɪtɕ jɪˈɡor ˈlʲɛtəf]; 10 September 1964 – 19 February 2008) was a Russian poet, musician, singer-songwriter, audio engineer and conceptual art painter, best known as the founder and leader of the post-punk/psychedelic rock band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Civil Defense). He was also the founder of a conceptual art avant-garde project Kommunizm and psychedelic rock outfit Egor i Opizdenevshie. Letov is a younger brother of famous free jazz saxophonist Sergey Letov. He also collaborated with singer-songwriter Yanka Dyagileva and some other Siberian underground artists as a record engineer and producer.
Letov was born in Omsk, Siberia to Fyodor Letov, a military man and World War II veteran from Northern Ural (Perm Krai), and Tamara Letova, a doctor of Russian Cossack origin from Kazakhstan. Letov family has Russian, Mordvin, Komi and Turkic ancestors. They moved to Omsk from Semipalatinsk a few years before Yegor's birth. From a young age Yegor and his older brother Sergei were of weak health, and Yegor even had few clinical deaths in his childhood. After graduating school, Yegor went to live with his brother, who was in Moscow at the time and was a relatively successful jazz saxophonist. There he learned to play some instruments (drums, bass guitar), had contacts with Moscow underground avant-garde artists, and enrolled in a professional technical school as a builder, where he worked as a plasterer. Two years later, in 1984, Letov left the technical school and returned to Omsk. At this time he had already started writing poetry and short stories, and decided to try music. He mostly listened to Rock in Opposition and free jazz back in the early 80s, and his first recordings were very amateurish garage rock, using suitcases instead of drums. Later, Letov characterized these recordings as "talentless curiosity", "baby talk" and "shame and reproach". Soon he found fellow musicians and companions in Omsk, who also listened to this type of music (which was very unpopular and little known in the USSR, especially in deep province such as Siberia), and they started the garage rock band Posev (Russian for sowing, crop, seeds). The most important of these companions was Konstantin Ryabinov (better known as Kuzya UO or Kuzma), a musician and poet, who was Letov's comrade-in-arms in Grazhdanskaya Oborona up to the late 90s, and a close friend. Posev became Grazhdanskaya Oborona in November 1984.
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