Gurdjieff distinguishing between conscience and morality

Extract from In Search of the Miraculous by P.D.Ouspensky, quoting G.I. Gurdjieff. "You often think in a very naive way," he said. "You already think you can do. To get rid of this conviction is more difficult than anything else for a man. You do not understand all the complexity of your organization and you do not realize that every effort, in addition to the results desired, even if it gives these, gives thousands of unexpected and often undesirable results, and the chief thing that you forget is that you are not beginning from the beginning with a nice clean, new machine. There stand behind you many years of a wrong and stupid life, of indulgence in every kind of weakness, of shutting your eyes to your own errors, of striving to avoid all unpleasant truths, of constant lying to yourselves, of self-justification, of blaming others, and so on, and so on. All this cannot help affecting the machine. The machine is dirty, in places it is rusty, and in some places artificial appliances have been formed, the necessity for which has been created by its own wrong way of working. "These artificial appliances will now interfere very much with all your good intentions. "They are called 'buffers.' " 'Buffer' is a term which requires special explanation. We know what buffers on railway carriages are. They are the contrivances which lessen the shock when carriages or trucks strike one another. If there were no buffers the shock of one carriage against another would be very unpleasant and dangerous. Buffers soften the results of these shocks and render them unnoticeable and imperceptible. "Exactly the same appliances are to be found within man. They are created, not by nature but by man himself, although involuntarily. The cause of their appearance is the existence in man of many contradictions; contradictions of opinions, feelings, sympathies, words, and actions. If a man throughout the whole of his life were to feel all the contradictions that are within him he could not live and act as calmly as he lives and acts now. He would have constant friction, constant unrest. We fail to see how contradictory and hostile the different I's of our personality are to one another. If a man were to feel all these contradictions he would feel what he really is. He would feel that he is mad. It is not pleasant to anyone to feel that he is mad. Moreover, a thought such as this deprives a man of self-confidence, weakens his energy, deprives him of 'self-respect.' Somehow or other he must master this thought or banish it. He must either destroy contradictions or cease to see and to feel them. A man cannot destroy contradictions. But if 'buffers' are created in him he can cease to feel them and he will not feel the impact from the clash of contradictory views, contradictory emotions, contradictory words. "'Buffers' are created slowly and gradually. Very many 'buffers' are created artificially through 'education.' Others are created under the hypnotic influence of all surrounding life. A man is surrounded by people who live, speak, think, and feel by means of 'buffers.' Imitating them in their opinions, actions, and words, a man involuntarily creates similar 'buffers' in himself. 'Buffers' make a man's life more easy. It is very hard to live without 'buffers.' But they keep man from the possibility of inner development because 'buffers' are made to lessen shocks and it is only shocks that can lead a man out of the state in which he lives, that is, waken him. 'Buffers' lull a man to sleep, give him the agreeable and peaceful sensation that all will be well, that no contradictions exist and that he can sleep in peace. 'Buffers' are appliances by means of -which a man can always be in the right. 'Buffers' help a man not to feel his conscience. " 'Conscience' is again a term that needs explanation. "In ordinary life the concept 'conscience' is taken too simply. As if we had a conscience. Actually the concept 'conscience' in the sphere of the emotions is equivalent to the concept 'consciousness' in the sphere of the intellect. And as we have no consciousness we have no conscience. "Consciousness is a state in which a man knows all at once everything that he in general knows and in which he can see how little he does know and how many contradictions there are in what he knows. "Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable. "If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called 'conscience. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to sleep, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another. "But fortunately for man, that is, for his peace and for his sleep, this state of conscience is very rare. From early childhood 'buffers' begin to grow and strengthen in him, taking from him the possibility of seeing his inner contradictions and therefore, for him, there is no danger whatever of a sudden awakening. Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it. For this it is necessary to destroy 'buffers,' that is, to go out to meet all those inner sufferings which are connected with the sensations of contradictions. Moreover the destruction of 'buffers' in itself requires very long work and a man must agree to this work realizing that the result of his work will be every possible discomfort and suffering from the awakening of his conscience. "But conscience is the fire which alone can fuse all the powders in the glass retort which was mentioned before and create the unity which a man lacks in that state in which he begins to study himself. "The concept 'conscience' has nothing in common with the concept 'morality.' "Conscience is a general and a permanent phenomenon. Conscience is the same for all men and conscience is possible only in the absence of 'buffers.' From the point of view of understanding the different categories of man we may say that there exists the conscience of a man in whom there are no contradictions. This conscience is not suffering; on the contrary it is joy of a totally new character which we are unable to understand. But even a momentary awakening of conscience in a man who has thousands of different I's is bound to involve suffering. And if these moments of conscience become longer and if a man does not fear them but on the contrary co operates with them and tries to keep and prolong them, an element of very subtle joy, a foretaste of the future 'clear consciousness' will gradually enter into these moments. "There is nothing general in the concept of 'morality.' Morality consists of buffers. There is no general morality. What is moral in China is immoral in Europe and what is moral in Europe is immoral in China. What is moral in Petersburg is immoral in the Caucasus. And what is moral in the Caucasus is immoral in Petersburg. What is moral in one class of society is immoral in another and vice versa. Morality is always and everywhere an artificial phenomenon. It consists of various 'taboos,' that is, restrictions, and various demands, sometimes sensible in their basis and sometimes having lost all meaning or never even having had any meaning, and having been created on a false basis, on a soil of superstition and false fears. "Morality consists of 'buffers.' And since 'buffers' are of various kinds, and as the conditions of life in different countries and in different ages or among different classes of society vary considerably, so the morality created by them is also very dissimilar and contradictory. A morality common to all does not exist. It is even impossible to say that there exists any general idea of morality, for instance, in Europe. It is said sometimes that the general morality for Europe is 'Christian morality.' But first of all the idea of 'Christian morality' itself admits of very many different interpretations and many different crimes have been justified by 'Christian morality.' And in the second place modern Europe has very little in common with 'Christian morality,' no matter how we understand this morality. "In any case, if 'Christian morality' brought Europe to the war which is now going on, then it would be as well to be as far as possible from such morality," "Many people say that they do not understand the moral side of your teaching," said one of us. "And others say that your teaching has no morality at all." "Of course not," said G. "People are very fond of talking about morality. But morality is merely self-suggestion. What is necessary is conscience. We do not teach morality. We teach how to find conscience. People are not pleased when we say this. They say that we have no love. Simply because we do not encourage weakness and hypocrisy but, on the contrary, take off all masks. He who desires the truth will not speak of love or of Christianity because he knows how far he is from these. Christian teaching is for Christians. And Christians are those who live, that is, who do everything, according to Christ's precepts. Can they who talk of love and morality live according to Christ's precepts? Of course they cannot; but there will always be talk of this kind, there will always be people to whom words are more precious than anything else. But this is a true sign! He who speaks like this is an empty man; it is not worth while wasting time on him. "Morality and conscience are quite different things. One conscience can never contradict another conscience. One morality can always very easily contradict and completely deny another. A man with 'buffers' may be very moral. And 'buffers' can be very different, that is, two very moral men may consider each other very immoral. As a rule it is almost inevitably so. The more 'moral' a man is, the more 'immoral' does he think other moral people. "The idea of morality is connected with the idea of good and evil conduct. But the idea of good and evil is always different for differentpeople, always subjective in man number one, number two, and number three, and is connected only with a given moment or a given situation. A subjective man can have no general concept of good and evil. For a subjective man evil is everything that is opposed to his desires or interests or to his conception of good. "One may say that evil does not exist for subjective man at all, that there exist only different conceptions of good. Nobody ever does anything deliberately in the interests of evil, for the sake of evil. Everybody acts in the interests of good, as he understands it. But everybody understands it in a different way. Consequently men drown, slay, and kill one another in the interests of good. The reason is again just the same, men's ignorance and the deep sleep in which they live. "This is so obvious that it even seems strange that people have never thought of it before. However, the fact remains that they fail to understand this and everyone considers his good as the only good and all the rest as evil. It is naive and useless to hope that men will ever understand this and that they will evolve a general and identical idea of good." "But do not good and evil exist in themselves apart from man?" asked someone present. "They do," said G., "only this is very far away from us and it is not worth your while even to try to understand this at present. Simply remember one thing. The only possible permanent idea of good and evil for man is connected with the idea of evolution; not with mechanical evolution, of course, but with the idea of man's development through conscious efforts, the change of his being, the creation of unity in him, and the formation of a permanent I. "A permanent idea of good and evil can be formed in man only in connection with a permanent aim and a permanent understanding. If a man understands that he is asleep and if he wishes to awake, then everything that helps him to awake will be good and everything that hinders him, everything that prolongs his sleep, will be evil. Exactly in the same way will he understand what is good and evil for other people. What helps them to awake is good, what hinders them is evil. But this is so only for those who want to awake, that is, for those who understand that they are asleep. Those who do not understand that they are asleep and those who can have no wish to awake, cannot have understanding of good and evil. And as the overwhelming majority of people do not realize and will never realize that they are asleep, neither good nor evil can actually exist for them. "This contradicts generally accepted ideas. People are accustomed to think that good and evil must be the same for everyone, and above all that good and evil exist for everyone. In reality, however, good and evil exist only for a few, for those who have an aim and who pursue that aim. Then what hinders the pursuit of that aim is evil and what helps is good."But of course most sleeping people will say that they have an aim and that they are going somewhere. The realization of the fact that he has no aim and that he is not going anywhere is the first sign of the approaching awakening of a man or of awakening becoming really possible for him. Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go. ********** End of extract Become yourself, and God and the Devil don't matter

worthy of interest

brainsturbator

eye of the cyclone

daily grail

reality sandwich

red ice creations

ingo swann

Þeyr

Uploads of Icelandic band Þeyr, including 3 tracks with Jaz of Killing Joke

http://fritzdiesspinne.blogspot.com/search?q=%C3%9Eeyr

Some things you may not have known about the career of Mr. Coleman.

Also, synchronicity strikes? I II

On the CD The Courtauld Talks, Coleman prophesied the return of the 'Elder Gods' described in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. Here is an excerpt, the full effect of which is hampered by the absence of Coleman's manic, hectoring delivery.

Hear me out, please.

The major means of contact between the conscious man and the Elder Gods are the forgotten ones. Now, the forgotten ones dwell in the individual and irrational unconscious. They are the gods of survival, they are pre-rational, they are blind and immensely powerful. Their force manifested in man as hunger, the sex urge, the 'fight or flight' adrenaline reaction and the tribal cohesion factor. Hunger constitutes the primary link between the Elder Gods and the forgotten ones. The search for nourishment antedates the desire for mating, even the asexual amoeba must eat to survive. The process consists of the intake and assimilation of energy either directly as in vegetable photosynthesis or indirectly by consuming energy-storing matter. The forgotten ones seek both matter and energy. Particularly in substances that consist of both modes: blood, mediumistic ectoplasm, the alchemical elixir; now, this type of substance is used to trap the forgotten ones into manifestation.

Dare we entertain it, to effectively counter a planetary invasion by the Elder Gods the forgotten ones must be summoned to consciousness. In the process the individual's demons will be released and must be reabsorbed, the forgotten ones must be comprehended and absorbed and the link that exists between them and the Elder Gods must be obtained and controlled by the will of the magician. The forgotten ones have been left to work and function in the lower levels of sentience, gathering power and accumulating explosive potential under pressure. Now, it is in the controlled release of these gods that the consciousness will be propelled beyond its present state and achieve the next and necessary condition of gestalt-consciousness.

I believe!

*********

                            ONION-PEELINGS

  The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General
    at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER
    PERDURABO, and laughed.
  But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the
    Universal Sorrow.
  Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal
    Joke.
  Below these certain disciples wept.
  Then certain laughed.
  Others next wept.
  Others next laughed.
  Next others wept.
  Next others laughed.
  Last came those that wept because they could not
    see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they
    should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought
    it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.
  But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed
    openly, He also at the same time wept secretly;
    and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
  Nor did He mean what He said.

Phoenix

According to this article at cultpunk.com, not only Killing Joke, but also the Amebix will reform to tour!

There is even a suggestion in the comments of Amebix supporting KJ... dream or possibility?

Here, a post made by Rob Miller on a certain forum:

This was something i put together when i first came into this space a couple of days ago,but i left it on my desktop,as i didnt think i should tackle things so head on,but i have to reconsider that stand in the light of some of the comments that have come up here,.....have a stab at me and i dont mind at all,but have a stab at my Brothers and Sisters and i will cut you down.

Well,
I just learned one thing, don’t go on the Forums late at night, I went to sleep angry and awoke angry, and I’m still fucking angry, having trawled through pages of Posts riddled with bad will and negativity. Its as though I never left the ‘scene’ those twenty odd Years ago, the same people are still at the helm of the ship, the same nay sayers and self appointed Moral Guardians, the same Self righteous little pricks feasting on the remains of the corpse.
What do we KNOW?
What do we really KNOW so far?
How did my posts about a project I am working on get to a discussion about an Amebix reunion? Did I say anything about that?
How did all these pumped up little kings of conjecture manage to create a sewing circle gossip ring around something which has not been discussed?
Lets take a look at Amebix,briefly.1978-1987, a Band that was not subject to any Genre, loosely Punk with a metal influence, almost Universally ignored or hated amongst our Peers, ripped off by the Cream of the Anarcho Establishment, whom we now find actually paid all or royalties back to themselves!, living a tough life on the streets, funding almost all our own recordings, and never making a penny from what we did. By 1987 we had been almost entirely starved to death, the Pompous Anarcho scene had spurned us completely, the Band had nothing left, and died alone, unnoticed.
20 Years on and it’s a Cult Phenomenon, Amebix gave 100 percent, always true to ourselves and our philosophy, and left behind a righteous Legacy of Work. A few more well known acts have quoted the Band as an influence on their work, and that has turned a few people on to the Music itself. My Artwork has been used on Thousands of shirts, badges, posters etc, bootlegs of any available material have been available for Years, but only one person ever made the effort to contact me and say ‘hey,I’ve made a lot of money from your Artwork, how would you like to be paid’. Everyone else just grazes on what they can get for nothing, never learning one of the true lessons in this Life, what we don’t pay for we don’t value.
So, Roy and I started on this Project as a release of Live material that I have been collecting over the Years, after an initial meeting we decided that it would be good to get a few interviews with the Band and associates, this has actually turned the whole perspective around, everyone was so up for it that we now have an interesting and comprehensive Documentary History of the Band, with hopefully some left field material too from Japan, animation, photos etc, as well as the footage that we have just shot. It was our intention to make something that we would be proud of, a Document that would have a lot of material and interest for people, not just an in and out Live material release after all. The Story led me to the conclusion that I would like to see how the songs stand up now, and to a crazy idea that I could bring me and Stig into a practice room after 20 years to find out. Spider was not an option, he has Tinnitus and cannot play drums at all due to this, which is tragic, theres someone who paid his dues.
Alicia had told me about Roy, and I go in touch, not expecting his reply. Roy has always upheld his love for the Band throughout his career, he is also the best drummer I have ever witnessed, someone who plays completely from his heart, I count him as a Brother now for his complete Support and willingness to give everything for this project. I said to the Boys from the outset that we needed to be self critical about what we were doing, if it didn’t measure up then we would have to abandon that part of the Project , that was understood.
I borrowed money to pay for Flights, Roy Wallace has already run up around £10k of his own expenses putting everything together and travelling one end of the Country to the other for interviews etc, everyone has done what they have for no reward, just for the love of the Music and through a great Enthusiasm (from the Greek, enthusiasmus – to be full of God)
We rolled with this and we are so very proud of what we have achieved, deciding also to DIY it as a signpost to others, and do all the graft ourselves, so hey…Marketing, the great SIN, of course we are going to Market it you fucking Morons, I would like to get some money back so my wife and child are looked after, the same for Stig, now he has two boys, and no income. Max isn’t on this yet, I hope to get an interview with him, they were street kids in Brazil when Arise came out, the same people as us, that’s what I am talking about, I am glad that people have made their way above this sad Miasma of dark negativity that is the cess pool of punk idealism, that kills everything and nurtures nothing. You know whom I am addressing here, my apologies to those with their heads in the Air, but to you others..Fuck you, and fuck your twisted Morality, we bled for people like you, the People who killed Amebix way back then, and who would do it again if they had the chance.
To those who show kind words of encouragement, thank you, we treasure the Good Will and generosity, and will try as ever to be true to ourselves.

To those others I will leave the outro from Arise, written for you back in 1985, and offered to you again 23 years later:

You look like the ranks of the Damned, no pride, bedraggled masses of tortured and twisted Humanity.
You, you sow the rotting Seeds of Gloom and despair amongst your own ranks
Pathetic snivelling little turds, assuming the identity of the down and out
Pathetic sheeplike cretins,
Hopeless Clowns in a circus which has long since died
ARISE you fucking Assholes and rejoice!
Speak now or forever hold your Peace.

Rob ‘The Baron’ Miller
No Gods No Masters

The reissue of Monolith has been made available by the band for download for a voluntary donation at:

http://www.moshpit-tragedy.com/main.shtml

Also, here is a post of a live recording from Ljubljana in 1986 that later became the "Make some fucking noise" CD.

ORIGINAL LINE-UP OF KILLING JOKE PLAY 3 CLASSIC ALBUMS BACK TO BACK ON WORLD TOUR AND RELEASE NEW ALBUM

Finally, after numerous line-up changes through the years, all original Killing Joke members reunite for new album and world tour.

Drummer, Paul Ferguson, rejoins the line up for the first time since 1987 enabling a whole new generation of fans to see Killing Joke's legendary original formation. Diehard fans have been waiting for this moment for two decades!

Bassist, Martin 'Youth' Glover also steps back into the live arena after a near 15 hiatus, having not played live with Killing Joke since 1994's Pandemonium tour.

The tour will see Killing Joke take up a two night residency in most venues offering a different set on each evening. On the first night, they will play their first two albums in their entirety, 1980's self-titled album followed by the album 'What's This…For!'. Their second performance in each city will treat fans to 1994's Pandemonium and the Island Records singles of'79 to '80.

LIVE DATES
September
11 - (JP) Tokyo, Duo
12 - (JP) Tokyo, Duo
16 - (ES) Madrid, Heineken
18 - (ES) Barcelona, Apollo
19 - (IT) Milan, Rolling Stone
20 - (IT) Milan, Rolling Stone
24 - (DE) Berlin, Columbia Hall
25 - (DE) Berlin, Columbia Hall
26 - (FR) Paris, Trabendo
27 - (FR) Paris, Trabendo
29 - (BE) Brussels, AB Club
30 - (BE) Brussels, AB Club
October
03 - (UK) London, The Forum
04 - (UK) London, The Forum
09 - (US) Los Angeles, TBC
11 - (US) New York, TBC

Siekiera

Polish post punk masterpiece Nowa Aleksandria, available to download here.

If you like that, see also Armia.

iLLOGIC

Blog with interesting articles about industrial music.

INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE.

Interview with Monte Cazazza

ГрОб

I have just learned that Russia's underground punk legend, Yegor Letov, vocallist and lyricist of Grazhdanskaja Oborona, has died.

A great inspiration; RIP. See you in Belovodzia!

Funeral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXN7xd_-SLE&feature=related

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=25210

Words for a virtual tombstone (in English)

Thou shalt not kill
Except for the state
And even that
Just within thyself

Obituary

Letov, Foul-Mouthed Rock Legend, Dead at 43
By Alexander Osipovich

Punk rock icon Yegor Letov, who was once committed to a mental hospital by Soviet authorities angered by his profane and fiercely anti-Communist lyrics, has died of heart failure at age 43.

Letov died in his sleep Tuesday morning at his home in the Siberian city of Omsk, according to a brief statement on the official web site of his band, Grazhdanskaya Oborona.

Investigators from the Omsk Regional Prosecutor's Office are seeking to establish the exact cause of Letov's death, RIA-Novosti reported Wednesday. By law, the investigators have one month to issue their findings, though preliminary results could be released by the end of this week.

Citing anonymous sources, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported Wednesday that Letov's death was drawn-out and painful. The report contradicted the band's statement, which said Letov died suddenly.

The musician's funeral and a public memorial service will take place Thursday in Omsk, said Sergei Popkov, the manager of Grazhdanskaya Oborona, RIA-Novosti reported.

Letov's death marks the end of a turbulent career for one of the only Russian rock stars from the 1980s who kept his outsider status in the post-Soviet era.

He earned his controversial reputation by singing obscene songs at often rowdy concerts, by openly admitting his use of illegal drugs and by signing up with the radical, now-banned National Bolshevik Party -- a move that alienated many in the rock music community.


Letov was a "rebel without a cause," said Mikhail Kozyrev, co-founder of rock station Nashe Radio.

"He was one of those artists that was blessed with enormous talent, but this talent came with a bunch of demons that tortured him throughout his whole life, and I think he couldn't manage them," Kozyrev, who now hosts a talk show on the Silver Rain radio station, said by telephone Wednesday.

Writer Eduard Limonov, founder of the National Bolsheviks and a close friend of the late musician, described Letov as a "comrade in arms" and an "ardent revolutionary."

"He was the musical component of the party. He will not be forgotten," Limonov said, RIA-Novosti reported.

In a column he penned last year for the English-language biweekly The eXile, Limonov said the National Bolshevik flag was first unfurled at a Grazhdanskaya Oborona concert in 1993.

Letov was born in Omsk in 1964, the son of an army officer and a nurse. His name was listed as Igor in his passport, but he became known as Yegor. He never obtained a higher education.

He discovered rock as a child when his brother introduced him to the records of Shocking Blue, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, he said in a 1989 interview posted on the Grazhdanskaya Oborona web site.

"When I heard them, they had such an effect on me that everything got going at once," he said. "I started recording rock, and I lived on this music for 10 years."

In 1982, Letov founded a band called Posev at a time when Soviet authorities were highly suspicious of the country's nascent underground rock scene. Two years later, he started Grazhdanskaya Oborona, or "Civil Defense."

Letov's lyrics were initially absurdist and apolitical, but everything changed in 1985 when authorities committed him to a mental hospital, a tactic used against especially vocal dissidents. He was kept in the hospital for three months and forced to take anti-psychotic drugs.

After he emerged in early 1986, Grazhdanskaya Oborona began to produce sharply political songs such as "Everything Is Going According to Plan," a mockery of communist optimism that became an anti-Soviet anthem and Letov's best-known song.

It contained the lyrics: "Everything will be fine under communism / It will come soon, you just have to wait / Everything will be free ... and nobody will have to die."

Forced to record in Letov's own apartment, the band eventually gained popularity in the late 1980s, and Letov became known as a Russian version of Sid Vicious, rebelling against everyone and everything.

"During the very end of Soviet rule, [our work was] an extreme provocation, full of the kind of anti-Soviet content even dissidents couldn't allow themselves," Letov recalled in an interview with The Moscow Times in 2000.

Letov remained a rebel even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He underwent a number of political transformations and ended up as an early supporter of Limonov's National Bolsheviks, a radical group that mixed communist and nationalist ideology.

It was a combination well-suited for Letov, whose interviews with journalists were often reminiscent of his confusing, stream-of-consciousness song lyrics.

"Everybody asks me, 'Who am I? Am I a communist or not?'" Letov told The Moscow Times in 2000. "And I tell them 'I'm a communist and I'm not a communist.' When the political situation changed, I had to find a new answer."

A prolific musician, Letov recorded more than 40 albums in his two-decade career, sometimes solo but usually playing with Grazhdanskaya Oborona.

The band's recordings and live shows were full of "wild, raw, smashing energy," Kozyrev said.

"It was never a mass-audience group," he said. "It was always so raw that you would never put it on the air."

The band released its last album, "Why Do We Dream?", in May 2007. Last month, Letov said the album had sapped all his energy and that he would stop recording, news agencies reported.

At the time of his death, Letov was married to Natalya Chumakova, the bass player for Grazhdanskaya Oborona. He had no children.

*********
Other obituaries:

http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/music/693/

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3418998.ece

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/20/arts/EU-A-E-MUS-Russia-Obit-Letov.php

http://soveticus.wordpress.com/2008/02/20/yegor-letov-had-died/

http://exile.ru/blog/detail.php?BLOG_ID=17090&AUTHOR_ID=

“I have been involved in the most extreme political camps, so I know the inner workings of that all. And I can report that all of it is very stupid and disgusting. All of it. It has to be experienced so as not to get involved in such stuff consciously, which is what I do.”

“I think that in order to live and be creative, which is the same thing, one has to be FREE. In my understanding, freedom means refusal from all the traps of this world. If I can use pompous language, I think that our civilization is a certain type of world order that is fed by certain energies - fear, pain, envy, destruction, the list could be endless. If all the NORMAL people would just get out of it, like out of a zoo, and live on a principle of self-sufficiency, self-freedom - not fighting them, not even contacting, creating our own squats, systems, labels, music, creative stuff etc. on a “do it yourself” principle - all the rest of the world will just DIE by itself. And it does, very visibly.”

“Just like we’ve been, we’ve remained a rebellious, superrebellious band. But the frontline is moving ever deeper and deeper, now it is beyond politics, ideology, religion.”
(from 2004-2006 fan-conducted interviews via the band’s official website).

In a 2007 Rolling Stone interview he claimed that he remains an anarchist, but is more interested in the environmental aspects of anarchism.

AMEN, BROTHER!

*********

Some YouGoggle links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJuyi4iZ6uc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhaekTgbI6M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mDLLQNqWGg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTMGTtAlAJQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yysW_O-ylWw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI9iWTY0Bzg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNd7LwbOv54&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGTo8jzElrw&feature=related


*********

Everything is Going According to Plan

The key to our borders has been broken in two
And Our Father Lenin has withered away--
He's decayed into mold and wild honey.
And the Perestroika is still going and going according to plan.
And the mud has turned into bare ice.

And everything is going according to plan.
And everything is going according to plan.

Well, my destiny wants some rest.
I've promised it not to join the game of war.
But on my army cap, there is a hammer and a sickle and a star
How touching-a hammer, a sickle and a star.
The wild lantern of anticipation is flailing

But everything is going according to plan.
Everything is going according to plan.

Well, they fed my wife to the crowds.
With the fist of the world they pounded in her chest.
With worldwide liberty they tore her flesh.
So bury her in Christ!

But everything is going according to plan.
Everything is going according to plan.

Only our grandfather Lenin was a good leader.
All the other ones are such shit.
All the others are enemies and such fucking assholes.
Over the homeland, the land of our fathers, an insane snow was falling.
I bought a "Korea" magazine--they have it good too.
They have Comrade Kim Il-sung, they have the same as we do.
I am sure that they have the same thing and everything is going according to plan.

And everything is going according to plan.
Everything is going according to plan.

Well, when we get communism it'll all be fucking great.
It will come soon, we just have to wait.
Everything will be free there, everything will be an upper.
We'll probably not even have to die.
I woke up in the middle of the night and realized

That everything is going according to plan.
Everything is going according to plan.

*********

Many of the band's albums are available for download here, some even in flac lossless format:

http://www.gr-oborona.info/audio/index.html

Here is his solo album Егор и Опизденевшие - Прыг-Скок (Yegor and the Fuck-ups - Hop-Jump). If you don't read cyrillic, you'll probably need to take a look at this tutorial for using the filehosting site. Edit: After going to all that trouble, I found that the sound quality on this rip is very poor. Have now changed the link to another upload, which may or may not be better; let me know in the comments.

Some more uploads to be found here, here and here.