He could write two or three songs on a single trip.

Artemiy Krichevsky, guitarist of Svet Boogie Band, recalls Sviatoslav "Svet" Khodonovitch, the band's touring trips, Svet's compositional style, and tells about the group's best concert.

Repertoire

Svet assembled the repertoire by mood, never wrote setlists. There was a nominal setlist, but Svet could change it at any moment. We had to listen and follow his lead.

He'll play a slow song, then something more upbeat, then a boogie, then slow again—to break up the tempo, so to speak. And sometimes he gets into it, and that's it, he'll play two powerful boogies in a row.

He starts playing the intro, and we already understand what he's playing, and it's something not on the standard list.

Or even like this: he plays some improvisation, and we're waiting for the cue — but he plays and talks to the audience, builds up to the song's theme, makes a pause, says the title, and off we go.

By the time we got to the concert, he could've written two or three new songs, and we'd run through them at soundcheck or at home, just jamming it out. Basically, it was clear what to play—I didn't need to memorize solos note for note, because it's the blues, after all.

He composed songs easily—the main thing was having a theme. Take "Nothing But Love," for instance, where I'm credited as the composer. But I'm not really the composer. I was just sitting there humming to myself and started to see how it would sound on guitar if I played, say, A major first, then D-flat, then just D. I kept playing those three chords, Sveta liked how it sounded, and that was it—"Nothing But Love" was done.

That's roughly how we ended up collecting songs for an album of original material.

Svet would write the songs, we'd rehearse and play them first at concerts. And then, as I say, during the touring process, a few more songs could get added. We'd come back, rest for a month, then Svet would call everyone in for rehearsal and come up with a couple of new things. We'd play in Minsk, though we didn't play there much, if I remember right, just a couple of times, and the songs go into rotation. But the ones he'd written earlier he could put on pause, and then later grant them amnesty and bring them back.

Discipline

Sometimes it was easy with him, sometimes he became demanding—when it came to discipline and musical precision. There were times he was very demanding. At rehearsals, he'd say "that won't work," and he'd start insisting on the exact sound he wanted. And we'd play a song twenty, thirty times until he was satisfied.

It's not even about the notes that he or I play in the solo. It's about the structure of the beginning, the ending—so everything flows together smoothly.

I remember, we were driving somewhere again, and in the car he put on a Sting disc. And he's really into it, saying: "Listen to this. First of all, not a single unnecessary note, and second, how tight everything is. Spot on. Pro stuff."

He had a favorite word like that — "firmachi." That's what he called high-quality musical product. If Svet said "firmachi," then yeah, good music. For example, he might not like, say, Metallica, but after listening to them, he'd say "firmachi." Which means you couldn't find fault with it.

Final Meetings

While I was playing with Sveta, I didn't participate in other projects. It was only later that he jammed with us once at one of our concerts and that was it.

We crossed paths again at the "Empty Hills" festival in the Moscow region. I went there as part of the Addis Ababa band, and Svet came with his own group.

The last time we ran into each other by chance was on the street, near the "Muzyka" shop on Yakuba Kolasa. I'd gone in looking for a harmonica, and Svet was coming out. We said hi.

He was always in a hurry about something. He rushed through life all the time. I don't think he ever just stopped to sit down and talk. He always had some business, some meeting or other.

On the run, not on the run, but there's always some kind of action going on, you know.

Sometimes over a beer he could relax and talk about how dentistry had worn him down back in the day, when the subject came up in conversation. He would recall working in Myadeł, usually speaking negatively about it.

He was probably a good doctor. But he didn't like to talk about what kind of doctor he was. According to his stories, there in Myadeł, it was like in Bulgakov — one paramedic for the whole village.

Dentistry

On the day of Sveta's memorial concert, that's when I had the dental disaster: my tooth was killing me so badly I wanted to climb the walls. Nothing—not even Ketanov—helped. My cheek swelled up three times over.

I call Maxim, Sveta's brother—he's a dentist with his own practice. I tell him, "Max, I can't play today." What happened? Well, I explain. Max says, okay, I'll come pick you up right now, we'll go to my office, just bring your guitar and everything you need.

Something really potent got injected into me, I can't feel half my face. And I realize I don't understand something.

And how do you sing? From one side? But my face seems to have come back in order. Singing was very uncomfortable, but then I saw a B.B. King concert, and it looked like he sings "sideways" too.

Light

Sviatoslav shortened his name to Svet. That says more than enough about him.

I just saw people after his concert who were literally glowing. He performed such quality music, the kind that really moves your soul, that people just lit up by themselves. Because, you see,

His songs, his performance, his expressiveness, his delivery….

He never really did vocals, let's say, in an academic sense—never trained to sing classically.

That's exactly it—he sang the way he sang, but it was enough to hook something in your soul.

He was popular with people.

Best Concert

So I was saying that Sviet could compose a song on the road. There was that billiards case in Poland—we were playing on the Baltic coast. From there we went to Minsk, stayed for literally a day, then to Vladimir, where we played with the wonderful band Blackmailers, from there to Moscow, then by plane to Magnitogorsk, and the final destination was Azov, on the Azov Sea accordingly.

That's when the song From Sea to Sea was born on the road.

There was a really interesting concert in Azov. In a music school. There were these two- or three-story little houses there.

On the first floor there was a small room the size of two offices, or two standard school classrooms in length. A little stage about knee-high. Not a grand piano, just an upright. And some kind of amplifier.

Chairs like the ones in old movie theaters with flip-up seats. You could fit maybe 60 people there. Like two classrooms. And it was summer, hot, windows open.

The equipment they had started smoking literally five minutes into the set.

We had our own speaker with us, a tube one that Svet hauled around. For the accordion. The sound was absolutely incredible. A handmade amplifier—the tubes took about five minutes to warm up.

And we plugged my guitar into this amplifier—it wouldn't work any other way without amplification. We also plugged in the microphone that Svet sang into. We opened up the piano and removed the wooden panels. The drummer played just on the snare, without even a hi-hat, just the snare with brushes. And an upright bass live.

It was the most minimal technical setup we'd ever had. And the people just wouldn't let us go — we did four encores.

And people who didn't make it into the hall stood outside in the street, with the windows open, and the windows there were at chin level, standing there listening. We could barely hear ourselves, but the people had genuine delight.

In my opinion, that was our best concert.