"He could write two or three songs over the course of a trip"

Artemiy Krichevsky, guitarist for Svet Boogie Band, recalls Svyatoslav "Svet" Khodonovich, touring trips, Svet's songwriting approach, and talks about the band's best concert.

Repertoire

Svet curated his repertoire by mood, never writing out setlists. There was a rough 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 uptempo, then boogie, then slow again—to, you know, break up the rhythm. But sometimes he gets carried away and just plays two hard boogies in a row.

He starts playing the intro, and we already understand what he's playing—and it's something not on the usual setlist.

Or even like this: he plays some improvisation, and we're waiting for the signal — but he just keeps playing and talking to the audience, building up to the song's theme, makes a pause, says the title, and off we go.

By the time we'd get to the gig, 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 or anything, because it's blues after all.

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

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

Svet would compose, we'd rehearse and play at concerts first. And then, as I say, during the tour itself, a few more songs might get added. We'd come back, take a month off, then Svet would call everyone to rehearsal and come up with a couple of new pieces. We'd play in Minsk—though we didn't play there much, from what I remember, really only a couple of times—and the songs would go into rotation. But the ones he'd written earlier, he could put on pause, and then later grant them an 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 those same rehearsals, he'd say "that won't work," and he'd start pushing to get the sound he wanted. And we'd play a song twenty, thirty times until he was satisfied.

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

I remember, we were driving somewhere again, and he put a Sting disc in the car stereo. He was really into it, saying: "Listen to this. First of all, not a single unnecessary note, and second, everything is so precise. Absolutely perfect. Professional work."

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

Last Meetings

While I was playing with Svet, I didn't participate in any other projects. It was only later that he came to one of our concerts and jammed with us, and that was it.

And then we ran into each other again at the "Empty Hills" festival in the Moscow region. I went there as part of the Addis Ababa group, and Svet came with his own band.

The last time we ran into each other was by chance, on the street, near the "Muzyka" store on Yakuba Kolass. I was going in to get an accordion, and Svet was coming out. We said hello.

He was always in a hurry. He rushed through life in general. I don't think there was ever a time when he would just stop, sit down, and have a simple conversation. He always had some business to attend to, some meetings lined up.

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

Sometimes over a beer he could relax and talk about how dentistry had gotten to him back in the day, whenever the topic came up in conversation. He'd recall how he'd worked in Myadelе, and usually spoke 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 when Sveta's memorial concert was happening, that's when this whole dental nightmare started for me: my tooth was hurting so badly I wanted to climb the walls. And none of those ketanov painkillers were helping. My cheek swelled up three times its normal size.

I call Maxim, Sveta's brother—he's a dentist with his own practice—and I say, "Max, I can't play today." What happened? Well, I explain it to him. 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 they injected me with, I can't feel half my face. And I realize I don't understand what's going on.

And how am I supposed to sing? Facing one way? But my face seems to have gotten better. It was very uncomfortable to sing, but then I saw a B.B. King concert, and it looked like he sings "sideways" too.

Light

Svyatoslav shortened his name to Svet. That tells you everything about him.

I just saw people after his concert who were literally glowing. He performed such quality music, such soulful stuff, that people would light up on their own. Because you see

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

He never really did vocals, let's put it that way, in an academic sense.

Exactly—he sang the way he sang, but that was enough to touch something in your soul.

He was liked by people.

The Best Concert

Look, I'm telling you, Svet could compose a song on the road. There's this story about the pool game in Poland—we were playing on the Baltic coast. From there we went to Minsk, stayed literally for a day, then to Vladimir, where we played with this remarkable band Blackmailers, from there to Moscow, then by plane to Magnitogorsk, and the final destination was Azov, right on the Azov Sea.

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. Those kinds of two- or three-story houses.

On the first floor there was a small room about the size of two offices, or two standard school classrooms in length. A tiny 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 fold-down seats. It could fit maybe 60 people. Like two classrooms. And it was summer, hot, the windows open.

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

We had our own speaker with us, which Svet used to cart around—a tube amp. For the harmonica. The sound we could squeeze out of it was amazing. A handmade amplifier, the tubes would warm up for about five minutes.

And we plugged my guitar into that amplifier—it just doesn't work without amplification. And we put the microphone in there too, the one Svet sang into. We opened up the piano, took off the wooden panels. The drummer played just on the snare, didn't even have a hi-hat, just a snare with brushes. And the upright bass was live.

It was the absolute bare-bones technical setup we'd ever had. And the audience 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 height—they stood there listening. We couldn't practically hear ourselves, but the people had genuine rapture on their faces.

In my opinion, that was our best concert.