Dima Pyanov, Managing Director of the Poster Picnic

Under the heading "Inner World" we, as you might guess, are aiming to study interesting young people. The new hero, caught in our field of vision, is the musician, economist and managing director of Afisha Picnic Dmitry Pyanov. We visited Dima and asked him about his favorite music, programmers, skateboard injuries and European tours on the van.

About Picnic "Posters" "Picnic" I do six months. Roughly speaking, I did the festival with my own hands - from creative concepts and sales to control of editing, legal activities and coordination with government agencies and communication with the police. The first thing Dima Stepanov and Zhenya Galetka told me when they took me to work was not to hope that you would hang out with musicians on the day of the festival. As a result, it happened: the only thing I managed to see was the last two tracks Blur.

about western headliners

In the coming days I will go to Flow in Helsinki. I will watch how it all works, but first of all listen to music. I’m waiting most of all for My Bloody Valentine: it’s problematic to bring them to Russia, as they cost a decent amount, but they don’t have enough audience here to pay off. Until I started doing this, then, like many, I thought why one group, not another, is brought to the same Picnic. In fact, a lineup is always made up of several factors: the availability of the artist, his cost and popularity in the market. Many people do not want to go to Russia simply because there is practically no music market here. I’m not talking about bands like Radiohead (or rather, Atoms for Peace) that don’t come for ideological reasons.

about group participation

I got the first electric guitar at the age of 14. I immediately had the idea that the Russian group could be no worse than the European or American. If you are a British teenager who has gathered a group in the garage, you think in exactly the same way as Moscow or St. Petersburg. But in England, there are hundreds of record label managers who follow these guys, pick up and begin to manage you. Here, if you do not do it yourself, nobody will do it.

In groups, I rather creatively manager than played. I hold the guitar in my hands very poorly and uncertainly and I do everything exclusively by ear. In general, I think that I am a very bad guitar player. My first group was Cold Summer of 1953, we interfered with kraut-rock, mat-rock, post-rock, boots, and then the popular nu-rave, played quite expressive music, which was played by both Sonic Youth, and Klaxons, and the band Sebadoh. I also sang there, and when I listen to the only two songs recorded on our knees, I feel bad. Although the band was very cool in general, we constantly arranged concerts with Major Tom, Model Reign, "CIA" Arseny, who now has Padla Bear and Sonic Death, and entertained ourselves and our friends well. Then Plato and I gathered a group of Twices, made friends with the guys from Idle Conversation, played in Solyanka, on the Swallow. Played, recorded an EP and eventually closed the project. What is the point of recording an album if all your friends can listen to these songs at a concert.

about the popularity of Russian groups in the west

I went on a tour with a Human Tetris van to Europe for 23 days, we played 19 or 20 concerts in Germany, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria. Their guitarist Sasha Friedman could not go, and they just asked me: "Dima, can you still play the guitar?" I say: "no," and they say: "Well, you have to rehearse and go with us for two weeks and go." In fact, bands like Human Tetris and Motorama are very popular in Europe. Each concert gathered a full club, people were very upset that we did not bring discs with us. The guys were even invited to speak in Latin America, so they have a much larger audience in the West than in Russia.

about skateboard

All my life I skateboard. I really like the fact that now everyone is riding on longboards, pennies, girls as well. This is great fun, only if with the inability to approach this, then you can hurt your head. For me, for some reason, it was always wildly traumatic, I broke my hands three times, once I had a serious fracture, after which I walked in a cast from my fingers to my clavicle for two and a half months. Now I am neatly riding in a skate park late in the evening after work, in Gorky Park. There is a cool, first architecturally thought-out park - because there used to be parks that were hammered together from which, where you could rather injure yourself.

About the difference between Moscow and Peter

In Moscow, the weather is better. Although this is one country, we speak the same language, but these cities have completely different gravity, everything is arranged differently. For me, Peter is a large European metropolis, which has all the prospects of becoming a large European capital, if not for the bills that are being introduced there. There is a beautiful environment, beautiful youth, a huge number of art clusters and trendy restaurants, and the city itself is beautiful. Moscow, in turn, is the most western Asian metropolis. It is very good to work here - what everyone is doing here, in general.

about programmers

I have been programming since childhood, I was very fond of them, I made websites and even was a little bit a designer. I wanted to enroll in a technical college, but I have a family of economists, and it so happened that I went to study at an economic college in the faculty of strategic planning and management. And I do not regret. But in general, I am absolutely sure that programmers are new rock stars.