ALEX IN RUSSIALAND
Artwork by John Seabury
Artwork by John Seabury
Alex Carlin is not Borat - he is a real person, and this is really his life. For seven years Alex and his rock band have been on a nonstop tour of Russia - over 100 concerts per year. From Murmansk in the Arctic Circle to the Southern Black Sea, from the Far West Kaliningrad to the Far East Kamchatka, through the vast untamed Siberian territories so ripe for rock and roll, the ALEX CARLIN BAND gets to the next gig by train, not plane. The "Russian Rock-and-Roll Railroad” is a daily adventure of music, romance, fascinating characters and unsinkable people-to-people diplomacy. In 2020, a documentary movie was completed only a moment before the pandemic hit Russia, which would have blocked some of the traveling and concerts. But as fate would have it, the die was cast, the affair was consummated, and here it is, the Russia you have never seen before: Alex in Russialand !
We are writing this description to you right now from Russia because we want you to see the movie they just made about Alex and his friends in the Wild East!
Alex and the gang at the hang-out in the center of Moscow called "YAMA", which means "THE PIT".
Alex bonds with the locals on the Black Sea
Alex explains why practicing monogamy in Russia is so difficult.
At a press conference in Moscow featuring the major Russian mass media, Alex discusses why Russia is the only country in the world which successfully presented a 50th Anniversary Woodsock concert.
In Igor Sandler's Studio in Moscow, Russia, taking a break from rehearsing for the Russian Woodstock 50th Anniversary concert, Alex played his Punk Rock Man Enough (Rachmaninoff Prelude Gminor) finale. September 2019
Alex Carlin wrote this song because people often ask him, “Alex, where do you live?”, and the answer is a laugh, and a good subject for a song: “RZD”, the Russian railroad system.
Russian Rock Promoter Igor Sandler talks with Alex about their music business together, including the 50th Anniversary Russian Woodstock concert.
Alex Carlin, born in Chicago in 1957, is an American rock musician and songwriter.
He was a teenage member of the seminal 1970s California bands Psycotic Pineapple and The Rubinoos.
In 1984, "Little Demon", a song co-written by Alex, was the feature musical number performed in the hit comedy film “Bachelor Party”, starring Tom Hanks.
In 1990, for six months, Alex extensively toured the Soviet Union with his San Francisco band Alien Beachhead, with bassist Bill MacBeath and drummer Peter Ffrench.
In the mid 1990s Alex played lead guitar for Cranford Nix.
In 2000, Alex moved to Europe, where he played over a hundred concerts per year for more than a decade, performing in almost every country. Concerts often included the renowned fusion drummer Atma Anur, known for his work with Journey.
In 2006, the Scorpions' bassist Paweł Mąciwoda performed on Alex’s recording of his song, "No Sleep, Only Rock and Roll".
In 2009, Alex became a Guinness World Records holder for Longest Solo Concert after playing 32 hours of rock songs in Radomsko, Poland.
In 2012, he formed the ALEX CARLIN BAND. In addition to Alex, current members are drummer Denis Matuizo and bassist Andrey Samoylov, brother of bassist Peter Samoylov of the legendary Russian band Alisa. For these 8 years, they have been touring all across Russia, performing in every region, as well as in the neighboring Central Asian republics.
Alex has a degree in Russian literature from UC Berkeley.
For over a decade, concern about Climate Ruin (his coinage) led him to become the foreign correspondent on environment for the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). He has reported from many United Nations climate conferences, and has presented his own climate restoration plan at both the Poland and Madrid conferences, as well as the 2020 BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit in Sochi, Russia.
The plan calls for revitalizing Russian fisheries in the northwest Pacific, thus greatly increasing photosynthesis so as to repurpose significant amounts of CO2. As he discusses in the film, Alex believes the plan offers a great opportunity for Russians and Americans to forge friendships and work together.