Hey man look at me rocking out…in a Yerevan taxi, with Hrant and Stepani!
Well, for all those wondering about what is going on with all of the band graffitti around Yerevan, i.e. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Ozzie, Metallica, Slayer, SOAD, and Deep Purple…. We had a little experience that proves that people do listen to these genres of music.
Right, so we are walking down Komitas after a great meal and flag down a taxi to get to Bunker for the party they are having. We get in the taxi around 12am and after some heavy bargaining from 1300 to 1000 D-rams we are off to Bunker. The cabbie asks Hrant where he is from ( Los, of course) and then what kind of music he likes. Hrant says “punk rock” in a heavy Armenian accent. The cabbie says, “oh, rock, you like Slayer?” and proceeds to turn the radio on and blast some song by Slayer. So after a minute he asks “what else you guys like, ACDC, Nirvana, Deep Purple?”
Well before you could answer, we were listening to “You shook me all night long” down Bagramyan avenue. Not even 30 seconds into the song, he pulls the cab over to the side of the street, and asks what else we like. Next, we are listening to him rewind the tape for 3 minutes till we get to “Smells Like Teen Spirit!” He takes off down the street again…
After another 20 seconds of this song he pulls over AGAIN and asks if we like “Armenian band from United States?” and we answered System of A Down? “Yes Yes, thats the one” So, again a few minutes of rewinding and then fast fowarding and we were screaming along to “Toxicity” down Sayat Nova.
Well, now we are to close to our destination, so we busts a quick right onto Teryan, another on Tumanian, and another Khorian so we have enough time to listen to the whole song. BUT…. right at the part where they are about to rock out, he pulls over right before Abovian and says “I know you guys liked that song, but I have to play you my favorite song.” So, he pulls out another tape, queues it up for a few minutes and then we are listening to some song by Deep Purple that I have never heard.
A minute later we pull it up to Bunker. Almost 20-25 minutes after our pickup on Komitas we arrive just in time to everyone in the queue at Bunker looking at 3 people jump out of a taxi blasting some Deep Purple.
Of course he gave us his number and told us if we ever a need a taxi we could call him, the “Rock n Roll” taxi. We paid him the whole 1300 D-rams figuring he earned it just for the pure entertainment. As we headed into Bunker. I couldn’t really believe any of it, I mean, Deep Purple…! Smoke on the water baby, smoke on the water.
David
November 14th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
loooooool this is HILARIOUS!