The Ukranians
By Terrence Oblong
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The Ukranians are an English band, which plays traditional Ukrainian music in a post-punk indie style.
The Ukrainians were formed in 1990 when Wedding Present guitarist Peter Solowka persuaded the band to team with singer/violinist Len Liggins and mandolin player Roman Remeynes to record a John Peel session of Ukrainian music and subsequent mini-album. Following the success of that release, Salowka left the Wedding Present and formed a new band with Liggins and Remeynes. All three performers are English-born sons of Ukranian parents.
Since 1991, the band have released five albums and various EPs, including Ukranian-language covers of songs by the Smiths and the Sex Pistols. I've been a fan of the band since the start, I interviewed Len and Peter for the student arts magazine while at university and have, of course, a number of their T shirts.
Then in 2016 something changed. People were staring at the shirt when I wore it, and not in a good way. Slowly it dawned on me, though the band are all English, and I'm English, and even the record label is English, the T-shirt looks A BIT FOREIGN. I was walking around Brexit-Britian in a foreign-looking T-shirt.
My theory proved correct when one day someone accosted me in the street and shouted at me "Why don't you go back where you came from." By quirk of fate I was at that moment standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus to my home town. So I responded, "I am, I'm just waiting for the bus." The Brexiteer, by the way, was wearing a T-shirt advertising an American company.
After the incident Mrs Oblong instructed me to never wear the T-shirt in public again, as it was no longer safe to walk the streets of England in a foreign-looking T shirt. The ban continues to this day (though luckily the ban doesn't extend to articles written about said T-shirt).
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Comments
Loving this band
I'd never heard of them... but they sound unique and very enjoyable! Your response to the Brexiters made me laugh out loud. :D
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I wish I could think you've
I wish I could think you've just invented this for comic relief Terrence, but it's all too believable. What have we come to
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