Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Marc Marczyk:

The world is your lemon…squeeze it!

By Walter Derzko

July 5, 2013 (Toronto) We are backstage at the Opera House on Queen St E. in Toronto with Mark Marczyk, right before the sold out concert of the Lemon Bucket Orkestra, which is self-described as a Canadian “Balkan-Klezmer-Gypsy-Punk-Super-Party-Band” formed in 2010 in Toronto. The are playing tonight with a Romanian horn band called Fanfare Ciocarlia.

The Lemon Bucket Orkestra (no, it’s not a mistake, that’s how they spell the name of their band) provided New Pathway newspaper with this exclusive interview, right before the launch of their Eastern European tour, which starts July 8^th and includes Ukraine.

Walter Derzko: Mark, how did the Lemon Bucket Orkestra get its start?

Mark Marczyk: “I spent a bunch of time in Ukraine playing with a folk band in Lviv called “Ludy Dobri” We toured all across Ukraine and a few international festivals including the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival to share our music. After that tour, I ended up staying in Canada and the boys went back to Ukraine. When I returned, I really started missing that folk music. I found a couple of guys, by just playing folk music in the streets and in various bars. They too were missing folk music from their native countries and felt that energy. We started playing together and I taught them songs and eventually the band grew. The band has been around for just over 3 years and at full strength, we have 16 band members.”

W.D.: I’m sure everyone is wondering ….How did you get the name Lemon Bucket Orkestra (LBO) ?

M.M.: “It actually comes from an old Odesian tune call Lemonchyky, or lemons which was actually Yiddish and Russian slang for money, a way for musicians to clandestinely communicate with each other about how much money they were making. We initially started as a busking band with few members, so we joked that we would put out our buckets and go and work for our lemons. There were only four of us to start with, but we had a dream that it would be an orchestra , that we would draw people, picking up musicians as we went along, have this really big exuberant team of musicians picking up new songs and spread the joy of Eastern European culture. We have such diverse backgrounds in the band so we play Klezmer music, Gypsy and Roma music, Bulgarian, Romanian, as well as Ukrainian, Hungarian, Serbian music etc.”

W.D.: You have some Ukrainian members in the band?

M.M.: “We do, there are five Ukrainian members. Myself (Mark Marczyk) I play violin and sing; Alex Nahirny on guitar; Mike Romaniuk on the flute; Stephania Woloshyn who dances and plays the tamborine; and Anastasia Baczynskyj who sings. Other members are from Mexico, Brittany. Others have varied backgrounds: Indian, Dutch, Portuguese and Irish.

W.D.: How many are going on the tour and what countries will you visit?

M.M.: “All fourteen band members are going on tour along with three crew members.

We’ll be visiting five countries and playing at four major festivals: July 10^th -11^th - Prague, Czech Republic; July 12^th-13^th - Trencin, Slovakia; July 15^th-17^th - Uzhorod, and Verhovyna, Ukraine; July 18^th - Cluj-Napoca, Romania; July 20^th - Przemysl, Poland; July 21 - Popovychi, Ukraine; July 22 – 25^th - Bucharest, Romania; July 28 - Vladicin Han, Serbia.”

“On top of that, we are doing ethnographic research, in Verhovyna and Popovychi, Ukraine to collect traditional folk music.”

W.D.: Are you in touch with bands in Ukraine? Which ones were a major influence in your musical career?

М.М.: “Yes, I spent two years there. There were 3 bands that were the most influential: “Ludy Dobri” was one of them, of course. They were my best friends, the guys that I lived with and the guys that brought me into folk music. They were a major influence on how I thought about Lemon Bucket. Burdon, a folk band from Lviv, Ukraine, introduced me to Balkan rhythms . Then there was a band called Top Orchestra. They were this wild, raunchy, street, party brass band from Kyiv that loved their Gypsy music and Balkan beats. I’d like to think of Lemon Bucket as a combination of all three of those bands. The first tunes that we learned were all tunes that I learned first hand from them.”

W.D.: Where do you see the band developing from this point? Are you heading in new directions?

M.M.: “Hopefully, our goal is to always be heading in new directions. We have so many musical and cultural tastes in the band. But, there is still so much ground to cover in any one of the Eastern European areas, whose cultures we draw from. In general, however, Ukrainian music, I think, is untapped and undiscovered in the Western world. A lot of people in the West have a very particular notion of what Ukrainian culture and music is, but it’s so diverse. In the next few years, I think we are going to see an explosion of Ukrainian music as people start to see the wealth and diversity of the styles that come from there.”

W.D.; I’m sure that this tour is an expensive undertaking. Can you name your major sponsors and thank them?

M.M.: Of course. There are too many to name them all, but we had a lot of community support. We are grateful to: The Ukrainian Credit Union, Zoomer Media, Idea City, The Ashkenaz Foundation, Small World Music, Jim Temerty Family, The Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, Steam Whistle, The Shevchenko Foundation, CIUT Radio, The Romanian General Consulate, The Serbian Consulate General, The Huculak Family, Ihor Walter Bardyn, Moses Znaimer and others.”

W.D.: Final thoughts for our readers?

M.M.: “The world is your lemon…

queeze it!

Photos by Carlos J. M. Grate