Carlin a hot item in wintry Russia
says his mother, who confirms that Carlin is not exaggerating his vagabond lifestyle. “He really does live on trains. At first he was going bar to bar just to have a place to play. Now he is known in these cities all over Russia and Poland.”
The promoters always supply the sound system and expenses as an inducement. Sometimes he travels with a twoman Russian rhythm section as the Alex Carlin Band, but more often he goes it alone with two guitars.
“Alex never met a gig he didn’t take,” says Dave Seabury, guitarist for Psycotic Pineapple who only partially blames his hearing loss on years of playing with Carlin. “I would speculate that he performs every day, even if he has to go out on the street.”
“Whenever, wherever a war breaks out, he’ll book a tour there — Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine,” adds John Seabury, bassist for the Psycotics, who notes Carlin’s attraction to danger. “And he never gets hurt or arrested. His guardian angel has a fulltime job.”
Earlier this year, a New York producer hired a Russian TV crew to film a pilot for a reality show on the hardestworking American in Russian show business, says Carlin. Russian cable likes to feature him as a curiosity, and he does not tire of promoting the cities he has seen.
“These are great places,” he says of Russia and the other icecold countries surrounding the region. “Extremely fantastic places.”
Ten years ago, Carlin was in one of these great places — Radomsko, Poland — when he decided to break the Guinness world record for the longest solo concert. He found a bar conducive to the idea, got up on the stage and didn’t come off, except for bathroom breaks, for 32 hours.
Carlin started with the entire Beatles catalog, 270 songs, by memory. But he still had 20 hours to go, so he switched to the long rock anthems, AC/DC being a favorite. That got him to the Guinness record, as witnessed by nurses and bar patrons rotating fourhour stints, writing down the name and length of every song.
“I ended strong,” he says. “Led Zeppelin and
Little Richard.”
The stunt made the top of the national TV news in Poland and helped solidify his reputation for extended sets.
“I get going and I just want to keep playing,” he says. “That’s why my Guinness record was good for training.”
In a normal year he will travel 50,000 miles by train, though he expects to cut it back to work on the reality show in January. The producer has rented him a Moscow apartment, his first after seven years of sleeping on trains and in hotels or the back rooms of nightclubs, he says.
Carlin finished his summer tour by playing the Russian Woodstock 50th anniversary concert outside of Moscow in September. The Alex Carlin Band played its own set, then backed up Barry Melton, who had played the original concert with Country Joe and the Fish.
The Russian Woodstock did not draw 500,000 or even 5,000, but at least it happened — unlike Woodstock 50, the overhyped official anniversary concert in New York, which never even got to sound check.
“That is the whole point of my reality show,” Carlin says. “Russia is the new rock ’n’ roll country. The bars never close, and the party never stops.”