Ripoff Raskolnikov, the Austrian songwriter and honorary Hungarian, is a generation-defining performer and musical guru. You can see his direct and indirect influence in a number of Hungarian performers, from Quimby to György Ferenczi and Frenk, while the British artist Ian Siegal has covered several of his songs. Tonight, he has invited a few of these musician friends along as special guests. Sergei Voronov is the most notable figure on the Moscow blues-rock scene and a good friend of Keith Richards (they even worked together on Richards' album Talk is Cheap). Frenk is a very old friend and a musical partner of Raskolnikov in the group Braindogs, while Sándor Tóth performed on the Ripoff Raskolnikov Band's latest album. At the centre of the evening's entertainment you will find that special Central Eastern European melancholic rock and roll which brings Raskolnikov's voice and sound close to our hearts, even if his music paradoxically bears the influence of American icons like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.
'I have always written lyric-based songs, though most of them start with me strumming my guitar in my room and coming up with a chord structure. When I start to feel like the music's got something going, I then write the lyrics. I think the interplay between the words and the music is the most important thing, and that's always been the kind of music that really interests me. If, for example, you listen to Joni Mitchell's album Shadows and Light, you will find some great musicians improvising to some incredibly strong lyrics. For me, music is at its most interesting when the lyrics and the music are in harmony with each other” - Ripoff says.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest