Armenian stars glitter at the Kodak

 

 

by Paul Chaderjian
(special to the “Armenian Reporter”)

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--Tickets to the sold-out Christmas weekend “M Club Annual Music Video Awards” show at the Kodak Theatre here were apparently so hot that they were being auctioned at five times their face value on eBay, the Internet auction site.

From hard-to-score tickets to a star-studded program with performers featured in the hottest Armenian music videos of the year, the second annual “M Club” awards show was media hype in hyper drive.

Everyone came with an agenda. Some wanted to be entertained by stars like Andre, Sirusho, Andy, and Armenchik; others had driven for hours to experience the Armenian version of the Oscars, Grammies, and People's Choice Awards.

The broadcasters wanted sponsors' dollars, the producers of the show wanted an entrance on a new network, the Internet techies wanted to prove their talent, the talent wanted to sell records, and the socialites simply wanted to be seen.

In addition, a dozen stars braved the 24-hour travel schedule to fly from Yerevan to Los Angeles for the night. Fans without seats had to try to scalp tickets at the door or resort to watching the show on the air and on satellite through Armenia TV, on the web through Yerevan Nights, or on Southern California's Horizon cable channel. (Armenia TV

is an affiliate of this newspaper's.)

“For Armenia TV, providing our audiences in Armenia and the diaspora high-quality entertainment programming is a top priority,” says Armenia TV president Bagrat Sargsyan. “We used our cameras and state-of-the-art technology to bring the front-row experience right into people's living rooms.”

Instead of Hollywood honoring its own in the venue that hosts the Oscars, Armenian expatriates were honoring their own. Steps above the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Andre was chosen as “Best Male Singer of the Year.” The late Varduhi Vardanyan, who was killed in a car crash in October, was honored posthumously as “Best Female Singer of the Year.”

Armenchik and Christine Pepelyan were honored for their duet “Inchoo,” and lifetime achievement awards were bestowed upon four musicians who have made a great impact on Armenian music. One of those honorees was the king of “rabiz,” Aram Asatryan, who died of a heart attack in November.

“Aram is one of our legendary musicians,” says Armenchik, who performed one of Asatryan's songs at the award show. “He played an important role in my life and in music. He wrote hundreds of songs and touched thousands of lives, and he will live with us through his music.”

Another of the biggest stars of Armenian music, internationally popular and talented singer Shushan Petrosyan, arrived in Los Angeles just an hour before the live broadcast.

Surprising many with her new, thinner body, Petrosyan co-hosted for audiences watching in real time back home in Yerevan and for a live audience, mostly made up of well-to-do Armenian ex-pats dressed by Dolce & Gabbana and Brioni, decorated with bling-bling and armed with Prada and Coach.

Americana--as defined by MTV, HBO, and CNN--had left the 4,300-seat Kodak building on Friday, December 22, giving its highly coveted seats to the singers, musicians, producers, and music-video directors—the stars--who entertained Armenians around the world with their art and media products on radio, television, iPods, and via web sites.

Welcome to 21st-century Armenian pop culture. Borderless. Boundless. Uninhibited. Unchecked. It knows no genre. It follows no rules. It's part of no schools, and it adheres to no criticism. It's Afro-American rap, Sayat Nova, disco, Turkic rabiz, salsa, classical, and Euro-trash all neatly wrapped in one collectors box (or computer).

“In one hour, you have requests for Aram Asatryan and jazz from Tatevik Hovhannisyan,” says attendee Tatevik Ekezian, the host of a popular radio show out of Fresno State heard around the world on the Internet. “One minute we have Zulal with a traditional folk song, the next minute we are playing Armenian rap, followed by Harout and Karnig.”

Call it an identity crisis on speed, the modern Armenian pop scene being honored by the producers of the “M Club” television show resides nowhere, but also somewhere between Yerevan and Los Angeles.

Like its multinational refugee and immigrant fans, Armenian pop has found a home where American commercialism and consumerism intersect with Armenian ingenuity and tech-savvy “hye” merchants of pop. On this night, that home happens to be at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, broadcasting via the Internet to global audiences.

“Shows like this are important, because they provide an opportunity for new voices to be heard,” says most-popular album nominee Ara Martirosyan. The singer, who was an unknown himself until his music video for the song “Momehr” lit up Armenian music video channels throughout 2005, knows firsthand how powerful a music video can be in Armenian pop. Some Armenian music videos are released months in advance of an album being recorded or distributed.

Martirosyan cites the newly formed rap group Hayq as proof of how shows like M Club can help establish unknowns. Hayq's first release “Kami Pchi” blew from the Araratian fields via the Internet, downloaded and uploaded to all corners of the world this past summer. It remained on M Club's top ten for weeks and can still be heard blasting through the speakers of black Beamers on Glendale's Brand Boulevard.

In the age of the Internet, the boundless access for garage bands to the masses via YouTube, where “Kami Pchi” still plays, and Mp3-sharing sites is limitless. Tapping into the tech-savvy young Armenian population, M Club uses the Internet to gauge the popularity of the artists and hence determine what goes on the air and who is awarded at

year's end.

Andre and the late Varduhi Vardanyan may have won the top awards, but the big winner of the night was the promotion promoting the promoters of Armenian music, Armenian CDs, Armenian videos, Armenian TV shows, and Armenian cable channels, dot-AM music web sites, and the corporate and media sponsors of the check-listed media products.

The biggest promotion of the night, perhaps, was the fact that singers from Armenia were being awarded statues in the glitzy and glamorous, high-profile venue that is home to the Oscars and a stage that has been graced by the likes of Barbra Streisand, Sting, Cher, the Dixie Chicks, Prince, Jethro Tull, and Armenchik.

Yes, Nune Yesayan was the first Armenian to perform here, and yes, Kirk Kerkorian sat in a private balcony to watch her. But an awards show featuring not just one star but dozens was a coming-out party for ex-pats whose families had endured 70 years of Soviet oppression and more than a decade of hardship as immigrants.

The 5-year-old Kodak did have top billing from the producers of the show, infecting the ethnic, nonnative media consumer with the media virus of Andy Warhol's idea that everyone would have his 15 minutes of fame, that he or she could also be one with mainstream show business.

“It's not often Armenian concerts take place at the Kodak,” says jazz singer Arthur Ispirian, whose new album celebrates the city of Yerevan with songs from the 50s and 60s. “I want to thank Armenia TV,” says the singer, “because my parents and friends in Yerevan can watch what is happening inside the Kodak Theatre.”

The producer of this extravaganza at the Kodak, Meridian Production's “M Club” is a weekly television show broadcast on cable in Los Angeles. Viewers tune in to host Ara Kazaryan on Tuesdays to see which new Armenian music videos received the highest votes on the Armenian Music Center dot-AM web site. In 2006, Kazaryan played 68 different top-ten videos, and the 20 most popular videos of the year ended up on the annual music awards show.

“Fans choose the top ten in each category,” says Kazaryan,” and each of the nominees receives a special award.” In addition to honoring the top ten, Meridian Production company employees determine which of the music videos deserve honors like best director, best composer, and best camerawork.

With three big projection screens above the stage showing tight close-ups of the performers and clips of their songs, and even a waterfall acting as a projection screen (imagine that!), with provocative teen dancers, gold-painted divas, pink-jacketed cherubs, someone donning a cowboy hat, another gang-banger wannabe in a hooded sweatshirt, with live connections with Armenia, dazzling lights, golden statuettes, Madonna-esque microphone-headsets, and glass podiums, even a snafu or two dozen couldn't take a thing away from the entertaining spectacle.

“It was gratifying to see the glitterati of the Armenian pop world live in Los Angeles,” says attendee Tamar Kevonian, former publisher of “Mosaix” magazine. “The Kodak is famous for the Oscars, and it was nice to see that same kind of energy and glamour directed at our own celebrities.”

At the Hollywood intersection where grain, bananas, and pineapples grew until 1887, before it became ground zero for the radio and movie business, a nameless corporate multinational was charging the sons and daughters of the ancient Armenians the highest rental price in history to allow them to sing their songs. This place hadn't even been discovered by Caucasians when Armenian culture thrived centuries before.

“I could have never imagined that I would be on a stage like this,” says rapper and hip-hop artist Mikael Abrahamyan. His group Hay Tghek and their hit song “Amareh” have been popular with audiences in the homeland and diaspora. Abrahamyan says that he wasn't surprised by the success of Armenian rap, because he believes Armenians don't have borders, boundaries, or limitations.

The big drama for some critics wasn't which singer from Armenia would be named best singer and which would win a lifetime-achievement award; the drama was around the question of whether Armenian pop culture was moving out of Armenia and into Little Armenia, the neighborhood east of the Kodak.

“To me it makes sense to hold the award show here,” says Kevonian. “There is a large Hayastansi community here and Hollywood is a better-known location globally. There are also better resources to put on a high-quality event like this in the U.S.”

As the show ended and the after party began on the balcony of the Trastevere Ristorante Italiano above Hollywood Boulevard, one of the singers was heard asking whether their night at the Kodak was a sign that Armenians could also take front seats in global media product production. Holocaust survivors had done that shortly after Hollywood had been transformed from farmland to the center of the entertainment universe.

Whether Armenians can or will history will determine. For now, those who missed the show can watch the rebroadcast of the M Club Music Video Awards show on Armenia TV on New Year's Day.