I do. Lead singer/guitarist Eugene Hutz (formerly Nicolaev) left Burlington several years ago to seek fame and fortune in the Big Apple. Guess what?

He found it.

Eugene has been featured as a model in the New York Times Magazine (sportin’ a huge handlebar ‘stache, I might add) and his band Gogol Bordello have several releases under their belt and fill rooms wherever they go.

Now he’s a movie star.

Yep, Eugene has TOP BILLING alongside adorable hobbit Elijah Woods in the film adaptation of “Everything is Illuminated,” a best-selling novel by precocious boy-genius author Jonathan Safran Foer.

Fellow Burl. ex-pat Jason Cooley (who used to play with Eugene in The Fags) told me in an e-mail that he caught a brief glimpse of the rising star on a busy city street. According to Cooley, Eugene was being trailed by a documentary crew, who were following him to Kiev, where he was to DJ his old haunts.

Anyway, I’m s’posed to do an article on Eugene Hutz sometime in August. That is, if he isn’t too huge by then.

He used to call me “Mussolini” back when I was a rock star.

check it: Gogol Bordello

Oh, and I’m not making this stuff up!

 

Got something to say?

Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!

Casey Rea was the Seven Days music editor from 2004 until 2007. He won the 2005 John D. Donoghue award for arts criticism from the Vermont Press Association.

5 replies on “Remember The Fags? How ’bout Gogol Bordello?”

  1. I just made a post about this over at Candleblog and Reba left the following comment:“Before Eugene could really speak English, he would hang out on Church St. with us punkers interjecting such classic terms such as: “Punk Rock, No Future” and “Destroy”. Those were fun, fun times!”

  3. Cooley here. Just to clarify, he didn’t have a film crew following him when I saw him, he just told me that was the plan for his DJ trip. Anyway, regardless of the film, the band, all that stuff, he seemed like the same old Eugene to me.Yup.

  4. Punk Planet has a really good interview with him in their new issue.Pretty on-point and a little crzy.Hey — one in four chilren utter a brand name as their first word. Neat.Cooley, I can’t get anything f@#$%’n right. Now I have a blog to screw up on.

  5. Saw the Fags at the Metronome must’ve been 93 or 4…paid for a cd which Eugene mailed me later… Istill have the stage set list… Loved it big! FF 21 years I’m at Gogol Bordello thinking about that and realizing that Eugene changed his name

Comments are closed.