Sound Tech: The Sound Engineer Series
Sergei C. Ushakov
Originally from Burlington’s sister City of Yaroslavl, Russia, Sergei Ushakov is not your ordinary sound engineer, he began his career as a musician at the age of 12. A very versatile young man, Sergei learned to play many instruments.
“I played guitar in the Young Pioneers,” which he describes as the Russian version of the Boy Scouts of America.
“When my voice changed, I taught myself to play the drums by banging on the pillows and furniture.”
From age 15, Ushakov started playing drums in a band, where they “played popular titles by the Beatles, CCR, Deep Purple. Grand Funk and the like.” then from 1977 to 1979 he played the trumpet in the Soviet Army .
“Very often we performed the funeral ceremony,” he remembers, smiling, “This involved marching up the mountain to the cemetery in 95 degree temperatures. We’d be dripping wet by the time we reached the top.”
This didn’t stop him. He continued to play drums until 1983, when his interest shifted to the “fine art of mixing sound for various local groups and learning the very important technical aspects of my progression.”
In 1989 he landed his “first serious job as House Sound Engineer with the Yaroslavl Philharmonic.”
Due to the economic conditions in Russia, this position required Ushakov to have an extensive knowledge of how to piece things together from scrap parts of older equipment, Newly manufactured parts weren’t being made or were too expensive to purchase.
“I did this until 1991 when I started working with an independent sound company,” he says. For the next three years we serviced the most popular and famous musicians in Russia, We did stadium and big concert hall shows in central Russia
While moonlighting as an independent sound engineer at the Yaroslavl Jazz Club, he met musicians from all around the world, including Big Joe Burrell with The Unknown Blues Band and Science Fixon, all from Vermont. As a result of these connections and his dedicated, hard work, Ushakov was invited to travel to the Discover Jazz Festival in Burlington in 1992 with the Russian group Tangiezer, where he met the woman who would later become his wife.
After eleven years of hard work “under (his) belt,” he has now begun his own sound engineering business/career “from scratch” in Vermont. He can often be seen at the board at Club Metronome and other venues around town.
“Only this time,” Ushakv emphasizes, “I have the advantage of living in a capitalistic society, and the ambition to complete a dream.”
Each issue of goodCITIZEN will feature a Vermont sound engineer, A sound engineer can be the most important friend a musician ever makes…we’ll get to know our sound VIP’s.