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I'm sure most of us remember 'volvox' from our high school/college labs. For those who don't know, it can be defined as "an alga consisting of photosynthetic, flagellated cells, organized into a spherical colony, which may contain daughter colonies." It's not the only volvox, however. So, what does that have got to do with anything ? Well, to make it short... a lot ! VOLVOX is the first ever female rock band in Turkey. Let me tell you a brief history of this great band... As some of you may, or may not know being female, especially a female with an instrument is kind of tough, even in today's Turkey. So, imagine the 80's... when Rock and especially, Heavy Metal was still so underground, and yet were embraced by a group of young people in the country. Consequently, these people were 'outcasts' to the entire society. Therefore, both the listeners and players of this type of music were extremely limited with what they could do within the borderlines of this Euro-Asian country. Fortunately, these difficulties didn't stop anyone; New bands started forming each and every day. With the excitement of being an amature, some of these people were destined to do great things in the Turkish Rock history. The year was 1988 when Volvox was founded by Sebnem in Bursa, a city approximately three hours from Istanbul. The original members of the band were :
At first, people couldn't even imagine that "Gals could play" but WROOOOONG... Not only could Volvox play, but also, let me say, they kicked some major @$$ !!! Soon, they started opening for bigger acts and in the end, they ended up headlining. Due to college, Sebnem had to move to Ankara, the capital, where she met Ozlem Tekin -whom replaced Duygu Karpuz when she left- Ozlem was on keyboards, and also did vocals on cover songs. ( I believe Sebnem was the one who did all the original Volvox songs. Among these were some great hits like Gates of Hell, Queen of the Kings, Rock'n Fly, Burst of Fire etc. Also, I'd like to note that all the lyrics were in English.) But there, Sebnem was getting kind of miserable 'cuz of the fact that the other band members had moved to Istanbul for college. Music'd always been more important to Sebnem. So, after giving it some thought, as a sophomore she decided to move to the big city Istanbul, where it's all happening. It wasn't all that bad after all. Volvox started playing again, this time in Istanbul !!! They got some really good gigs too. Not to mention, they did appear on national T.V. Now, they had a bigger audience, and a great following that was growing every day !!! With their followers, their expectations grew too. They were already thinking about releasing their first demo, and then the first ever Volvox album, of course. |
But they were jinxed, I guess. Everything kind of started going down-hill with Duygu quitting. Like I said before, Ozlem replaced her. They did quite well for a while but then Ebru quit, which I believe was for personal reasons just like with Duygu. She was replaced by Buket Doran, who's still playing with Sebnem by the way. Finally, Ozlem joined the 'I quit club' to do a solo album. So, Sebnem thought there was no sense pushing it. Today, she still says "It's no different than a marriage and it had to end." In Sebnem's case, it was a chance to pursue her own carreer. She accepted one of so many offers to do her solo album. The journey was over after only 6 years. Unfortuantely, they didn't get to record that first Volvox album but they do have a Volvox demo that would be treasured today, had it been available to the public. No matter what, Volvox did an outstanding job in an environment where what they wanted to do was nearly impossible. Just because the band broke up doesn't mean that we've lost its members. Every one of 'em is still doing a job that's somehow related to music. ( By the way, Ozlem Tekin is a well known artist too. She has several solo albums out.) No one can deny what the music industry has gained thanks to them; especially Sebnem, the one who, started it all... GOD BLESS YOU GALS !
MadTurk |
