Alexander Ignatiev - Александр Игнатьев, Roadkiller, Unofficial Rusiian Grand Funk Railroad site

Alex was referred to me by Andrew Tsygankov as a big GFR fan who has his own professional band called Classic Rock which played among other things Grand Funk Railroad songs on various Moscow venues. As you can see from photo he is also a computer wizard. I remember him replacing motherboards every next week! When I first talked with Alex I offered him to participate in Roadkill GFR tribute CD project led by prominent roadkiller Rob Garrett who was awarded Roadkill title Knight of MOHORK and who was the guy who talked about GFR in VH1 documentary about reunited Grand Funk. Alex quickly prepared DAT with several Grand Funk songs and sent it out. Unfortunately because of financial and legal problems Roadkill Tribute CD project never came to the fruition. When another GFR tribute CD project came out - this time from Swedish Roadkill gang - I again suggested Alex to participate, but having bad taste left from previous GFR tribute project Alex declined offer. By that time I got to know (from my website) two famous Russian rock-musicians - Dotsa (Igor Dotsenko) from most popular Russian band of all times - DDT and Alexander Liapin - who is considered as the best Russian rock guitarist, both from St.Petersburg. Dotsenko and Liapin quickly formed the band by inviting two other musitians from DDT, called it Grand Brothers and recorded several songs at the same time when Mark Farner band was coming to Moscow and St.Petersburg. Instead of Swedish Tribute CD project Alex Ignatiev focused on performing as as an opening act in coming Mark Farner' Moscow concert.

And the end of the story: The Swedish Roadkill gang had powerful connections in recording industry and Swedish Tribute CD had successfully been released at no time and now is sold online at amazon.com for many years (read more about Tribute CD in Grand Funk Chronicles on the home page of our site). On the other hand Mark Farner suddenly canceled Russian tour at last minute before driving to airport. Sadly it was kind of double whammy for Alex and his band. Well even triple - if you consider failure of American GFR tirbute project.