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Russian rock

Russian rock is rock music from Russia and/or in Russian. Russian rock originated in the USSR in the second half of the 20th century under the influence of Western music, and to this day exists in Russia and the CIS countries

Story. Origin

The first Soviet rock bands appeared in the mid-60s in the wake of Beatlemania, but until the mid-70s, Russian rock and pop rock music was mainly an imitation of the music of foreign performers, which was what numerous VIA (vocal and instrumental ensembles) did ). One of the first rock groups that began to sing in Russian was the group “Tin Soldiers” (they can be heard, for example, in the cartoon “Well, wait a minute” - in the form of the group “Mongrels” performing “The Priest Had a Dog”) . In addition, the group recorded the first full-fledged tape recorder album in the USSR, “Reflections” (1972) (according to another version - which is adhered to by Alexander Kushnir, compiler of the encyclopedia “100 tape recorder albums of Soviet rock” - the countdown of Soviet tape recorder rock culture begins with the albums of Yuri Morozov (1973)). However, in certain circles, Alexander Gradsky is considered one of the first rock musicians in the USSR, who founded the group “Slavs” in 1964.

Although many Soviet VIA performed music close to rock (for example, “Pesnyary”, “Flowers”, “Earthlings”), they most often did not call themselves rock groups, since rock and roll was considered a bourgeois Western style. The VIA's repertoire was approved by artistic councils consisting of conservative elderly political workers, which limited creative freedom. Groups that were not happy with this preferred to be considered amateur. However, this made it impossible to release official records and severely limited opportunities for concerts. The recordings of these groups were distributed among fans by samizdat on magnetic tapes, and performances most often took place at apartment buildings - spontaneous home concerts. The most significant “tape recorder” groups of the Soviet underground of the 70s and early 80s were the Moscow “Time Machine” and the Leningrad “Aquarium”. Other early groups included “Leap Summer”, “Autograph”, “Resurrection”, “Myths”, “Russians”, “St. Petersburg”. These groups did not have a single style; they performed a mixture of Western rock and purely acoustic, “bardic” songs. During this period in the USSR it was difficult to draw a line between rock, VIA and art songs.

Heyday, 80s

By the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, a full-fledged rock movement had formed in the USSR, which began to self-organize with the help of the authorities. To streamline the spontaneous movement, the Leningrad Rock Club, the first rock club in the USSR, was opened in 1981 (under the quiet supervision of the KGB). Thanks to rock clubs, rock bands for the first time had the opportunity to legally record and give concerts, and the authorities had the opportunity to keep rockers under surveillance. At this time, the first rock festival “Tbilisi-80” was held. Some groups gained access to radio and television broadcasts thanks to the Music Ring program. This “thaw” gave impetus to the second wave of Russian rock, especially to the Leningrad groups in the “new wave” style - “Kino”, “Alice”, “Obermaneken”, “Strange Games”, etc.

Russian rock went through a difficult period in 1983-85, when, on the initiative of K.U. Chernenko, persecution of amateur groups began, and the organization of concerts without the participation of a state monopolist was equated to private entrepreneurship and threatened with prison. During this period, Moscow groups especially suffered from such measures: “Resurrection”, “Bravo”, “Corrosion of Metal”; their concerts were stopped by the police, and some of their participants were even arrested.

Only in 1985 was the Moscow Rock Laboratory opened, which allowed the capital's bands to legalize their activities. And with the beginning of perestroika and glasnost in 1985, musicians had the opportunity to perform concerts without fear of criminal prosecution for entrepreneurship and parasitism.

The 80s in the history of Russian rock can be compared with the late 60s in Western rock music. In the cities of the USSR, rock clubs were created, well-known, and partly still active, rock groups were formed (see: Russian Rock Groups), people appeared who consistently wrote about rock music (Artemy Troitsky, Alexander Zhitinsky), major rock events took place. festivals (“Lituanika” - 1985-89, “Podolsk” - 1987), “SyRok”, etc. The prototype of Russian rock music of the 80s was Anglo-American rock music, namely, such directions as hard rock, heavy metal, “new wave”, as well as punk rock and partly post-punk.

Many songs of classic Russian rock bands were written and sometimes performed with an acoustic guitar as an art song. This happened primarily at unofficial concerts and “apartment events”. Thus, many bands of the 80s were, in a sense, the songwriter's accompaniment group. Often groups were formed around a lyricist (and sometimes music writer), who was usually considered the “leader” and, like the group, became widely known. Such personalities are indicated below in parentheses after the group names.

Regional scenes

Despite the fact that the passion for rock music in the USSR was widespread, by the end of the 80s a number of centers of the Soviet rock movement had formed, noticeably different from each other both in style and in organizational features. First of all, the three largest centers of Russian rock stand out - Moscow, Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg).

The centers of rock music in the USSR were:

Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1981, the Leningrad Rock Club was formed in Leningrad, which included such groups as “Aquarium” (Boris Grebenshchikov), “Automatic Satisfiers” (Andrey “Pig” Panov), “Zoo” (Mike Naumenko), “Myths” , “Brigade contract” (Nikolai Mikhailov). The groups “Kino” (Viktor Tsoi), “Alisa” (Moscow-Leningrad group, Konstantin Kinchev) and “DDT” (formed in 1980 in Ufa, Yuri Shevchuk) received cult status among fans. Among other significant groups were “Television” (Mikhail Borzykin), “Obermanken” (Anzhey Zakharischev von Brausch), “Zero” (Fyodor Chistyakov), as well as rock bard Alexander Bashlachev. Leningrad rock was a well-organized community, the center of which was a rock club, most of whose active members knew each other well. A special role in the club was played by Andrei Tropillo, who actually created the first private recording studio in the USSR, and Boris Grebenshchikov, who was the central figure of the St. Petersburg rock party. The music of most groups, as a rule, were arrangements of songs performed acoustically, which made it possible to perform them at apartment buildings without any problems and brought the St. Petersburg groups closer to the “traditional” rock of the 60s. At the same time, the Leningrad rock crowd was characterized by a great interest in other forms of art - literature, theater and cinema.

Moscow, where in 1985 a “rock laboratory” was created at the House of Culture named after. Gorbunova. The most famous Moscow groups: “Time Machine” (Andrey Makarevich), “Resurrection” (Alexey Romanov), “Sounds of Mu” (Peter Mamonov), “Brigade S” (Garik Sukachev), “Crematorium” (Armen Grigoryan), “Bravo” (Evgeniy Khavtan). The first electronic rock groups, such as “Center” (Vasily Shumov), “Nochnoy Prospekt”, “Bioconstructor” and others, also began to appear at the Moscow Rock Laboratory. The capital's rock music (especially its first wave) was characterized by early commercialization, which partly explained the fact that Gorbushka was more a center of informal rock culture than a core organization for musicians. Most Moscow rock bands existed on their own and formed their own style, unlike anything else, usually distinguished by emphatic frivolity and a condescending attitude towards reality. These qualities flourished in the 1990s and contributed to the popularity of such groups as Time Out, Accident, Dune, Nogu Svelo! and etc.

In addition to groups performing “classic” rock, in the 80s a number of groups playing “metal” appeared in Moscow: “Aria”, “Master”, “Black Coffee” (Dmitry Varshavsky), “Cruise” (Valery Gaina), “Black Obelisk” (Anatoly Krupnov) and “Corrosion of Metal” (Sergei Troitsky).

Murmansk Rock band Ptitsa Volnaya leader Andrey Gorshkov. Two CDs released<"Там, где ты", «Птица Вольная»

Ural and Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg). In 1986, the Sverdlovsk rock club was founded. Famous groups from the region: “Urfin Djus” (Alexander Pantykin), “Nautilus Pompilius” (Vyacheslav Butusov), “Chaif” (Vladimir Shakhrin), “Nastya”, “Agatha Christie”, “April March”. The Sverdlovsk rock scene was relatively narrow, and songwriters Ilya and Evgeny Kormiltsev played a special role in it. Ural rock was strongly influenced by Western bands of the 70s (including psychedelic rock), keyboards played a large role, the music was not intended for acoustic performance, and was distinguished by the complexity of its arrangements. The only Sverdlovsk rock band that achieved all-Union popularity in the 80s was Nautilus Pompilius, whose lyrics were more social and aimed at mass audiences.

Siberia: “Civil Defense” (Egor Letov), ​​“Survival Instructions”, (Roman Neumoev), “Kalinov Bridge” (Dmitry Revyakin), Yanka Dyagileva. Peripheral and without a single center, the Siberian rock community in the 80s was represented mainly by a movement that its participants called punk rock. Soviet Siberian punk rock relied not only on Anglo-American punk rock, but also on post-punk, garage rock, psychedelia and even partly on folk rock, and was a separate cultural phenomenon that continued to exist in the underground in the 1990s. e years and had a great influence on the youth subculture.

Kharkov, where rock festivals have been held since the late 80s. The most famous rock band from Kharkov is “Different People” (Alexander Chernetsky), in 1989-1994 the second soloist and songwriter of which was also Sergei Chigrakov (Chizh). Some Kharkov rock groups performed their songs in Ukrainian or English (like the rock group “Dozhd”). The most famous music critic in the Kharkov rock environment was Sergei Korotkov. The development of the city's rock scene was also facilitated by Radio 50, perhaps the first private radio station in the USSR.

Voronezh, where the Voronezh rock club opened in the late 80s. One of the brightest local rock bands was the Gaza Strip, whose vocalist and songwriter was Yuri Klinskikh (Yuri Khoy).

"Red Wave"

In 1986, the double album “Red Wave” (“Red Wave”) was released in the USA with recordings of the Leningrad groups “Aquarium”, “Strange Games”, “Alice” and “Kino”, which contributed to the development of Russian rock and interest in Soviet rock culture beyond outside the USSR. The release of the album became possible largely thanks to Joanna Stingray, an American who visited the USSR a lot and was actively interested in Soviet rock (she even married the guitarist of the Kino group, Yuri Kasparyan).

After the release of this album, Soviet rock bands got the opportunity to give concerts, record and release albums in other countries, and collaborate with Western musicians. The Kino group toured France, Italy and Denmark in 1988-89, Zvuki Mu released the album Zvuki mu in the UK (produced by Brian Eno) and toured England and the USA. Aquarium leader Boris Grebenshchikov recorded the English-language album “Radio Silence” in the USA together with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) with the participation of Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders).

Late 80s - early 90s

The end of the 80s was marked by the final emergence of Russian rock from the underground. Several films were shot that became an integral part of Russian rock culture: “Burglar” (1986) with Konstantin Kinchev, “Needle” (1988) with Viktor Tsoi, “Assa” (1987) with “Aquarium” and others, “Taxi Blues” "(1989) with Pyotr Mamonov, as well as the short film "Ya-hha" with the participation of the above rock musicians.

From that moment on, numerous new groups were created, the road for which was already open. In Russia, they first heard about the Agatha Christie group, which played psychedelic post-punk; in the early 1990s it was the most popular rock band in Russia. Punk projects also appeared, such as “Semantic Hallucinations”, “Va-Bank”, the instrumental ensemble “Zero” and the rock and roll group “Nogu Svelo!”, whose song “Haru Mamburu” reflected the culture of the 90s and became a megahit and even a hit.

As a protest subculture, Russian rock has lost its significance since the late 80s, when, after the legalization of rock music, it began to become part of the emerging domestic show business. This led to the emergence from the rock environment of a limited number of “star” bands capable of gathering large venues. The interest of the mass listener in other domestic rock performers began to decline, many of them ceased their activities due to the death of the founders, leaving abroad or unwillingness to work together. This is how “Autograph”, “Kino”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “Gorky Park”, “Zoo”, “Secret”, “Cruise”, “Dialogue” disbanded.

Among the thirty performers included in the first five issues of “Legends of Russian Rock,” only about half were active by the mid-2000s

90s and modern times

In terms of sound, Russian rock by the mid-90s (from about 1993) again approached Western music, actually joining its various directions without the lag that was inevitable during the Iron Curtain. The music of some Russian-language rock bands of the 90s and 2000s is sometimes characterized as “rockapop” and “not pop”.

In the 90s, many bands officially reissued old albums that had previously been released unofficially as samizdat. The company "Moroz Records" has released a large series of collections called "Legends of Russian Rock", in which retrospective compilation albums of most famous Soviet rock bands and musicians were released.

Mass media began to play a large role in the development of rock music. Although most TV channels and radio stations almost ignore modern Russian rock bands, in the 90s and 2000s media outlets specializing in this music appeared. These are “Our Radio”, TV channels “A-One” and “O2TV”, “Radio Maximum”, “Fuzz” magazine and others.

Following Yuri Aizenshpis (“Kino”), many influential rock producers appeared: Alexander Ponomarev (“Splin”, “BI-2”), Dmitry Groysman (“Chaif”, Mara), Leonid Burlakov (“Mumiy Troll”, Zemfira , “Brothers Grim”), Alexander Kushnir, Alexander Elin and others.

In Russian rock music, the development of genres popular in the West continued, with the gradual division of a single movement into them. A large number of bands appeared performing punk and grunge (“King and Jester”, “Lumen”, “Pilot”, “Naive”, “Cockroaches!”, “7race”, “Sky Here”). The “heavy” scene has expanded with the emergence of modern performers of power and symphonic metal (“Epidemic”, “Catharsis”, “Mechanical Poet”), black and pagan metal (“Nokturnal Mortum”, “Gods Tower”, “Temnozor” , “Arkona”), doom and atmospheric metal (“Mental Home”, “Dreaming Soul”, “Stonehenge”) and other types of metal music.

Russian alternative rock appeared in the mid-1990s and remains popular to this day. Initially, it was rapcore and trip-hop, which quickly became ingrained into the culture of Russian rock. A serious push towards alternatives was made by the groups “Dubovy Gaay” (Dolphin), “Bricks”, as well as the group “Gaza Strip”, where “Khoy” used rapcore in the 1990s. In the 2000s, a wide alternative scene appeared, performers of indie rock, nu metal, rapcore, emo, metalcore - such as “Amatory”, “Jane Air”, “Psyche”, “Apshell”, “Slot”, “Moi” Rockets Up", "Stigmata", "Rashamba" and many others. The A-One TV channel is actively promoting this scene by establishing the RAMP Award.

Folk rock received a new development, drawing closer, on the one hand, to minstrel song (“The Mill,” “The Dartz,” “Theodor Bastard”), and on the other hand, to the so-called Scandinavian folk rock (“Legacy of the Vagants” , “The Troll Bends the Spruce”, “White Owl”, “Tintal”). Some groups are focused on the folklore traditions of the peoples of Russia: “Yaros” (Slavic folk rock), “H-Ural” (Khanty electrofolk), “Bugotak” (Buryat ethno-rock), etc.

Russian rock outside Russia

rock russian origin development

Sometimes some Russian-speaking groups outside Russia, as well as various groups in the countries of the former USSR, which were influenced by Russian rock, consider themselves to be Russian rock. For example, one of these rock groups is “Adaptation”, which, despite being in Kazakhstan (Aktyubinsk), has every right to be called Russian rock. In this regard, the name “Soviet rock” arose, since, for the most part, the bands of the former USSR sound exactly what is called Russian rock. There are groups created by Russian-speaking emigrants in Israel, Germany, the USA and Canada, most of them amateur and practically unknown

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This section mentions groups of the 60s and 70s, each of them brought something new to Russian rock. Many members of these groups still work successfully today as musicians, composers, and producers. Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell about them all; there were many of them, and each group was interesting and important for Russian rock in its own way. Bands and performers from the 80s are displayed in the section of the site.

"Revengers"
The first rock band in the USSR, “Revengers” (translated as “Avengers”) with its leader Valery Zainutdinov “Seitski” (this is his nickname, today he lives in America), which was organized in 1961 in Riga. At that time, Czech electric guitars sometimes appeared on sale, but it was impossible to buy a bass guitar. The musicians made the “bass” themselves: they pulled strings from a piano onto the guitar and, in order not to injure their hands during concerts, they wrapped their fingers with electrical tape. They performed cover versions of popular rock and roll and blues songs. They played at school dances. The ensemble existed for a year and a half and after Zainutdinov was drafted into the army in the fall of 1962, it transformed into the Melody Makers, whose leader was Pete Anderson, who later assembled the Archive group.
After his return from the army, Zainutdinov formed the group “Natural Product”, which also performed a “branded” repertoire, which included rock and rolls, rhythm and blues and a little soul. The group ceased to exist in 1973, when Zainutdinov emigrated to the United States of America. In 1976, he joined the accompanying lineup of the first Russian-American rock band "Sasha and Yura". Today Zainutdinov works in Los Angeles in a studio.

"Slavs"
The group was formed in 1964 (according to other sources - at the beginning of 1965) consisting of: Mikhail Turkov (guitar, vocals), Viktor Degtyarev (bass, later - “Scythians”) and Viktor Dontsov (drums). The group performed cover versions of Beatles songs.
In 1965, the Slavs included: Alexander Gradsky, Mikhail Turkov, Vyacheslav Dontsov, Vladimir Degtyarev. The group's repertoire consisted almost entirely of BEATLES songs.
Alexander Gradsky: "...I met Mikhail Turkov, he also played the electric guitar and sang. We found a rhythm section... This is how my first group came into being - “Slavs.”
In 1966, the Slavs virtually disappeared into the growing Moscow rock community. Dontsov, Degtyarev and Gradsky from 1966 to 1968 performed as part of the Los Panchos group, which performed dance music in English. At the same time, Degtyarev has been participating in the Scythians group since 1967. In 1971 he performed in the ranks of the Blue Guitars. With the onset of the 70s, Dontsov and Turkov took up civilian activities.
“Slavs” existed for about two years and disbanded, unfortunately, leaving no records behind.

"Falcon"
"Falcon" was born in the fall of 1964. The first line-up: Yuri Ermakov (guitar, vocals), Igor Goncharuk (bass, vocals) - they studied at the same school, as well as Slava Chernysh (keys, ex-Brothers) and Sergey Timashov (drums, ex-Brothers) ). The team was brought together by one of our first “underground” managers, Yuri Aizenshpis. The first concert took place on October 6, 1964 in Moscow, at the Kauchuk Palace of Culture. The group performed the songs "Shadows". "Rolling Stones", "Moody Blues", "Yardbirds".
In 1965, the group worked for some time with the Tula Philharmonic. At the same time, the first changes in the lineup took place: Timashov left and Vladimir Doronin took over the drums, but soon he was replaced by Viktor Ivanov (“Music Lovers”). For some time, Lev Pilshchik sang in the group, then a vocalist from L. Rosner’s orchestra, and now he is a taxi driver in Italy.
Due to the fact that Chernysh could not leave Moscow, he, remaining in the ranks of Sokol, assembled his own band - "Music Lovers", which also included Viktor Ivanov (drums), Anatoly Markov (vocals), Yuri Gavrilov ( guitar), Alexey Sinyak (bass, he was eventually replaced by Goncharuk). So in parallel, with approximately the same composition, there were two groups.
By 1967, “Sokol”, thanks to songs in Russian, became the recognized leader of the Moscow rock community. His concerts attract sold-out crowds at the central point of the Moscow rock community, the Energetik Palace of Culture, on Raushskaya Embankment.
In 1968, “Falcon” recorded the soundtrack to V. Khitruk’s cartoon “Film, Film, Film,” which further raised the group’s ratings. Leonid Berger, vocalist of the group "Orpheus", now living in Australia, also took part in this recording.
But in December 1969, Yu. Aizenshpis was arrested. Soon he was sentenced to 10 years in prison “for currency fraud.” And for both groups - for "Sokol" and "Melomans" - this actually meant the cessation of active concert activity. Thus, having given the last concert in the fall of 1969 at the House of Cinema, “Falcon” ceased to exist.
The group left no records. And only the music for the cartoon “Film, Film, Film” remains the only audio document of the former popularity of “Falcon”.

"Argonauts"
The forerunner of the Argonauts group was the group Garik and Gorik, which was formed in 1964 by students of the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute Georgy Sedov and Igor Krutov, who played acoustic guitars. The first performance of the duo “Garik and Gorik” took place in the winter of 1964 at the English MEPhI club. The leaders of the Argonauts, Georgy Sedov and Igor Krutov, said that the idea of ​​​​creating their own beat group came to them after Sokol visited their native MEPhI with a concert in February 1965.
“Argonauts” (Georgy Sedov - guitar, vocals, Igor Krutov - bass, Yuri Radashevich - drums, Vladimir Silantyev - guitar, Vladimir Shamis - keys, Vyacheslav Atran - administrator).
In 1967, the Argonauts acquired a soloist, Galya Zaidel. She wrote songs in the style of the then fashionable Ada Yakusheva. The Argonauts arranged her works to a soft beat.
The history of the Argonauts ended in 1970, when the ensemble members graduated from their institutes and were faced with the problem of further choice of life path. In principle, the musicians from the Argonauts group were repeatedly offered to go to work at the Philharmonic, but they always refused.

"Scythians"
In the fall of 1967, the group "Scythians" was formed, the first lineup of which included: Sergei Dyuzhikov (lead guitar, vocals), Yuri Valov (rhythm guitar, vocals). Viktor Degtyarev (bass) and Yuri Malkov (drums)
During 1968, the group changed three drummers: first, instead of Malkov, Yuri Korotin sat on the drum kit, and he was replaced by Alexander Astafiev. And in the end, in the fall of 1968, “Skiffs” began to play as a three-piece: Valov picked up the bass guitar, and Degtyarev moved behind the drums.
The group's popularity grew rapidly, helped by the fact that more than half of its repertoire consisted of songs in Russian. The most famous of them are “Years like Birds”, “I’m Walking towards the Wind”, “Let Me Go”.
In May 1968, the “Scythians” took part in a student amateur show-competition held at the Luzhniki Sports Palace, and became laureates there. The distinguished team was sent from the Komsomol Central Committee to the south to entertain a team of weightlifters preparing for the Olympic Games in Mexico City.
In the same 1968, the “Scythians” starred in the film directed by G. Nathanson “Once More About Love.” The musical fragment took only 2 minutes, but this ensured that the overall mediocre film gained increased attention among young people.
“Scythians” ceased to exist in 1971, when Dyuzhikov, Degtyarev and Valov joined the “Blue Guitars” ensemble, where they remained until 1975. In 1972, Dyuzhikov and Degtyarev together with Yu. Fokin. Y. Saulsky and S. Grachev ("The Best Years") and L. Berger ("Orpheus") performed at the Yerevan Pop Song Festival as the group "Super". In 1975, all three left the Blue Guitars. Dyuzhikov went to play "Flowers". Degtyarev went to VIA "Plamya", and Valov went to America, where he created the group "Sasha and Yura" with Alexander Lerman (ex-"Winds of Change"). Today Yu. Valov is a designer at the Profile publishing house. V. Degtyarev is a teacher at the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University, and Dyuzhikov moved to America, to San Diego, in 1997, where he works as a session musician."

"Winds of Change"
The group "Winds of Change" arose in 1967 within the walls of the Moscow Aviation College named after. Godovikova. Its founders were the Chirikov brothers - the elder Igor (Garik) and the younger Sasha. The direct source of the band's name was the Animals album "The Winds of Change". Initially, the composition included only technical school students: Garik Chirikov (guitar, he played a homemade Fender), Anatoly Aleshin (guitar, vocals, later vocalist of “Araks”), Sergei Gusev (bass), Alexander Sherman (keys), Vladimir Gorbachenko (drums). Sasha Chirikov was an "impresario" until 1969.
In the fall of 1968, Sasha Chirikov agreed with one of the members of the “Celloists” group, which consisted of conservatory students, Alexander Lerman, that he would join the “Winds of Change” and. Having made the necessary changes in the composition, a non-trivial group will be created with an emphasis on the beautiful polyphony and original repertoire of Lerman’s compositions. By the summer of 1969, "Winds of Change" had already performed in the well-known cafe "Seasons" together with "Trolls" in the following lineup: Alexander Lerman (vocals, keys), Mikhail Kekshoev (guitar, vocals, ex-"Cellists"), Mikhail Mastakov (bass, vocals), Vladimir Ksenofontov (lead guitar), Vladimir Gorbachenko (drums). By that time, Aleshin had been drafted into the army; at the height of the summer engagement, Gorbachenko also left, and Alexander Ksenofontov (Butyl-kin) came in his place. This composition began to be considered classic.
The reputation of "Winds of Change" has developed from its magnificent polyphony and increased interest in Russian folklore and church melodies, manifested in original compositions. True, this also caused displeasure among the Komsomol leaders, who also tried to repeatedly rename the group so that the seditious “changes” would disappear. Without ever throwing out “Changes” from its name, “Winds of Change” existed until 1970, when Lerman went to “Skomorokhi” with Gradsky.”

"Atlantas"
Alik Sikorsky:“Kostya agreed and came to our base. And he understood: this is solid. The guys understood: he is what we need. The main thing is that Seryozha Laktionov (the group administrator) understood this. This is how Atlanta came into being.
Why Atlanta? Because the height of the three standing on stage was approximately the same, around 190 cm. And I, with my 176, sat at the drums. But I had long hair. That's a different story."
The group was formed in 1968. Composition: Konstantin Nikolsky (guitar), Ivan Loktionov (guitar), Sergey Izvolsky (bass), Boris Belyak (keys), Alexander Sikorsky (drums).
"Atlantis" performed cover versions of English-language hits. The group is known for pushing young Andrei Makarevich to make the decision to take up rock music. After Konstantin Nikolsky was drafted into the Armed Forces in the fall of 1970, Atlanta disbanded. After some time, Alexander Sikorsky assembled a new group - “Sikorsky Fragments”, and Nikolsky, having been demobilized from the army, joined Stas Namin’s group “Flowers”.

"Tin soldiers"
In 1968, the group's first song was written in Russian - "A little sadness remains." Then the question arose about changing the name to something more neutral and giving the opportunity to perform their own things. Victor Gusev suggested calling themselves “Tin Soldiers” (before that they were called “Behemoths”, and between the lines the English was read: “Hippopotamus”, the name had a connection with such a word and such a phenomenon as hippies! “Hippos” performed songs from the repertoire of “Shadows”, “ Bee Gees" and others), which was accepted. The group quickly becomes popular, plays many concerts, and tours around the country. The songs of the Tin Soldiers were distinguished from other groups that were popular in those days, such as “Atlanta”, “Falcon”, “Time Machine” by their special tenderness, kindness, unusually interesting musical discoveries and beautiful poetry. In the late 60s and 70s, it firmly held second place (after Gradsky) in the popularity rating of Russian-language groups in Moscow.
In 1969, during a trip to Solovki, the main hit of “Soldatikov” was born - “The Ballad of the Drainpipe”. Once, while walking around Bolshoi Solovetsky Island, Viktor Gusev suggested writing songs about specific things. The next morning, Sergei Kharitonov showed his friends this song, which immediately became popular; it was sung in a variety of places, in construction brigades, at KSP rallies, on the rock stage and in almost every gateway, often without even knowing the authorship.
In 1972, the group received official status and began working at the Soyuzmultfilm studio. The well-known song “The priest had a dog” in the series “Well, wait a minute!” they are the ones who perform it. In addition, “Soldiers” provided voices for such cartoons as “Stadium” and “Box with a Secret.” A little later - a more serious work: music for the film by Sergei Yutkevich "Mayakovsky Laughs". In the same year, the group recorded their first magnetic album, “Reflections,” which actually became the first domestic full-length rock album.
In the 70s, "Soldiers" wrote music for various productions of the Moscow Drama Theater. A. S. Pushkin, Tyumen Puppet Theater, Rostov Youth Theater. In 1982, the group ceased to exist unnoticed by itself and those around it.
In 1993, the return of the Tin Soldiers took place. On June 4 of this year they gave their first concert after a more than 10-year break at the Moscow rock club Sexton-FoZD. Their open, distortion-free sound surprised and pleased; everyone had already forgotten that such a sound existed. In addition, many of the songs turned out to be painfully familiar even to those who, due to their young age, could not hear “Soldiers” in the 60s and early 70s. After the enormous success of this comeback, the musicians rewrote their old songs and released them on CD. This recording very accurately reproduced the old sound of the ensemble.
Today "Soldiers" is still working on music for films.

"Ruby Attack"
The history of the “Ruby Attack” is based on the group “The Saints”, which in 1967 was organized in the basement of the housing office on Petrovsko-Razumovskaya Street by Evgeny Avilov (bass), Alexander Menshagin (drums), Yuri Vodopyanov (vocals), Vladimir Ratskevich (guitar) and Alexey Tegin (guitar). The group performed works from the repertoire of “The Shadows”, “The Ventures”, “The Beatles”, “The Monkeys”, etc.
In 1968, Vladimir Ratskevich (guitar) and Alexey Tegin (guitar) left The Saints and formed their own group, Rubins. In addition to them, the lineup included Sergei "Basky" Leshenko (bass, vocals; 04/20/1951 - 12/13/2014) and Alexander Samoilov (drums). The first concert of the new group took place in the winter of 1967 at the rehearsal base, in the assembly hall of the Institute of Earth Physics. O. Yu. Schmidt after the ceremonial meeting, “Rubies” performed instrumental arrangements of “The Beatles” and “Shadows”.
In 1969, Tegin left the group, and “Rubies”, in order to strengthen the name, were renamed “Ruby Attack”.
the lineup sang "Basques", and now the group had a voice, because before both "Saints" and "Rubies" performed mainly instrumental compositions. But the group’s repertoire still consisted only of English-language songs, since, according to Ratskevich, “rock music should be performed in the original language.” In the 70s, "Ruby Attack", performing hard rhythm and blues, consistently held first place in the popularity rating of the capital's English-language rock bands.
In the summer of 1972, when Leshenko and Samoilov went on vacation to the south, Ratskevich wanted to play hard boogie (the spirit of Woodstock was then strong in Moscow), and for this he called the rhythm section from the group "Sadko", which was based together with "Ataka", t e. - Alexander Zaitsev (bass) and Sergei Shevelev (drums), whose colleagues (Sitkovetsky and Kelmi) also went to sea. The project was called "Leap Summer", and it remained so when two other Sadko musicians returned to the capital, and Ratskevich again joined Leshenko and Samoilov. And in 1973, after the reorganization that took place in Leap Summer, Zaitsev and Shevelev replaced Samoilov and Leshenko in Ataka. (It was this cast that was filmed in the famous film that became an artifact, “Six Letters of a Beat.”)
In 1976, the lineup changed again: Ilya Dubrovsky (vocals, bass) and Boris Pankratov (drums) now worked with Ratskevich. Due to constant persecution by the authorities, the group constantly changes its name, and enters the stage under the new name “Citadel”.

"Successful purchase"
The group was founded in 1969 by Alexei "White" Belov, who is revered in our rock community as the Father of Moscow blues. At first it was a trio: Mikhail “Petrovich” Sokolov (one of our best bluesmen and “the country’s first harmonica” today, and then a drummer), who was eventually given the nickname "White". It all started with the performance of compositions by CREAM, early FLEETWOOD MAC with Peter Green, Hendrix, and later Jeff Beck.
“Successful Acquisition” in the 70s firmly occupied a leading position in the ranking of Moscow English-language blues bands; the public also liked the cheerful, simple-minded songs in Russian that White composed - “Tumbleweeds”, “When Fun Comes”, “Pranksters” and etc.
In 1975, Stas Namin persuaded the musicians of “Successful Acquisition” to go work for him, and Belov, Matetsky and Sokolov formed the backbone of the Stas Namin Group of 1975-76. They were also joined by Alexander Slizunov (keys), Alik Mikoyan (guitar) and Konstantin Nikolsky (guitar).
In 1977, Matetsky left the group. In the same year, “Successful Acquisition” recorded several musical screensavers at the GDRZ for Radio Moscow World Service. Andrei Makarevich, with whom the musicians of “Successful Acquisition” had been friends for many years and often performed together, was called to replace Matetsky on the recording.
For the majority of our rock bands, pressure from the authorities continued to intensify. This majority included the “Successful Acquisition” group. Looking around, the musicians realized that session activity had not only declined (which was also facilitated by the massive emergence of discos), but had also become downright dangerous. In 1981, it was decided to disband the group in restaurants.
In 2001, Solid Records released the collector's disc "Successful Purchase - Live"74", with the recently discovered recording of 1974.

The page is compiled from internet materials.

So, as mentioned above, it all started in 1961. Jamaican Rastafarians consider this year to be holy, since its numbering is read both from left to right and from right to left (unless, of course, the number is turned upside down). Before 1961, it was as if there was nothing, after 1961 everything appeared: big beat and the first success of The Beatles, free jazz, twist and white blues, as well as the first manned flight into space... Since 1961, symbols of the era have become Yuri Gagarin, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and, of course, the “music of the big blow.” There is a big beat invasion all over the world, and our country is no exception. Following the Riga "Revengers", the first groups appeared in Moscow. At first they consisted mainly of foreign students and children of Western diplomats studying at Moscow universities. The most famous was the group “Cockroaches”, in which Polish students played; not much inferior to it in popularity was another group of Polish students - “Mirages”, in which Severin Krajewski, the future star of Polish rock, leader of the group “Chervony Guitars” played the lead guitar. .

In 1963, the first real domestic beat group appeared in Moscow. It was called “Brothers” and performed its “branded” repertoire in English.

At first, rock music was a purely elitist phenomenon, but after 1965 the time of “a thousand flowers” ​​came, and in 1966-1967, as if an explosion occurred and groups began to appear in literally every school, sometimes two or three at once “It was some kind of a new culture, incomparable to anything,” says Vladimir Ratskevich, one of our first rock musicians, leader of the “Ruby Attack” group, about those days. “I have never felt such an emotional charge from any other form of art.” Then the musicians appeared. Quite a lot at once. At first they just played in the entrances, where interpretations of “The Beatles”, “Kinks”, “Swinging Blue Jeans” sounded. And this door-to-door life slowly grew into the formation of various groups.”

“The Beatles gave us a very powerful impetus,” recalls Yuri Ermakov. - Before them, the Anglo-American rock scene was built according to completely different laws, it consisted of disparate stars who demanded to be treated as idols and were terribly far from the people - all these Neil Sedaka, Paul Anka, Cliff Richard. And “The Beatles” showed that a rock band can appear at every entrance. This is how all these “The Searchers”, “Kinks”, “Spencer Davis Group”, “Cream” appeared. That's how we came into being. In general, I must say that general trends regarding fashion and music are common to the whole world. They are capable of overcoming any ideological barriers; no walls, no censorship can contain them. Of course, there are some differences in different countries, but the charm and image of a generation, as a rule, is the same throughout the world. This is a global process going on all over the world.

And we had the same thing. We got together, bought guitars for 7.50 and started learning to play them. Then the roles were assigned. “You will play the bass guitar,” I told my classmate Igor Goncharuk, “and I will play the guitar and sing.” In the same way, other groups arose - “Argonauts”, “Heirs”, “Slavs”... In general, it would be nice to list them all, maybe do a whole cycle like this, because many years have passed and I can already objectively say that they were people are extraordinarily talented and extraordinary, not only in terms of music, but also in terms of realizing their ideas: after all, we had nothing, but we had to find instruments, organize a group, break through, push this idea!”

Traditionally, the history of Russian rock begins in the summer of 1965. It was then that the first rock song in Russian was written and performed. The song was called “Where is that land?”, it was performed by the Moscow group “Sokol”. “I was inspired to write this song by a melody from the first album of the group “Pretty Things” - there was such a good group in which Jimmy Page also played as a session musician,” recalls Yuri Ermakov. - We wrote the music quickly, but then we were faced with a headache for Russian rockers of all times: how to write words in Russian for a rock song if they don’t fit into any rock and roll time signature? The phonetics of the Russian language fits very heavily into the rock and roll rhythm. And we began to select words that would be phonetically at least a little similar to English. This is where “Where is the edge?” came from. - the equivalent of the English phrase "What's the edge?"

And the most popular group of the 60s is considered to be the group “Scythians”, which already had many hits in Russian in its repertoire - “Autumn”, “Songs like Birds”, “I’m Walking towards the Wind” and others. After G. Nathanson’s film “Once More About Love” was released on the country’s screens, in an episode of which the group “Scythians” starred, the first “mania” arose in the country - “Scythomania”. “We had to pause the concert because something was starting to happen in the hall that the managers of the halls were afraid that all these buildings would fall apart. It was the spring of 1968,” recalls Yuri Valov, bass guitarist of the Skifs group.

The success of “Skifs” was associated with the participation of the fantastic guitarist Sergei Dyuzhikov in the group. Rumors about the talented guitarist began a year before this success. Dyuzhikov was born into an officer’s family and as a child traveled half the country with his parents, and when he was 13 years old, his father was sent to the city of Izmail, located almost on the border with Romania. There Dyuzhikov could not only listen to the radio, but also watch performances of famous Western rock bands on Romanian television. Thanks to this, he was then probably the only person in Moscow who played the guitar correctly, in a rock and roll style, and knew many of the techniques used by Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones, and no one else in Moscow could do this. In addition, he himself came up with many guitar effects, such as how to play with braces.

The appearance of Dyuzhikov in Moscow can even be compared with the arrival of Jimi Hendrix in England: it was at that time that rhythm and blues in England was ready to enter a new stage of development, but no one knew how to do this - only Hendrix knew.

Konstantin Nikolsky said that after he tried to “pull” the sound and nothing worked, he, out of frustration, pushed the guitar into a corner for a month and did not want to touch it.

However, all this was not yet rock music in the modern sense. This music was called big beat. Yuri Valov continues: “The word “rock” was never even used, because it could only do harm. After all, in order to perform somewhere, both student and school ensembles had to undergo Lithuanian training, if not at the level of the district Komsomol committee, but at least at the level of the local Komsomol organization: someone had to be responsible for everything that fell on stage. And we, playing “The Rolling Stones” and “The Beatles”, “Animals” and “Kinks”, wrote the names of the songs in Russian: “The Ballad of a Hero”, “Memories of the Dead Sailors”. It was all covered up, and in fact we fooled the authorities, but they did not perceive it. And the word “rock” didn’t exist at all. Back then it was called “big beat”. Everything that happened in the 50s was considered rock: Elvis, Little Richard...”

They say that competitions for student, school and just neighborhood beat groups took place almost every week in the 60s. The atmosphere of the sessions was joyful and festive and, according to the testimony of the musicians themselves, the rockers were not “persecuted” by any authorities. If any “attacks” happened, then, as a rule, it was a private ideological initiative of individual citizens.

So, for example, it was possible to find out that the sadly memorable Bereza operational squad, which chased hippies along the capital’s Broadway, that is, along the left side of Gorky Street from Pushkinskaya Square to the Moscow Hotel, was not organized by anyone from above. The creation of an anti-hippo strike force was the personal initiative of several young communists. It is interesting that during the years of stagnation, many Bereza participants took important and responsible positions in the upper echelons of the CPSU, becoming secretaries of various city and regional party committees.

And it was a thankless task to persecute musicians, since the parents of many of them held important positions. For example, the father of Valentin Nekrasov, guitarist of the groups “Balsam” and “Red Devils”, in the 60s was the vice-rector of the Moscow Higher Technical School named after. Bauman. One of Valentin’s fellow students began to write denunciations against him, probably for ideological reasons. But as soon as these denunciations reached the vice-rector’s desk, the informer was immediately and disgracefully expelled from the institute...

Was it easy to “run into” the Sokol group if the father of the guitarist of this group, Yuri Ermakov, was the head of the country’s air defense? The Sokol group was accompanied to the parties by an employee of the State Security Committee, but his task was not so much to “pursue” the musicians as to protect them from unwanted contacts. Many concerts of our beat groups took place in foreign embassies, and the KGB vigilantly ensured that the secret services did not contact some secret dad through his son.

From the very beginning of the rock community in Moscow, an institute of managers formed around the musicians, organizing concerts and distributing tickets. The most famous managers were Yuri Aizenshpis, Arthur Makariev, who later became a popular radio host, Valery Shapovalov, nicknamed Colonel, and Antonina Krylova, nicknamed Shark.

However, the bulk of concerts in the 60s were organized by the Komsomol, which was obliged to engage with young people. The apotheosis was the final of the student festival of musical ensembles, held in May 1968 at the Sports Palace in Luzhniki. Its laureates (including the legendary Scythians group) were sent south to entertain Soviet athletes preparing for the Olympic Games in Mexico City.

In the same 1968, a rock festival took place in Yerevan at the Weightlifting Palace, which can safely be called an all-Union festival. It was organized by Rafik Mkrtchyan, who invited the best performers from Moscow, Leningrad, Ukraine and the Baltic states to the capital of Armenia. Since then, the festival has been held annually, it was a great success and ceased to exist only in 1972, when Rafik was imprisoned...

Andrei Makarevich told how he dreamed of joining the Moscow team of musicians, which Rafik compiled especially for the festival. True, he was not included in the Moscow rock stars, but it really was a super team: “Soviet Tom Jones” Sergei Grachev (vocals, “Best Years”), “Soviet Ray Charles” Leonid Berger (vocals, “Orpheus”), “Soviet Jimi Hendrix" Sergey Dyuzhikov (guitar, "Scythians"), Igor Saulsky (keys, "Best Years", "Buffoons"), Viktor Degtyarev (bass, "Scythians") and Yuri Fokin (drums, "Flowers") - all, As for the selection, handsome men, professionals in their field and real superstars of those years. “The artists returned three days later, crazy with happiness,” recalls Makarevich. - They said something incredible. About the colossal apparatus put on stage, about the roaring crowd of Yerevan fans of Moscow rock, about how the artists were solemnly carried in their arms from the Sports Palace to the hotel...”

Following Moscow, the doom virus spread to other regions. By the end of the 60s, the number of ensembles in St. Petersburg exceeded one hundred. The most popular groups were “Avangard-66” (the ensemble later left for the professional stage, changing its name to “Good Fellows”), “Argonauts”, “Flamingo”. As in Moscow, they all initially performed cover versions of their favorite English hits, and the first St. Petersburg group to sing in Russian is considered to be the Nomads ensemble, which, by the way, included Mikhail Boyarsky, our rocker man in the Bolshoi Cinema.

Kyiv rock fans revere 1966 as the starting point of Ukrainian rock. Of course, most local groups also only copied foreign musicians, but for Ukraine the very fact of the appearance of beat groups had the character of a rebellion, experienced more acutely than in the capital. The first Kyiv groups - “Zvony”, “Red Devils”, “Second Breath”, “Once Upon a Time”, probably could have become famous, like their Moscow and St. Petersburg colleagues, but due to the lack of normal information in our show business at that time Wednesday they did not have such an opportunity.

In the first years of the existence of our rock community, music flowed in a single stream - big beat. The first groups that appeared in Moscow - “Brothers”, “Slavs”, “Trolls”, “Melomans”, “Mirages”, “Vultures”, “Rubins” and others - diligently performed foreign hits. However, their task was to convey to music lovers the exact sound of their favorite melodies. Therefore, the level of a musician’s “coolness” was measured by how accurately he copied the original. In the late 60s, when hippie ideas and psychedelic sounds reached our rock community, the elegant simplicity of big beat gave way to complex rhythmic compositions, extended instrumental solos, conceptual distortion of sound, and rich timbre coloring came. And the musicians themselves no longer feel like they are just radio receivers for transmitting overseas hits to the population. Our rockers began to write their own songs. But as soon as this happened, the blood memory made itself felt and national melodic lines penetrated into the new music. The most advanced rockers even moved along the path of experiments with folklore sound, Alexander Lerman, Alexander Gradsky, the groups “Tin Soldiers” and “Mosaika” already in the 60s, intuitively feeling the right path, tried to combine rock with traditional Russian folk melodies and classical Russian poetry. Later, the group “Flowers” ​​moved along the same path: its main composer in the early 70s, Sergei Dyachkov, even went on folklore expeditions in the North of Russia in search of inspiration. The melodies and sound production techniques found on those travels formed the basis for many hits of this legendary group.

The 70s have arrived. Many musicians graduated from their institutes, and they were faced with the problem of choosing: to begin everyday activities in accordance with the specialties obtained at universities or to become professional musicians. As a result, some groups that were recently at the top of the ratings of that time - “Falcon”, “Scythians”, “Winds of Change” - ceased to exist. Former idols of rocker youth of the 60s found themselves forced to look for work in official VIAs: “Skifs” in full force went to “Blue Guitars”, Alexander Lerman (“Winds of Change”), Alexander Buinov and Vladimir Polonsky (“Skomorokhs”) - to “ Cheerful Guys”, Valery Shapovalov’s group “Muscovites” joined the accompanying lineup of the performer of Russian folk songs Ivan Surzhikov.

But some rock groups born later are making unsuccessful attempts to enter professional life in an original version: Alexei Kozlov’s Arsenal, Stas Namin’s Flowers, Yaroslav Kesler’s Mosaic, unexpected support in the person of the head of the Theater are hired to work in various philharmonic societies them. Leninist Komsomol Mark Zakharov is found by the Araks group, which had previously performed on the dance floor in Lyubertsy. Following this, Alexander Gradsky, having graduated from Gnesinka, began his career as a professional composer.

Groups that had a slightly lower rating are fighting for a permanent place on the dance floors of Moscow and the region. In the early 70s there was no such thing as a “rock concert”; it was dances, student parties, at which “live” bands performed. The most important thing is that the ensemble could enter into contracts with dance floors, cultural centers and even local philharmonic societies and earn money from concert activities. The local administration, as a rule, did not care about the ideology of rock groups; for them, the main thing was fees from performances. Of course, the directors of cultural centers expressed their special opinion, but it usually boiled down to requests to play more quietly.

Gradsky, in an interview with one TV channel, spoke about the 70s: “Nobody persecuted us! All this is a lie. But no one invited us anywhere. So we sat in our basements..."

The problem of VIA was that most of the leaders of these ensembles grew up on big beat, they fought for a long time for the right to play their favorite music within the framework of show business, that is, to legally receive money for their performances, and, having achieved their goal, VIA started playing big -bit as a symbol of victory. But by that time hard rock had become fashionable all over the world, and VIA seemed to have missed, shot with fanfare, but ended up missing the mark. And as a result, the new generation chose dance floors where hard rock thundered. In principle, amateur groups completely filled the vacuum, and peaceful coexistence could continue for a long time. Radical changes in the ideology of rock groups began with the fact that the authorities tried to present VIA as true rock and a role model, without forgetting to provide them with Komsomol vocabulary. The immunity of the Motherland responded to the dominance of the Gems with the appearance of rock ensembles with social lyrics. Radical groups are born mainly in universities: at the Moscow Architectural Institute - “Time Machine” and the first group of Alexei Romanov, at Moscow State University - “Araks”, at MIEM - “Milky Way” (in the future - “DK”), etc.

According to contemporaries, unofficial ratings of groups singing in Russian in the early 70s were headed by Alexander Gradsky and his "Skomorokhs", "Flowers" and "Tin Soldiers", in the second half of the 70s "Tin Soldiers" was replaced in the rating by " Time Machine". Among the groups singing in English, the leaders were “Ruby Attack”, “Successful Acquisition” and “Second Wind”, which was later replaced by Alexei Kozlov’s “Arsenal”. The music performed on stage is mostly hard rock, a little bit of rhythm and blues (“Lucky Acquisition”, “Ruby Attack”) and a little bit of progressive rock (“Leap Summer”, “Victoria” ). In the 70s, folk groups such as Pesnyary, Ariel or Trio Linnik were especially popular.

But in the late 70s, the fashion for discos came to us from the West, and there were few “live” concerts, so in such a situation only supergroups, that is, groups made up of very famous musicians, could survive. In the summer of 1979, Evgeny Margulis and Sergey Kawagoe (ex-“Time Machine”), Alexey Romanov and Alexey Makarevich (ex-“Kuznetsky Most”), as well as Andrey Sapunov (then just a student at the Gnessin School) formed the group “Resurrection”. In the same 1979, Kutikov and Efremov from Leap Summer came to Makarevich in the Time Machine. “Leap Summer” itself was divided into “Autograph” by Sitkovetsky and “Rock-Atelier” by Chris Kelmi. “Araks” left Lenkom and began its own concert activity, gathering famous musicians from “Veselye Rebyat”, “Victoria” and the same “Leap Summer”. Vladimir Kuzmin, Alexander Barykin, Evgeny Kazantsev and Vladimir Boldyrev - former musicians of "Gems" and "Veselye Rebyat" - founded the group "Carnival".

In the 80s, a war began for the redistribution of the Philharmonic space. The “Spring Rhythms” festival marked the start of the new decade. Tbilisi-80”, held in March 1980. The laureates of this festival - “Time Machine”, “Magnetic Band”, “Dialogue” and others - became the new leaders of the philharmonic societies, actually displacing the monsters of the 70s - “Flowers”, “Jolly Guys”, “Ariel” from the site. Now new heroes gather the public in sports palaces and stadiums - “Time Machine”, “Autograph”, “Magnetic Band”, “Araks”. In 1981, the musicians of the group “Cruise” composed and performed the song “The Top Is Spinning,” which began real “cruisomania,” that is, demonstrations of fans, hysterics of fans and everything that usually accompanies a supergroup.

In response, the Union of Composers of the USSR, concerned about the improving financial situation of rockers, introduced the so-called “percentage”, that is, it obliged official rock teams to include songs by “recorded” composers in their repertoire. Now we can already say that the whole war with rock in our country had an openly commercial beginning, and the struggle, of course, was not life or death.

Poet Margarita Pushkina, who worked with the group “Autograph” in the early 80s, recalled that when the artistic council once again decided to “chop” Alexander Barykin’s songs, she turned for help to an employee of the elite Komsomol organization KMO USSR (Committee of Youth Organizations of the USSR) Andrei Fedorov, apparently a KGB officer, but a sympathizer, besides, he danced rock and roll well, knew all this music and had a good attitude towards Barykin. Fedorov arrived at the Melodiya company in a special vehicle with a flashing light and said to the artistic council: “We need people like Barykin!” And they answer him: “We will give you as many such people as you want, but we will not miss Barykin’s program...” But in the repertoire of “Carnival” there were completely innocent songs! Cute, fun reggae and rock 'n' rolls - what could be simpler?! But then Barykin’s program was not accepted 8 times (!)! He was tormented purely physically! And when she was not accepted for the eighth time, Sasha’s hand cramped. There was a real danger that his hand would remain stiff...

The 80s saw the heyday of the domestic tape culture. Rock bands and even individual musicians found the opportunity to record an album in the studio or at home in the kitchen, with a playing time equal to the record (35–40 minutes), then this recording was replicated on tape. The group itself typically released 20-30, or even up to a hundred original albums in boxes with cover art designed and executed by our best artists and photographers. Subsequently, rock music fans simply copied these recordings from each other.

The DK group, for example, not only released more than 30 tape albums, but also created a completely new genre, which can definitely be considered the contribution of the Russian rock community to the world treasury of styles - “radio theater”. Many groups that appeared in the 80s gained fame precisely thanks to tape albums (“Aquarium”, “Zoo”, “WATERFALL named after Vakhtang Kikabidze”, “Primus” and others). At the same time, the fame of a number of groups that were popular at the turn of the 70s and 80s, but did not have magnetic albums, faded away (“Araks”, “Integral”, “Displacement”). Therefore, some astute musicians who had a completely official status perceived tape culture as a natural development of the show industry. For example, Yuri Chernavsky, starting a new project, preceded it with the tape album “Banana Islands”.

The authorities no longer had enough strength or skill to track this process. The first amateur collectors appeared in the country: in Moscow - Alexander Ageev (founder of the Kolokol studio), Viktor Alisov, Viktor Lukinov, in St. Petersburg - Sergey Firsov, who had complete collections of such recordings, and they distributed magnetic albums among friends. By the mid-80s, the infrastructure of music criticism and the rock press had developed. Moreover, samizdat magazines were popular among the people, authority and respect among musicians and had the most serious influence on the rock process. Publications were usually published in several copies, and then selected articles were reprinted on typewriters or re-photographed and thus distributed to the masses.

At the same time, a real rock revolution began in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg musicians rallied around the figure of the legendary Boris Grebenshchikov, who, by the way, was expelled from the same notorious Tbilisi festival for radicalism in music. The new wave, new ideas, new people still prevailed, and in 1981 a rock club opened in Leningrad on Rubinshteina Street, 13 - not the very first, but the most famous. And in the spring of 1983, the first St. Petersburg rock festival took place - not the most massive, but formative. The names of the heroes immediately scattered across the country - “Aquarium”, “Zoo”, “Cinema”, “Manufactory”, “Strange Games”...

The “revolutionary situation” reached Moscow. Here it was aggravated by the beginning of civil strife among the “underground” managers and owners of the halls. As a result, from February 1984 to April 1985, not a single real “electric” rock concert took place in the capital.

Whether it was an accident or not, at the same time a political crisis was developing in the country. In April 1985, perestroika began. Rock music, already densely saturated with social protest by that time, exploded like a volcano.

In the fall, the Moscow City Creative Laboratory of Rock Music was formed. Its director was Olga Preyatnaya, an employee of the disco sector of the scientific-methodological center of the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR, and her closest assistants were reputable people in the underground: Alexander Ageev (concert administrator) and Viktor Alisov (technical director). The author of these lines was involved in the publication of the rock almanac “SDVIG” and the newspaper “SDVIG-poster” in the rock laboratory. The main decisions were made by the artistic council, which included the leaders of all groups that became its members. The Rock Laboratory received the right to put “Lithuanian” songs on the songs of rock musicians, and as a result, permission for public performance was given to “the most ideologically dubious groups” - “Zvuki Mu”, “Corrosion of Metal”, “Crematorium”.

The rock laboratory quickly and energetically established concert activities in the capital. Olga Preyatnaya ensured that the Ministry of Culture charged the amateur ensembles that were part of the rock laboratory (and there were more than fifty of them in 1987 alone, and by the end of the decade their number exceeded a hundred), and the musicians were now able to legally receive money for performances. Laboratory groups quickly mastered the concert halls of the capital and began to actively tour the cities of the USSR. And in August 1986, “Va-Bank” went to a festival in Poland, becoming the first amateur Soviet rock band to give concerts abroad.

On October 26, 1987, a unique event happened: at the invitation of the rock laboratory, the Finnish punk band “Sielun Veljet” (in the European charts - “L" Amourder) came to Moscow for concerts. Thus, the Moscow rock laboratory broke the monopoly of the State Concert of the USSR to invite foreign artists.

The years 1987–1988 saw the peak of popularity of rock music in our country. Even the performances of groups performing experimental and completely non-mass music were sold out in sports palaces and stadiums. It was after such sold-out shows that Alexey Borisov, the leader of Night Prospect, whose hidden goal was the desire to “spoil everyone’s mood” with his music, decided to refuse a tasty invitation to go to work in New York at the Soviet representative office, stayed home and continued his career as a musician...

The most famous concert of the end of the decade was “Rock Panorama-87” in Luzhniki, where historical justice was done: the Grand Prix was awarded to one of our oldest rock musicians, Sergei Popov, and his group “Alibi” for their “Last Song”. It was such a minor-major hymn that fills the eyes with tears and fills the muscles with steel. In the “Rock Panorama” poster, the “Alibi” group occupied a rather gray place, getting lost among its more hit neighbors like “Nautilus Pompilius” or “Brigade S”, but as soon as Popov sang his “Last Song” from the stage of the Sports Palace in Luzhniki, the audience rose to its feet. Only about twenty people remained sitting somewhere in the corner, behind the portals - little could be seen or heard from there, and they lived their own lives. Gradsky immediately flew up there and shouted in a rich baritone: “Get up! Toh-ti-bi-toh! Everyone is standing, but why are you sitting?!” The people stood up unquestioningly...

In the 80s, the palette of rock music styles blossomed with the brightest colors. The decade began with the invasion of our rock community by reggae music. Rhythms from Jamaica captured almost all musicians, for some it was another brick in their work (“Aquarium”, “Zoo”, “Carnival”), for others it was the foundation (“Sunday”, the capital’s “Cabinet”, later - “Polite Refusal” ").

The “new wave”, which entered our land after reggae, first appeared in many purely studio groups, fortunately, the conventions of the style welcomed it. Such ensembles, often consisting of one or two people, practically did not give concerts, but only worked in studios to record their albums (“Valery Chkalov Detachment”, “Theatre”, “Doctor”).

The intimacy of the underground and its focus on apartment concerts gave impetus to the development of the so-called bard rock. Sergey Ryzhenko very accurately analyzes the reasons for the birth of this style:

“Electric rock concerts then were a kind of happening, where, as a rule, no one heard the words, there was almost no music, there was some kind of incomprehensible roar, with overloads, wheezing, with an eternally drunk sound engineer, who by the end of the program simply passed out from the amount of port wine and vermouth they drank, but the people were not at all interested in this, because everyone “grabbed” the energy that the groups gave from the stage, in response, energy came from the audience, fairly warmed up by port wine, and there was a strong element of excitement, because at any moment they could the cops appeared - and they often appeared, and it all ended in general knitting. Pure underground! In addition, it was rare, it did not provide food, and mostly people lived from “apartment” sessions. And there you go out - there is a crowd of fifty or even a hundred people, who are crammed into a one-room apartment, and you are just with a guitar. And what will they listen to? They will listen to the lyrics, so naturally all the songs had lyrics. And it’s good if you managed to turn all this into electricity, but if you didn’t, you can eat it.”

The elitism of the underground also gave rise to various avant-garde movements associated with happenings (“Last Chance”, “Central Russian Upland”), even punk rock in the early 80s was a manifestation of the avant-garde in our country (“Football” by Sergei Ryzhenko).

By the mid-80s, all the styles that existed at that time in world practice had settled on our rock scene: “new wave” (“Cinema”, “Alice”, “TV”, “Alliance”), ska (“Strange Games” , Moscow “Cabinet”), glam (“Sounds of Mu”), breakdance (“Vector” by Vladimir Ratskevich), neo-rockabilly (“Bravo”, “Mr. Twister”), swing rock (“Brigade S”), punk ( “AU”, “Miracle Yudo”, “Amnesty”, “Pogo”), garage rock (“Civil Defense”), art rock (“Jungle”, “Nicholas Copernicus”, “Pierrot Lunaire”), psychedelic (“ Optimal Option"), industrial ("Night Prospect"). There was a lack of blues, but at that time there was little of it in the whole world, because the “new wave” proclaimed the priorities of reggae and soul. But rock is closely intertwined with the traditions of KVN and the Student Theater of Miniatures (“Mango Mango”, “Port Arthur”, “Dumb”, “Clinic”).

After the Moscow Rock Laboratory brought the underground to the surface, there was an explosion in the popularity of heavy metal. Marginal youth found an outlet for their complexes and fears in this style. The structure of heavy metal not only has artistic value, it is filled with pagan cult rituals to get through difficult times. Therefore, the enormous popularity of heavy styles in our country has manifested itself not only as a consequence of a global trend, but also because young people have accumulated too much self-doubt. “Metal” made people feel stronger. With its appearance, Moscow was divided geographically: metalworkers lived in the north and south of the capital, where the working outskirts were located, and adherents of more elitist styles lived in the west and east. This division continues, by the way, to this day.

In the end, our rock community gave birth to its own genre - anarchic rock. The first to be here were the Moscow groups “E.S.T.” and "Mongol Shuudan". It was punk rock, infused with national, mainly Cossack, melodic music and imbued with the ideas of anarchy during the Civil War. Our rock community perceived this as the quintessence of the idea of ​​freedom of spirit in rock music.

In 1989, the term “World Music” appeared on our rock scene, or, as we call it, “ethnic music”. The groups “Polite Refusal”, “Alliance” and singer Inna Zhelannaya tried to synthesize traditional rock rhythms with national Russian melodic music. This second attempt (the first was made back in the 60s by A. Lerman and A. Gradsky) turned out to be more successful, and in the 90s, experiments with folklore became mainstream.

Suddenly it was all over. In August 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist and disintegrated into a number of sovereign states. With the change in political geography in our rock community, internal connections were disrupted, and the “shock therapy” that followed August reduced concert activity in the country to zero, since it became impossible to send bands on tour, because train tickets were now unaffordable for musicians, and tickets going to concerts is beyond the means of the public. The rock revolution of the 80s, which began so joyfully in St. Petersburg, failed. The Leningrad rock club closed. Following him, the Moscow Rock Laboratory announced self-liquidation...

But it can’t be that there was nothing at all?! Rock music moved to small halls, just like it did in the 60s. Moscow again set an example. On October 31, 1992, Oleg Abramov opened the Sexton FoZD rock cafe in the Sokol district of Moscow, which is now commonly called the first in Russia. Next, “Ulitsa Radio”, “Don’t Beat the Hoof”, “Tabula Rasa”, “R-Club” opened. “Nora” and “Hole” started working in St. Petersburg. And then a rock cafe opened in every city - this became the new norm of life. The history of our rock at the end of the 20th century is the history of small rock clubs that were born in modern times.

The main styles of the 90s were jumping funky alternative and reggae, which from a fragment in the work of great groups took shape into a real movement with traditions, paraphernalia and rules for admission to membership.

But the main style both here and abroad has become “World Music” - a desperate attempt by a man of the technological era to find his roots. Since in Europe itself it turned out to be extremely difficult to unearth one’s own history under the layer of later cultural strata, many musicians turned their attention to the periphery of the world, where archaic cults could still be preserved in their original form. Until recently, “ethnic” was most often perceived as “archaeological” or “ethnographic”, as a kind of museum exhibit worthy of worship and preservation. Therefore, “ethnic” has always been opposed to “modern,” with one side arguing that “modern” is a regression, and the other that “ethnic” is hopelessly outdated. But in the 90s, the understanding came that ethnicity is not at all something primordial and ancient. It turned out that ethnicity is historical. “World Music” is a modern style, and not the exploitation of folk elements for the sake of fashion trends. This is the main explanation for the mass passion for ethnic music. And if in the 80s ethnic music was only a field of experimentation for the most advanced avant-garde artists, then in the 90s it became part of the flesh and blood of modern music, and it is no longer possible to remove it from there.

Today rock music in Russia is becoming like a hieroglyph. The variety of styles of the 80s is a thing of the past. Today, guitar riffs only indicate that a musician belongs to a certain social category. In principle, it no longer mattered what to play. The main thing is to have drive. Our standard for this new approach is “Time Out”. The band's music is simply rock. Of course, well played, tasty served, with great melodies. But trying to qualify the music of “Time Out” stylistically is completely hopeless. But this is not eclecticism, as it was in the 70s and 80s. It's just rock. And the main thing here is something else: the popularity of “Time Out” is based on the creation of the style and mythology of a parallel world - the Motological Coast. But this has always been the case: the groups that have the widest response from the public are those who either tell the truth or sing “about Paris,” that is, about a pipe dream.

The work of Arkady Semenov and Ivan Sokolovsky on the project “Soldier Semenov” became precisely the synthesis of an impossible dream and the harsh realities of life. On the cover of the album “Plan for the Salvation of Constantinople,” Semenov depicted a fabulous map of the world, in which the borders of many countries - Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Greece - acquired new outlines unfamiliar to modern man. Of course, what Soldier Semyonov is doing is a political utopia, and Arkady himself does not hide the fact that he knows about it, but more and more people - some with fear, others with hope - are thinking about how this dream could to be brought to life... As for the style of music in which the duo works, it is similar to hard rock. Or rather, hard rock, which has become a hieroglyph.

Thus, by the end of the 20th century, rock music had become more of a mystery than a reality. Perhaps this is the riddle of the sphinx. Perhaps it will turn out to be the forgotten alphabet of the ancients. Let's see…

Separately, it should be said about our achievements in the international arena. On the eve of the big “Drang Nach West” is the success of Alexander Gradsky’s record with music and songs from the movie “Romance of Lovers”, which the authoritative American music magazine “Billboard” called “Best Record of 1974”.

The first trip of our rock abroad also turned out to be fabulously spectacular. Our two most famous musicians Yuri Valov (ex-Scythians) and Alexander Lerman (ex-Winds of Change) emigrated to the USA, where they organized the first Russian-American ensemble “Sasha Yura”. For a year and a half they toured the cities of America, performing in the most prestigious halls together with such famous musicians as Tom Fogerthy, Bob Seeger, participating in shows that are not easy to get into even for those born “in the USA”. The group had resounding success, good press and even an offer from Warner Bros to release a record, but the contract fell through due to the inept management of the group's manager. During the concerts, Lerman talked about the lightning-fast birth and slow suppression of rock in the USSR, American newspapers and magazines - The New York Times, LATimes, The Rolling Stone - published interviews with him, there were many broadcasts on radio and television. Refutations appeared in the Soviet press, and Pesnyary came to America on tour. The tour of the Belarusian group was quite successful, but more than half of the musicians did not return back to the USSR, so it was decided not to hold such propaganda campaigns anymore... As for “Sasha and Yura,” they broke up because Lerman received an invitation to enter Yale University...

The next contact with foreign countries was the release in 1982 of a pirated record “Time Machine” by a small American record company, after which Makarevich and his friends suffered greatly.

Four years later, in America, through the efforts of singer Joanna Stingray, the album “Red Wave” was released with recordings of St. Petersburg heroes - “Aquarium”, “Kino”, “Alice” and “Strange Games”. A scandal broke out again. But since perestroika was already moving across the country, all the showdowns ended with the largest American record company CBS offering the leader of Aquarium, Boris Grebenshchikov, a contract to release eight (!) records. His first American album, Radio Silence, was released in June 1989. Unfortunately, this record failed, the reason for which was that to work on “Radio Silence” BG attracted famous American musicians who gave him a traditional Central American sound, because they don’t know anything else. Grebenshchikov, having arrived in America, felt that his rose-colored dream of playing with the masters of the world stage was coming true, and for this he actually sacrificed the original sound of “Aquarium”. Great is the power of the party! As a result, his first “signature” album also became his last, since Grebenshchikov, like many of our superstars, was born in the era of imitation of foreign idols and could not completely squeeze this “slave” out of himself.

No less difficulties accompanied the entry of the recognized leader of the Moscow underground, Pyotr Mamonov, and his group “Zvuki Mu” onto the world stage. Despite the fact that his concerts were always sold out, the “Sounds of Mu” record released in England actually did not sell. The reason for the failure is probably that its producer Brian Eno, who never played in our basements, simply “didn’t get into” the specific sound of the group, and as a result, the sound on the record turned out, to put it mildly, inadequate to what was happening on stage .

More successful could be considered the expansion into the Western market of the Moscow group "Gorky Park", whose debut album entered the American charts, it seems, in 74th place. However, this success was not developed.

The attempts of a number of other groups to conquer the world also did not yield real results. “Autograph” vocalist Arthur Berkut recalls: “When we came to America, bands like “Poison” or “Motley Crue” were already very popular there. But we played something completely different. We had everything fancy! Then our manager with Capitol, Herb Cohen, a very famous person whom everyone knows from his work with Frank Zappa, says: “We need to simplify everything! We need to make everything simpler!” And they began to redraw everything. But we can’t understand why they invited us if they want to make us another American group? As if there aren’t enough people there?! And barely, with grief in half, we recorded the record, and we did it for a very long time. Let's record one song - it's not right, it doesn't fit, the verse and chorus need to be rearranged! But we are used to having everything already placed where we need it! And here my uncle comes and says: “No, this is no good!” And we have to start all over again. That is why the work took a very long time and was done without soul. That is, the record came out, everything was fine, but in the end everyone was so tired of it that we just took it and sent it all to... the fucking mother. And they left for Moscow. Everyone but me. And I got married."

What is the reason for our failures abroad? Firstly, the pathos of our rock revolution was inadequate to the calm global evolutionary process and therefore turned out to be completely incomprehensible to the Western public, who looked at our teams as exotic. Secondly, in our rock music the text dominates, which means that most songs remain simply beyond the consciousness of the viewer who does not understand the Russian language. Alexander F. Sklyar, who has traveled extensively with his “Va-Bank” abroad, says this:

“The West is more material, clean energy is available there, and because of this, the West will never be able to fully appreciate Russian rock. And Russian rock and roll develops according to the laws of the Russian language. The Russian language is adapted for long, measured storytelling. It’s not for nothing that all our conversations at the table are so long. And this affects the music. The first thing that comes to mind is that you need to lengthen the line. Dima Revyakin has long songs. Ballads in Russian are easier to sing, and therefore ballads will be present in Russian rock and roll to a greater extent than in English. And emotionally, the Russian language is richer than English. Take, for example, Pyotr Mamonov, who works exceptionally with words - it’s absolutely untranslatable into English! This is fundamentally Russian! And God bless him, the West! Why should we report to the West?! The West is not our decree. We are the great Russian Empire! Our huge country is absolutely enough for us!”

And yet we have groups that have sustained success abroad, and the first of them is Sklyarov’s “Va-Bank”. By the way, it was this Moscow group, and not Aquarium, that was the first to record a record in a Western studio. This happened in April 1988, when “Va-Bank”, at the invitation of its “brothers in spirit”, the Finnish group “Sielun Veljet”, went on tour to Finland. And even though this country lies on the periphery of rock life, the album “Va-bank”, released the following year by the Finnish company Polarvox, pushed our group on an almost two-year voyage across Europe. The group toured almost all countries of the Old World with concerts, with the exception of England, and everywhere their uncompromising rock met an energetic response from connoisseurs of this music. True, the guitarist of the famous group “Talking Heads” Nigel Harrison, having met with “Va-Bank” in Paris, was indignant for a long time about the chords that Yegor Nikonov plays on the guitar. Harrison believed that it was impossible to play this way, because such chords did not provide “euphony.” Egor, in turn, answered: “Western rock is very sleek, very correct music, it’s good to eat, talk, and just relax with it. You can’t do any of this to Russian rock. You can only listen to it, it’s best to even wear headphones so that no one is distracted, or not listen at all.” Nigel Harrison, being a tastemaker in world rock music, had every right to be indignant, because there were many lovers of such “primitive” sound in Europe, the game “All-in” reminded everyone of how the first rockers played - Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, young “Rollings” - albeit dirty, but lively and simple-minded.

The Moscow group “Master” toured clubs in Belgium almost without interruption from 1991 to 1995 and released three CDs there. Alik Granovsky said: “I remember our first concert in Belgium - they treated us very coldly: can these Russians really do anything?! But when we started playing, their snobbery immediately went away, because we were very specific.”

Groups that exploited the revolutionary artistic aesthetics of the early 20th century, such as “AVIA” and “AuktYon”, were also popular abroad. Even greater success came to the avant-garde artists Sergei Kuryokhin and Sergei Letov, whose charm of skill did not leave the sophisticated Western listener indifferent.

But it was the artists who turned to the ancient musical tradition that attracted the greatest attention from the foreign public. The joint album of the Alliance group and singer Inna Zhelannaya “Made in White” was named the best album of 1993 in the “World Music” genre at the prestigious European MIDEM competition in Cannes. The musicians actually abandoned the usual rocker instruments, leaving only drums and bass guitar, but wind players Sergei Starostin and Sergei Klivensky, playing fabulous horns and pipes, produced such a powerful drive that the energy is comparable only to heavy metal. Since then, Inna Zhelannaya and her musicians have been welcome guests at the largest European and world festivals.

Another ethnic rock group of ours, Yat-Ha, has real success abroad. In the early 90s it was founded by Tuvan singer Albert Kuvezin and Moscow musician and arranger Ivan Sokolovsky. The concept of Yat-Ha music is based on three genres: purely ethnic music, new age ambient using elements of Tuvan folklore and techno, also with ethnic inclusions. In themselves, these three styles are not similar to each other; they are akin to “kyrkaraa” - one of the twelve types of throat singing, the lowest: Albert Kuvezin sings in this vein. His voice imitates the sound of the wind, mountain falls, waterfalls, and the roar of wild animals. It is interesting that Kuvezin does not perform everyday songs, like most ethnic singers, but the battle songs of ancient nomads from the time of Genghis Khan and real magical shaman songs.

In 1998, Yat-Ha signed a contract with one of the largest record companies in the world, BMG, or rather with its subsidiary, World Music, Wilclow, which produced the release of the group’s new album, Dalai Beldiri, title which is translated from Tuvan as “Confluence of the Oceans”. Yat-Ha spent the entire fall of 1999 on a promotional tour dedicated to promoting this album, touring Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and the UK with concerts, and also performing at the World Music festival in the Canary Islands. As a result, “Dalai Beldiri” entered the Top Ten of the European radio “The World Music Charts Europe Panel”, specializing in “World Music”.

“World Music”, apparently, is the only real opportunity for Russia to break through to the Big World stage. Russian ballet and Russian circus are famous all over the world. In the same way, Russian authentic music can become famous all over the world.

The times of the Soviet Union did little to promote the development of music, especially the rock style. Here the western wind of rock came to the rescue, which led many musicians to perform just such music. Rock in the USSR is a social and cultural concept in music that is positioned as a way of self-expression for young people.

Rock in the USSR: Origins

Rock in the USSR began to emerge in the 70-80s of the twentieth century. This phenomenon gathered into its circles mainly subcultures, people whose thinking did not fit into the patterns of the union. No matter how hard Soviet officials tried to control and destroy followers of rock, this style of music was gaining momentum, and the times of perestroika gave some freedom, which led to a boom in the creation of their own Soviet rock groups and songs.

Stages of development of rock in the USSR

Conventionally, the development of music during the USSR, namely rock, can be considered in four stages. The first is the 60s of the twentieth century. considered the beginning of copying English rock, the performers tried to sing only in English, since it was believed that rock songs were not performed in Russian. Rock bands of the USSR began to be founded (for example, “Skomorokhi”), performing songs in Russian, which were rather translations and adapted to Russian life. The Integral group, a beat group, even received the honor of being named a professional rock group of the USSR. And the reason for this is a completely different style than others: the use of light play, pyrotechnics, sound effects, tricks and special decorations. All this created a unique phantasmagoria that veiled the real rock music of Integral.

The 70s is the second period, which is marked by the extensive work of rock groups towards rock concerts, the creation of rock operas (A. Rybnikov). Concerts are organized illegally, so they were often broken up. The widespread music of VIA (vocal and instrumental ensembles), which included almost all members of future rock groups: “Merry Guys”, “Blue Guitars”, “Time Machine”. But rock fans did not accept VIA.

The fourth stage - rock in the USSR in the 80s is characterized by the control of the authorities of the rock movement, rock clubs are organized, the first of which was the Leningrad Club. Such a concept as a rock club opened previously forbidden recording studios for performers, concerts became legal and the rock movement gained momentum and positioned itself as a representative of the subcult of the USSR. The groups “Nautilus Pompilius”, “Aquarium”, “Zoo” are popularized. In 1986, albums were released by rock groups that are still considered elite today: “Alice”, “Kino”, “Strange Games”.

Young people in the USSR are beginning to become interested in rock music en masse, collecting cassette tapes with recordings and considering themselves a subcultural member of rock.

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The alternative rock group “Tears” began to sound in March 2002, while alternative rock performers appeared in Russia back in the 80s of the 20th century.
The term “alternative rock” today refers to all kinds of rock music genres that contrast themselves with traditional rock. The very concept of “rock alternative” arose in the 80s of the last century and united several genres that emerged from punk rock, post-punk and others.

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Any direction in music has always had a certain influence, both on culture and on the way of dressing. Glam rock style combines sexuality, brutality and drama. This style is far from new and is over forty years old, and, nevertheless, it has not yet lost its popularity, returning from time to time at the height of fashion, each time bringing with it something new. This style was created by free and different people, striving to prove their originality in a rather radical way.

Russian rock is an integral and unique phenomenon of Russian culture. There are a sufficient number of options for defining this concept, but most of them are based on erroneous or insufficiently precise statements, among which the following are the most common:

— “Russian rock is the same rock music, just with Russian-language lyrics.”

As a rule, it includes groups that, in addition to rock music itself, represent a fairly wide range of musical styles - reggae, rap core, bard and art songs, etc.

— “Russian rock – live guitar music.”

But, in addition to traditional guitar music, performers often use electronic elements of sound or even use them as the basis of the band's sound.

— “Russian rock is the music of protest.”

Domestic rock is not limited to protest motives - the songs contain love or philosophical lyrics, textual absurdity or something else.

The presence of a singer-songwriter is not mandatory - musicians often perform songs with words or music from other people. In the end, even the presence of Russian in the text is not important. Some rock musicians, in their creative experiments, turned to other languages, including non-existent ones.

In this regard, the most correct definition will be the following: “Russian rock” is a musical direction that began to take shape in the USSR in the 60s under the influence of Western rock and roll culture, which became a kind of alternative to the Soviet pop tradition, developing on the basis of external borrowings , combined with domestic cultural models.

The origins of our rock - the 1960s

Interest in rock music in the USSR began to appear in the 60s. Among the reasons, one should note the “Beatlemania” that began in the West in 1963. The enormous popularity of The Beatles led to the penetration into the Soviet Union, first of Beatles audio recordings, and then of other rock bands.

In the 1960s, the first Soviet amateur groups began to appear (“Falcon”, “Scythians”, “Slavs”), which tried to play rock music. The following characteristic features of their work during this period can be identified:

• at first their repertoire consisted only of cover versions of Western compositions;
• his own creativity was initially based primarily on compositions with English text (it was believed that the Russian language, due to its linguistic properties, was not suitable for rock music);
• low sound quality due to the lack of appropriate equipment.

In general, it can be argued that in the 60s, rock culture in the USSR was just beginning to take shape, the creativity of musicians was reduced to copying Western creative standards, and there was no original Russian rock tradition at that time.

VIA and “amateur” groups - 1970s

The appearance of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin in the West led to the growing popularity of art rock and hard rock among Soviet groups in the 70s. Inheriting the new style, the groups, however, were increasingly inclined to create and perform their own material.
All groups of this period can be divided into two large groups in accordance with the specifics of their musical decisions and relations with official authorities:

• vocal and instrumental ensembles (VIA) (“Ariel”, “Blue Guitars”, “Jolly Fellows”, “Flowers”). Official groups that performed only the repertoire approved by the artistic councils, and had the opportunity to publish material in recording studios and perform at large venues. Since at that time, among other things, musicians were required to “moderate sound on stage,” many restrictions were imposed on VIA’s music. For example, the use of guitar “gadgets” and overly expressive guitar and drum parts were not encouraged, and vocal style and behavior on stage had to be as consistent as possible with academic ones. Thus, the VIA repertoire was rock music only from the standpoint of musical harmony and the composition of instruments on stage, but otherwise it was subject to Soviet pop traditions.

• underground, or amateur, groups (“Autograph”, “Russians”, “Myths”). Groups that gave unofficial concerts, whose songs reached the listener through tape recordings. In the 70s, the practice of creating magnetic albums - semi-professional studio recordings with band materials - began to spread in the USSR. Freed from censorship restrictions, amateur musicians created material that was conceptually closer to Western rock traditions.

In fact, it was underground rock music that served as the forerunner of the formation of a large-scale rock movement in the 80s.

The growth of the rock movement. Apartment dwellers. The emergence of rock clubs - 1980s

An impressive number of underground groups that formed by the early 1980s, as before, did not have the opportunity to perform at large venues. Moreover, information about most attempts to organize such a concert, even at small venues of local recreation centers, immediately reached the administration, and these attempts were suppressed.

This marked the beginning of apartment concerts, or “kvartirniks,” a mass phenomenon in the USSR in the 1980s. They gave listeners the opportunity to get acquainted with the songs of groups, and musicians - a source of minimal income. The list of invitees to these events was strictly controlled to avoid information leakage.
The 1980s were also marked by the emergence of rock clubs.

The creation of these institutions was the result of a coincidence of initiatives between musicians and the Soviet government:

• The Soviet leadership was dissatisfied with the fact that many performances (including the apartments) were organized illegally and bypassing the State Concert of the USSR. Recognizing the impossibility of getting rid of this trend, it decided to create rock clubs in order to carry out a kind of registration of amateur groups and make the growing spontaneous rock movement under control.
• Many musicians, who had long been looking for an opportunity to realize their concerts, found a way to hold relatively regular performances and communicate with the public, despite the fact that this did not bring them financial resources.

As a result of this process, the Moscow Rock Laboratory and rock clubs were created in Leningrad, Sverdlovsk and other cities. The practice of holding regular rock festivals was established.
At the same time, a number of restrictions were imposed on the “approved for performance” repertoire. Texts had to undergo a process of “litching,” that is, approval, which significantly constrained creative initiative. The creation of rock clubs coincided with the tightening of measures against illegal performances - for such a violation the group was simply banned.

In the 80s, domestic rock inherited new Western styles - post-punk and new wave.

In addition, with the beginning of the perestroika processes, protest motives occupied a significant place in the work of musicians. This circumstance was the reason that Russian rock began to enjoy unprecedented popularity not only in its homeland, but also in the countries of the capitalist camp.

Moreover, being subject to constant restrictions from the authorities, rock became a kind of “forbidden fruit” for the public, which only fueled interest in it as something new and unlike the official musical culture. It was in this decade that such legendary groups as “Kino”, “Alice”, “AuktYon”, “DDT”, “Zoo” and many others were created or reached the peak of popularity.

Regional trends in Soviet rock music

By the end of the 80s, independent rock movements with their own specificity were formed in several large cities and regions.

• Leningrad

Under the auspices of the Leningrad Rock Club, it was possible to create the most powerful movement. These include the groups “Kino”, “Alice”, “Aquarium”, “Automatic Satisfiers”, etc. These groups were most popular in the USSR, and Leningrad was rightfully considered the center of Soviet rock culture.

• Moscow

Among the “wards” of the Moscow Rock Laboratory are the groups “Center”, “Time Machine”, “Sunday”, “Bravo”. Since the Laboratory was not a core organization, unlike rock clubs, Moscow groups were characterized by greater independence and the subsequent commercialization of creativity, which began to develop at the end of the described decade.

The creative development of many groups (“Urfin Juice”, “Nautilus Pompilius”, “April March”) of the Sverdlovsk rock club was associated with the name of the poet Ilya Kormiltsev, who was the author of most of the texts of these groups. The Ural direction was characterized by a relative small number of people, the influence of Western groups of the 70s, the predominance of keyboard arrangements, as well as the original stage image of the groups (the retro-militarism of the Nautilus Pompilius group, the operetta style of the early Agatha Christie).

• Siberia.

A massive rock movement was formed here, which, however, did not have a single center. A landmark group for Russian folk rock, “Kalinov Most,” was formed in Novosibirsk. In addition, a galaxy of groups was created here that represented the so-called “Siberian punk” (Omsk “Civil Defense”, Tyumen “Instructions for Survival”) and were characterized by extreme presentation of material, the most acute political orientation and “dirty” sound.

By 1991, Russian rock was a massive, self-sufficient phenomenon with its own cultural specificity. This served as the basis for its further development and transformation in post-Soviet times.