Living in
the U.S.S.R. – in the conditions that were famed by its negativity – there were two
things you could learn: to read between the lines and listen with the heart. And
people were eager to know, there was always the feeling of lacking something and
longing for the new.
So, growing uneasy, for us it was nothing to
compare with the first knowledge about the Western life. And since the mid
seventies there was much more allowed to take a glimpse at. Everyone used to go
to the foreign movies at the cinema and quite a lot of Italian or Hollywood
classics were screened in these years. Also a number of good books representing
English and American literature were translated, but there were almost no
Western magazines available. So you couldn’t get the feeling and real life
breathing of younger generations’ abroad otherwise than through the magic of
contemporary music.
It was the time of radio and imagination for a child
in Soviet seventies. Listening to any good song from “other side”, hearing the
voice - it was close to live appearance, this music spoke directly to your
heart, vibrating some strange emotion of being together with the spirit of
freedom. The sound was in your room and presence was so personal as some kind of
communion.
And it seemed only rock music had this charisma, instant
impact and overwhelming influence. It was no matter lyrics could be very unclear
due to the poor understanding of language. The latter made the phenomenon called
'rock' even more mysterious and attractive.
It seemed this kind of music
had no restrictions inside and also contained the unique voice and style of
particular artist or band. But also all of them had the similar approach to
social values tending to be free thinkers far away from any standards.
And to most of us the music became so familiar as if you were born with
these sounds. Although from the perspective of our everyday surroundings the
artifacts of English or American rock music should look like meteorites: totally
out of context in Soviet culture and the frame of mind.
Though radios
were all around and some good foreign stations were more or less accessible you
couldn’t just sit without any effort and hear rock or soul music flowing. It was
more like catching a tune, hunting for a song. The most important foreign radio
program in Russian language introducing pop and rock music to the U.S.S.R. was
“Rock posevy” (Rock Crops) with legendary Seva Novgorodsev, since 1977 presented
by the BBC Russian Service from London on short wave (the first special show
dedicated to Pink Floyd went on air in July, 1979).
In such
circumstances, more likely the first your real encounter with rock would be
through the sharing of recordings. It was your friend, sister, cousin or in some
rare occasion, your parents who introduced you to their collected items. Except
for classical music and some jazz virtually no Western vinyl records or
cassettes were on sale and no rock music was released locally at the time. In
spite of that fact, lots of original LPs received or brought from abroad were
circulating, borrowed from friend to friend for recording, helping to develop
reel-to-reel collections. Since the late seventies when cassette tape recorders
became more available, individually reproduced cassette “albums” were spreading
even wider. But none was made for sale, usually everyone was taping for personal
use or admiration. Items were sometimes exchanged for re-recording, second or
third time in a row, so of course quality loss was a norm. Leasing recording for
a fee was considered by any music fan as an unpleasant act.
If you were
lucky enough you also listened to the original vinyl albums, lent by your friend
or acquired at some wild price. The sum of money you would spend if buying
a Western record in many cases were no less that the average month salary of the
employee with the higher education. Or it took your entire piggybank from childhood to teenage years. And some of us spent it all.
But even before
you would start recording, almost surely the first unforgettable thing you hear
would be The Beatles. The group that was already considered a pop classic even
by the authorities. And then, if you follow your bliss in search of sound, if
someone would talk you in excitement about the cosmic rock, as well as deepest
human music - it all of course would be about Pink Floyd.
Now you knew what to ask for the future birthday gift. And probably every teenager had a
dream and struggle for “magnetofon” – as tape recorder was called in all wide
Soviet Union. And then - your life changed forever.
And at last you can
hear Pink Floyd cassette anytime you like. And it was something about the
recording idea itself because of sound effects they used. It was obvious that
this group was always experimenting with recording process and also making use
of concrete sounds. At the same time the compositions were very acceptable and
moving to tears. It was amazing and inspiring to any Soviet child with so
limited possibilities of entertainment. For example, it happened for me to hear
the train sound on Wish You Were Here
album before I heard the actual train on the first school class trip. And it was
like – “oh my, this sounds similar to recording of Pink Floyd!”
Hope
one would excuse me for relying on personal experience and these reflections
will help in any way to get the idea of atmosphere, common to many music fans or
“melomans” as they were called here.
In the seventies through all parts
of Soviet Union this progressive group called Pink Floyd established itself, as
the next most well know foreign band after the Beatles. For some time Pink Floyd
were practically an equivalent of inventive rock group, consisting of four
incredible individuals, well, almost five, because no one was forgotten.
No home collection of recorded music was worthy without some albums by
the Floyds. Having in mind how the number of original vinyl was relatively small,
it’s almost anomaly how tape recordings were spreading wide and fast among the
various nations of Soviet republics. Especially in the capitals and big cities.
This developed in to the form of underground culture, which today looks
obviously different from music piracy of any kind. There was really no other way
to hear that music. And it went from
people to people.
In the light of this it’s interesting to note that the
information about the same rock music and Pink Floyd in particular was not
spreading well at all. Of course the media was run by state and the official
press was vague in presenting any valuable readings about such admirable and bit
dangerous act. Anyway some brief publications appeared but written with
mistakes, such as “Mother with atomic heart” (for Atom Heart Mother of course)
and in many cases the very name Pink Floyd was translated as Pink Flamingo!
It was due to the enthusiasm of individual music critics the first
serious articles saw the light of day in the end of the seventies. Artiom
Troitsky, now considered the best rock music analyst in the history of Soviet
Union, wrote one of the breakthrough introductions to Pink Floyd, the first
titled “Quadrophonic journey of Pink Floyd to the Dark Side Of The Moon”
published in some the small magazine in 1977. Next important article was almost
an epic featuring the detailed history of the band as well as reviews of every
record, told in witty style and deep understanding. The latter was published in
the magazine “Muzikalnaiya Zizn” (Musical Life) in August 1980. And soon the
same year the story was translated and published in main Lithuanian cultural
weekly “Literatura ir Menas” (Literature and Art) this becoming the first source
of exciting knowledge to many young music fans as well as mature intellectual
readers. It also made Lithuanian youngsters love the literature newspaper
because it was brave enough to publish cool texts about their favorite rock
groups!
In case to get such material published the author had to present
to a certain degree the Pink Floyd as the artists criticizing the capitalistic
society. Which wasn’t itself incorrect but was obviously stressed over the top.
For instance, Animals album was
introduced by Artiom Troitsky as a social "Chinese horoscope" combined with the
moods of Animal Farm by George Orwell. It was supposed to picture typical
bourgeois society “out there”, but the local readers, who were familiar with the
music and lyrics, saw in Animals the
representation of the Soviet “classes”. Pigs fitted well to party leaders and
all kind of respected rulers of culture. Dogs clearly pointed to KGB agents and
all sorts of careerists or guardians of the system. And of course, Sheep were
all the rest - simple people like us.
Artiom Troitsky also later
published separate in-depth review about then new album, called The Wall. Starting from that, various
publications confirmed the album to be the progressive work of art in Soviet
meaning of the term. The Wall was
considered as the bold statement about the alienation and hopelessness of the
“little man” in the consumeristic world of stagnant beliefs, cold-blood
comercialism and business machine. Ironically, most readers saw these points as
pure Soviet propaganda because we were stunned to find out instantly that The
Wall was in fact about our lives in totalitarian world! We felt so familiar with
the oppression and cry of the “little man” which was heard all through the
terrific songs of the record. I remember also finding this really small man,
nearly lost in the painting of the inside sleeve, with the frightening lights on
him…
The influence and cult appreciation of The Wall on “this side” is simply
immeasurable. As serious rumor goes, the only Soviet music mega label “Melodyia”
was tempted about releasing the record in around year 1982. Some sources claim
that the first copies were already printed in the factory. And suddenly in the
West the new album of the group was out, The
Final Cut. And it had the famous fatal line “Breznev took Afghanistan...”
which probably challenged the urgent meeting of party leaders in Ministry Of
Culture in Moscow. And all the printed issues were quickly destroyed under the
factory press machine. Still, “Melodyia” does not confirm this story officially
so it stays as one of the urban legends circulating to this day. But that is for
sure, since 1983 Pink Floyd suddenly entered the high position in secret “black
list” compiled by some party and komsomol headquarters. The list consisted of
rock groups not to be played anywhere in open places and it was sent to schools
and other educational institutions. It also meant no radio broadcasts, and
television was of course out of the question.
At the time, probably few
ordinary people and only those who travelled abroad could claim in seeing the
Pink Floyd on TV screen. No experience in seeing face to face obviously
increased the attention to the photos of the band, images and sleeve art
available to the fans. And there was always something visual about the music of
Pink Floyd. This well known quality of their sound had the special turn to the
listener in Soviet Union. Many of the music fans were lucky to see the cover of
the vinyl album, while taping it, and some haven’t seen it at all. But if you
once did, it will stay in the back of your mind. All the Pink Floyd album
sleeves, especially done by Hipgnosis were taken as integral part of the record
itself. It made an influence to local photographers, artists and was a theme for
long exciting conversations. It became the style of seeing things, as “look,
this could fit the cover for the next Pink Floyd album!”. The inspiration was
huge and many of us started also to make 'replica' design for the cassettes we
recorded. Those more skilled in art were recreating the cover sleeve to their
notebooks or tape boxes and some works were excellent. Others were making
photographs of the original cover, usually in black and white (most accessible
at the time). Amateur posters and paintings started to appear. Needless to say,
how much creativity was uncovered and elevated thanks to the amazing albums! It
became almost a must to “save” the lyrics if we got such luck to find it all
printed on the sleeve or inside envelope. There were no copy machines then (the
first low quality ones became publicly available only in the end of the
eighties). So all the song lyrics were re-written by hand to the notebook. And
it was extremely important to have the lyrics of Pink Floyd because it’s not
Abba which singing phrases one can instantly catch without effort. On the other
hand, some of the memorable lyrics as from The
Dark Side Of The Moon were quite simple and it brought a joy of
understanding to the Soviet listener as probably to any non-native English guy.
Since mid eighties suppression of rock music was heading to an
end. Inside policy of U.S.S.R. went through rapid changes, "black list" of rock
artists lost its power. In fact few important breakthroughs were already made
since 1979, when Cliff Richard and Elton John played gigs at Moscow and
Leningrad (now St.Petersburg). It was supposed to be the "evidence of democracy"
for upcoming Summer Olympic games of 1980 in Moscow, but just few years
afterwards rock phenomena made the serious shake of the cultural wall separating
the Western side.
Pink Floyd appreciation was blossoming in the mid 80's
(in spite the new wave influence to music fashions). The knowledge about early
history of the band became also more spread at that time, for instance in
Ukraine there was an inoffensive gang who called themselves "Syd Boys" and
greeted each other in the street like that - all because of their respect to the
founder figure of the group. It could sound strange, but sixties Pink Floyd in
means of information and recordings came to "this side" with much delay. All
because the most well-know Pink Floyd albums that turned out to be most
successful in the West made their way to Soviet Union first. And early records
obviously were big rarity and harder to get. But every “old” album had the eager
listener or "student" and such works as Ummagumma made a serious impact to the
emerging Soviet experimental music scene.
But the transformations of
almost cosmic proportion were just round the corner. In November 1988, David
Gilmour and Nick Mason were invited by "Glavkosmos SSSR" on the rocket
launching site in Baikonur to witness Soviet-French rocket take-off in to space,
with the Pink Floyd cassette recording on board besides the crew. The famous two
guests were allowed to make the digital sound recording of the event, the unique
rocket noise for possible use in the future album! And since this unexpected
appearance, dazzling rumors began to turn about Pink Floyd wish to perform live
in the Soviet Union. And even when the first messages about the tour appeared,
many fans were still in disbelief. But like the dream come true, it happened, in
June of the same year, as much publicized, five sell-out exciting shows were
thundering in sport palace "Olympysky". And "Glavkosmos" - Soviet space
enterprise was also one of the main organizers of the tour!
Later that
year, The Delicate Sound Of Thunder,
double vinyl LP was released by "Melodyia" label, marking the first official
recognition and was greeted by the queues at the music shops, still common at
that time. Afterwards, more titles of Pink Floyd catalogue were issued on vinyl
by semi legal label "Antrop" (offspring of "Melodyia") in early 90's. A sort of
"Nice Pair" (with the cover of the Piper At The
Gates Of Down) also was issued as vinyl double album by firm "Russian
Disk" in 1992.
Walls fell down and independent republics reborn in the
place of Soviet Union, known of grand cosmic plans. And the group what once made
the idea of "space rock" widely accessible, was also an important part of the
universal changes behind the “iron curtain”. Pink Floyd belongs to the
tape-to-tape revolution with irresistible bright will and they symbolically
started live appearance in Soviet side at the Baikonur cosmodrome, heading us to
the future with the better hopes.
by Lukas Devita
The first ever
songs by Pink Floyd appeared in U.S.S.R. on flexi-disc as part of Soviet music
magazine "Krugozor" (Outlook) in October 1980. Three tracks
from The Dark Side Of The Moon were included together with the short
introductory text. The sound quality of the flexi-discs were very low.
Below are listed the "full-fledged" issues (more or less up to the time
of the dissolution of Soviet Union)
1.Delicate Sound of Thunder
"Melodyia", 1989
Cat. no: CTEPEO A60 00543 007 (2 LP)
Issued under
license from EMI records
2.Wish You Were Here
"AnTrop", 1991
Cat. no.: 91 00213/14 or 32395/96
Semi-legal issue produced (as stated
on the cover) by the "Center of rock'n'roll congregations of united
Evangelist-Lutheran churches of Russia"!
3.The Dark Side Of The Moon
"AnTrop", 1992
Cat. no: 91 00093/94 or C90 32309/10
Same production
as above
4.Pink Floyd 1967-68
"Russian Disk Records", 1992
Cat.
no: R60 00511/12 and R60 00513/14
Issued without licence. Double album
concists of The Piper At The Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets
5.Animals
"AnTrop", 1993
Cat. no: 9100213/4 or ATR 30057/58
Semi-legal issue produced by the "Center of rock'n'roll congregations of
united Evangelist-Lutheran churches of Russia" in St. Petersburg.
6.The
Wall
"AnTrop" and Santa Records, Ltd., 1993
Cat. no: 93 00567/68/69/70
or ATR 30139/40/41/42
Note: To solve the legal problems, on all of
the releases by "AnTrop" label the additional remark "Recorded from radio
broadcast" was used on the record logo. (At the time, somehow it was legal by
Soviet law to reproduce the radio broadcast on the record ).