OK, so I’m not actually sure what my website is yet… is it just a showreel, or is it a blog? Well today i feel like blogging so here goes.
I’m doing some research for my film school application today, and happened upon “Bone Records”. How cool is this: some young rebellious rock n roll types in the late 1950s in the Soviet Union wanted to start pressing illegal bootleg records of rock n roll that was seeping into the USSR despite a ban on this booty-shakin, and potentially state-shakin, music by the Kremlin. Not having other materials available to them, they started recycling old medical x-rays – scratching the grooves into x-rays of peoples broken bones and ailing lungs, and distributing them via underground networks. The discs sure do look sweet:
Apparently some of these unfortunate music fans were subsequently arrested and spent years in the Gulag for their crimes. Other daredevil activities that young folk engaged in for the sake of music, truly embracing the spirit of defiance inherent in rock n roll, included ripping off public telephone boxes and using the parts to construct makeshift pickups for electric guitars.
Check out the info, some more pix and comments over here
This thread reminds me of many of the themes we were examining in “Electric Dreams”, and of some of the footage I saw of state-sponsored rock’n’roll manufactured by the socialist governments of Eastern Europe in the 70s to try to co-opt this phenomenon for their own propagandistic purposes, ala Christian rock (though much more entertaining I thought). I’ll have to get hold of some of the documentaries that are mentioned here, I’m still fascinated with the cultural battles of the Cold War. Meantime I should write up some more about the Electric Dreams show…