Bone Music

Stories of the secret underground Cold WarP#8211;era Soviet music subculture that distributed forbidden music on used hospital x-rays.

Plt;bPgt;Stories of the secret underground Cold WarP#8211;era Soviet music subculture that distributed forbidden music on used hospital x-rays.Plt;/bPgt;Plt;brPgt;Plt;brPgt;During the Cold War era, the songs that Soviet citizens could listen to were ruthlessly controlled by the state. But a secret underground subculture of music lovers and bootleggers defied the censors, building recording machines and making their own records of forbidden jazz, rock P#39;nP#39; roll, and Russian music, cut onto used hospital x-ray film. Plt;iPgt;Bone MusicPlt;/iPgt; is the follow up the acclaimed Plt;iPgt;X-Ray Audio: The Strange History of Soviet Music on the Bone,Plt;/iPgt; delving deeper into a forgotten era when being a music fan could mean a lengthy prison sentence, or worse.Plt;brPgt; Plt;brPgt;Who made these records? Why did they do it and how was it even possible? Foregrounding interviews and oral testimonies gathered over five years, Plt;iPgt;Bone MusicPlt;/iPgt; presents the stories of the original bone bootleggers, their customers, musicians, record collectors, and commentators, evoking a spirited resistance to a repressive culture of prohibition and punishment. It reveals that although Western jazz and rockP#8217;nP#8217;roll were important to the Plt;iPgt;StilyagiPlt;/iPgt; youth culture, the true rebel music was that of forbidden Russian emigres, gypsy romances, and criminal tunes: the soul songs of a society brutally cut off from its culture.Plt;brPgt; Plt;brPgt;Richly illustrated with dozens of new images of Soviet x-ray discs and sound letters, Plt;iPgt;Bone MusicPlt;/iPgt; details how the bootleggers worked, outlining the technical precedents of their techniques, situating their discs in a revised history of recorded media, and bringing a wealth of compelling new detail.