Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: X-Rays, Songs and Soviets: The Stilyagi Story

Transcript

CLASSIC: X-Rays, Songs and Soviets: The Stilyagi Story · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
0:03
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. This is a blast
0:07
Speaker 1: from the past, a classic blast from the past, A
0:11
Speaker 1: blastic a class I love it. Yeah, I love coining
0:15
Speaker 1: new words. A blastic clastic, an iconoclastic blastic from the plastic.
0:22
Speaker 1: Max dropped the beat. Yes, yes, agreed. That's our super producer,
0:26
Speaker 1: the one and only Mr Max Williams. No, you and
0:30
Speaker 1: I are bringing a classic to the table this week.
0:33
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a bit of synchronicity here because
0:37
Speaker 1: this is you know, we've done so many episodes by now.
0:40
Speaker 1: We've been doing this show for a number of years,
0:43
Speaker 1: and we've been doing other shows for a number of years.
0:45
Speaker 1: And occasionally we get people on our social media, like
0:50
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians on Facebook who say, hey, have the guys
0:54
Speaker 1: ever done an episode on this? And it just so
0:57
Speaker 1: happens we're scrolling through where would on air, it just
1:01
Speaker 1: so happens that one of our fellow Ridiculous Historians recently
1:05
Speaker 1: asked about one of our favorite topics from the past.
1:10
Speaker 1: I think it's your very favorite episode we ever did. Well.
1:13
Speaker 1: I say that, I mean we we've got so many
1:15
Speaker 1: interesting ones. It just takes a lot of my particular boxes,
1:18
Speaker 1: you know, record collecting, recording technology, antiquated, weird, you know,
1:24
Speaker 1: kind of kitchy recording technology, bootlegging, dumbster diving, and it
1:30
Speaker 1: encapsulates a lot of some of my favorite things. Also,
1:33
Speaker 1: quick disclaimer, I don't know if you can tell by
1:36
Speaker 1: the sound of my ragged voice and breathing, I caught
1:39
Speaker 1: a case of the COVID and uh and and ten
1:42
Speaker 1: respectfully requested that we pushed this classic episode out so
1:46
Speaker 1: I didn't have to do a full episode today. Well,
1:49
Speaker 1: to be fair, no, I Ben Bullin's would have pitched
1:53
Speaker 1: it because I got a lot and I respectfully requested
1:58
Speaker 1: to confirm you a pitch, sir. Well, guys, if we're
2:02
Speaker 1: if we're claiming credit, I was the one who went
2:05
Speaker 1: and found the episodes, so I think I deserve about
2:08
Speaker 1: nine I was I was running and god, I'm not
2:11
Speaker 1: even oh man, I don't think any of us are
2:13
Speaker 1: supposed to be here right now, but your pals Ben, Nolan,
2:17
Speaker 1: Max are. We are legitimately excited about this. This has
2:20
Speaker 1: a lot of my my favorite things as well. Human ingenuity,
2:24
Speaker 1: some real fortitude, some real mcgever, moments like this whole
2:28
Speaker 1: thing is a mgeiver moment, and we also, of course,
2:32
Speaker 1: you know, no, didn't want to derail you feeling under
2:36
Speaker 1: the weather, and I hope you're on the mend soon,
2:39
Speaker 1: my friend. But in the meantime, this is an excuse
2:42
Speaker 1: for the three of us to also enjoy this one. Max.
2:45
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard this one. I have not.
2:47
Speaker 1: Who was the producer on this one, casey Pecker. This
2:51
Speaker 1: is one of the very first episodes were recorded on
2:53
Speaker 1: the stilly aggy Russian hipster beat Nick Weirdos, who made
2:59
Speaker 1: bootleg albums of Elvis Presley recordings from dumpster dived X rays.
3:08
Speaker 1: Just by the way, I gotta say, you guys are
3:09
Speaker 1: kind of blame hogs here. I was trying to like
3:12
Speaker 1: throw myself under the bus, take one for the team,
3:15
Speaker 1: and you guys wouldn't even let me take the blame.
3:16
Speaker 1: So I thank you, but also weird flex No, no, no,
3:21
Speaker 1: I'm just like, uh, you know, you know how it
3:23
Speaker 1: is you got Sometimes you gotta fight for credit on
3:25
Speaker 1: your ideas, you know what I mean. But I don't
3:27
Speaker 1: think it's I don't think there's any blame here. You know,
3:29
Speaker 1: we love the show. We love you all out there,
3:32
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, and uh, sometimes you know, sometimes we forget
3:37
Speaker 1: that not everybody has heard all these episodes. So we
3:40
Speaker 1: like to bring the ones that we're really proud of
3:43
Speaker 1: to light. And no, I'm I'm really proud of this one.
3:46
Speaker 1: I kind of I don't know. I think we both
3:48
Speaker 1: want to impress Max so much. Max, I hope you
3:51
Speaker 1: like this one. If you don't, don't tell us, or
3:54
Speaker 1: at least have the self respect to lie to us
3:56
Speaker 1: about it, because rest assured he'll be listening along right
4:00
Speaker 1: alongside you, ridiculous historians. Don't worry, guys, I have lots
4:04
Speaker 1: of practice. Line to y'all. Now that's the weird flex
4:08
Speaker 1: for our intro. Indeed, indeed, you got me questioning literally everything, Max,
4:14
Speaker 1: literally everything. What about the hot tub times? Those are
4:18
Speaker 1: always true? Noll? Do this mean nothing to you? They
4:20
Speaker 1: mean everything to me. They mean nothing to me. I
4:23
Speaker 1: was not invited, but well it wasn't an invitational kind
4:27
Speaker 1: of thing. We just sort of happened that we were
4:29
Speaker 1: trapsing through the woods and happened to stumble into the
4:31
Speaker 1: same hot tips. So so with that mental image in
4:34
Speaker 1: your head, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Without further ado, check out
4:40
Speaker 1: our classic episode on the Still Yagi, which I still
4:44
Speaker 1: think sounds like a weird Eastern European monster. Here we go.
4:50
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
5:18
Speaker 1: to the show, everybody. I'm Ben, I'm Noel, and we
5:21
Speaker 1: are joined with our super producer, Casey Pegrum today and
5:26
Speaker 1: this is Ridiculous History. And I will tell you he
5:29
Speaker 1: is piping a legit mixtape into my headphones right now.
5:33
Speaker 1: I really wish you guys could hear, but we couldn't
5:35
Speaker 1: clear the samples. So it's always the samples to get us.
5:39
Speaker 1: Just for us, you will have to take our word
5:41
Speaker 1: for it. Uh. Like most people, we're very into music.
5:47
Speaker 1: It's true. And um, I wanted to ask you, Ben,
5:50
Speaker 1: have you seen the movie The Bone Collector? The Bone Collector?
5:55
Speaker 1: I feel like I have wait, is this the Is
5:58
Speaker 1: this like the Crime the y where U is someone paralyzed?
6:04
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't actually seen it, It's just the
6:05
Speaker 1: name makes me think of the topic that we're talking
6:08
Speaker 1: about today. Um, that was a total non sequitor, but
6:11
Speaker 1: that's that. We We love non sequitors here on Ridiculous History.
6:14
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love music. You love music. Casey loves music.
6:18
Speaker 1: I'm telling you these samples are on fire. I really
6:20
Speaker 1: wish you guys could hear it, but it's just for us, right,
6:23
Speaker 1: And it brings up a pretty good question. Will will
6:28
Speaker 1: segue just a little bit here, which is how far
6:32
Speaker 1: would you go to hear that one song that you
6:36
Speaker 1: really wanted to hear? You know, the thing that's stuck
6:39
Speaker 1: in your head or the um Let's see, you're new,
6:42
Speaker 1: your favorite artist puts out a new album and you're like,
6:45
Speaker 1: I gotta get it, I gotta get it, but I
6:47
Speaker 1: can't find it. Or Casey's fire mixtape or Casey's Fire mixtape,
6:50
Speaker 1: which is the reason we keep a fire extinguisher in
6:52
Speaker 1: the studio. Now we learned our lesson, Well, let's let's
6:55
Speaker 1: go back far far far far far far far far away,
7:00
Speaker 1: alright to the distant past, and not that distant. I
7:02
Speaker 1: guess picture yourself Ben as a as a child in Russia. Okay, okay,
7:12
Speaker 1: And and like you said, you've got this tune, some
7:14
Speaker 1: sort of uh, some sort of little ditty, a jingle
7:18
Speaker 1: if you will, that you just can't get out of
7:20
Speaker 1: your head. You gotta own it. You gotta get a
7:22
Speaker 1: copy on a gramophone record. And in Soviet Russia there
7:28
Speaker 1: were record stores, but a lot of the music that
7:33
Speaker 1: was very popular was forbidden. Oh because you see ladies
7:38
Speaker 1: and gentlemen, friends and neighbors. That music was Western. And
7:43
Speaker 1: at the time, the years after World War Two, the
7:47
Speaker 1: USSR and the United States or the Western general were
7:52
Speaker 1: in a not a hot war, but a very cold one,
7:56
Speaker 1: a war of ideology, war of hedgemony, and a tempt
8:00
Speaker 1: to control the hearts and minds of the human species.
8:04
Speaker 1: And the USSR was pretty militant about things that it
8:09
Speaker 1: felt were decadent or Western or violated Communist sensibilities, especially
8:16
Speaker 1: music and art, which they considered propaganda. This means for
8:20
Speaker 1: little Russian Ben, it's going to be really tough to
8:23
Speaker 1: get a record that he wants desperately, Yeah, desperately wants.
8:29
Speaker 1: And as far back a two, the Stalin regime decided
8:33
Speaker 1: that all arts would be subject to censorship and there
8:37
Speaker 1: would be a test applied that would determine whether this
8:39
Speaker 1: piece of art be a music, be a sculpture, painting,
8:42
Speaker 1: what have you. Was quote in service to socialist realism,
8:47
Speaker 1: and this idea of socialist realism um it's sort of
8:52
Speaker 1: characterized by the glorified depiction of communist values such as
8:56
Speaker 1: the emancipation of the proletariat, um by means of realistic imagery.
9:03
Speaker 1: So jazz was prohibited in the Soviet Union until briefly
9:06
Speaker 1: during World War Two, when Russia and America were aligned
9:10
Speaker 1: behind the same cause. But then get to that Chili
9:13
Speaker 1: War that you're talking about. During that the tables turned
9:16
Speaker 1: once again, and roughly from ninety seven to the early nineties,
9:21
Speaker 1: Russian jazz musicians were actually arrested and locked up in gulags,
9:26
Speaker 1: and recordings from American and even British artists were particularly forbidden.
9:31
Speaker 1: They were deemed a fascist or the term mystic came up,
9:35
Speaker 1: which seems like an odd term of abuse. I mean,
9:37
Speaker 1: I think the word mystic sounds like something that would
9:39
Speaker 1: be cool. And speaking of cool language surrounding this, here's
9:45
Speaker 1: a glimpse into how seriously people in general, let's call
9:48
Speaker 1: them the musical squares from the USSR. Here's all seriously
9:52
Speaker 1: they took it. There was a common catchphrase that that
9:55
Speaker 1: translates to something like today he dances jazz, but the
9:59
Speaker 1: model he will sell his homeland. Oh my god, it's
10:03
Speaker 1: heavy I know. Right, let's let's unpack that so literally,
10:08
Speaker 1: like saying, you listen to jazz, you're potentially a traitor, right,
10:13
Speaker 1: you listen to jazz. Therefore, whether you are like a
10:18
Speaker 1: degree removed from a spy, do you think the implication
10:21
Speaker 1: is that this kind of music would cause people to
10:24
Speaker 1: betray the state by infecting them with some sort of like,
10:27
Speaker 1: you know, agenda that was somehow present in jazz music. Absolutely,
10:33
Speaker 1: I think that is absolutely the case, because we've seen
10:36
Speaker 1: the same thing happen cyclically, or I should say similar
10:40
Speaker 1: things cyclically with music in the past, you know what
10:44
Speaker 1: I mean, Like the music that people our age like
10:48
Speaker 1: might horrify our elders, and the music they enjoyed might
10:53
Speaker 1: have horrified their elders. So there's a weird changing of
10:58
Speaker 1: the guard that occurs. I know, I'm in an interesting
11:01
Speaker 1: spot with my year old daughter because the music that
11:03
Speaker 1: she loves doesn't really horrify me as much as it
11:06
Speaker 1: horrifies me, you know. Maybe, you know, given a little
11:11
Speaker 1: more time, maybe she'll maybe they'll be like the new
11:13
Speaker 1: Marilyn Manson and she'll get into that, and then all
11:15
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'll be like, you know, super shocked.
11:19
Speaker 1: I swear to you, and the most that she listened to.
11:20
Speaker 1: I'm just shocked at how freaking doll it is. And
11:24
Speaker 1: uh that that is an interesting problem. I have this
11:27
Speaker 1: picture of you know, uh, telling your eight year old
11:30
Speaker 1: daughter that she should listen to more challenging music. I
11:33
Speaker 1: literally do say things along those lives. She there's this
11:36
Speaker 1: one song that she really loved that is literally heart
11:38
Speaker 1: and soul like from Big Dud Da Da Da Da,
11:43
Speaker 1: And I pointed that out to her because she says
11:45
Speaker 1: the song was so great. I'm like, kid, this is
11:48
Speaker 1: like a total straight one to one rip off of
11:51
Speaker 1: this like piano song that every kid learns how to play.
11:53
Speaker 1: But I digress. Oh well, we haven't done. Can we
11:57
Speaker 1: repackage my digression into reolutely absolutely because let's say, um,
12:04
Speaker 1: let's say that wasn't just a rip off. Let's say
12:07
Speaker 1: was so close that it was almost a bootleg of
12:10
Speaker 1: that song effects simile if you will. There we go.
12:13
Speaker 1: We we just did, and we hope we pull it off.
12:16
Speaker 1: Let us know right to us at ridiculous at how
12:19
Speaker 1: stuff words dot com? Can I say one more thing
12:20
Speaker 1: before the bootleg stuff? There was actually even a an
12:25
Speaker 1: element of this censorship that allowed for Russian born artists
12:31
Speaker 1: to be blacklisted as traitors like you just said, or
12:35
Speaker 1: dissidence um under the Soviet regime. And it was really
12:39
Speaker 1: easy for that to happen because it pretty much just
12:41
Speaker 1: took getting on the wrong side of the government. And
12:44
Speaker 1: this is actually even still happening to this day. Artist
12:47
Speaker 1: Robbie Williams, you don't remember from I think was it
12:50
Speaker 1: take that he was in like a boy band and
12:51
Speaker 1: then he had this sow Millennium. He reportedly, according to
12:54
Speaker 1: an article and a digital spy that I found, was
12:57
Speaker 1: banned from performing in Russia um after he released a
13:00
Speaker 1: song called Party like a Russian that apparently made some
13:04
Speaker 1: little jabs at Putin. So yeah, they still take that
13:08
Speaker 1: stuff serious. And and the band Pussy Riot also got
13:11
Speaker 1: imprisoned for a counter cultural or counter government protest. Yes,
13:17
Speaker 1: so they definitely are not playing around even to this
13:20
Speaker 1: day in the former Soviet Union. So here we are
13:29
Speaker 1: in the fifties and the younger kids right with a
13:34
Speaker 1: their version of let's call them hipsters to set this up. Uh,
13:37
Speaker 1: they want this music, but this music is banned. And
13:41
Speaker 1: without going too far into other stories, I think we
13:45
Speaker 1: can all say that prohibition doesn't work as well as
13:49
Speaker 1: its supporters wish it would definitely not. I like to
13:53
Speaker 1: think of these Russian youths as beet mix. Yeah, yeah,
13:59
Speaker 1: it was doesn't seem o the word beat Nick would
14:01
Speaker 1: I have to come have some sort of Russian origin anyway,
14:04
Speaker 1: because into Nick, you know what is it? Boris and Natasha?
14:08
Speaker 1: No good Nicks or robot Nick. Yet it seems Eastern
14:13
Speaker 1: European or even Slavic. There. Here's the thing. When you
14:17
Speaker 1: banned something, especially amongst younger kids, right, especially if they're
14:23
Speaker 1: if they're teenagers, and they see banned things is cool,
14:27
Speaker 1: then the first thing that happens is a demand if
14:29
Speaker 1: it didn't exist, comes into being. And this is where
14:34
Speaker 1: these kids begin to unite. And they called themselves the
14:39
Speaker 1: still Yagi, which I know sounds like a super cool
14:42
Speaker 1: specific type of subgenre vampire, it really does, but this
14:46
Speaker 1: is still pretty cool. Well wait a minute, what what
14:49
Speaker 1: was it? What were the names of the vampires and
14:51
Speaker 1: that kind of middling vampire show and FX that Gil
14:56
Speaker 1: Little Toro did. They were called the Strain, that was
14:59
Speaker 1: called the train, but they were called the Okay, yeah
15:04
Speaker 1: that was good, but yeah, I mean the heart wants
15:07
Speaker 1: what the heart wants, right, So like these hip kids,
15:10
Speaker 1: they wanted their damn records and the still yaggy, as
15:14
Speaker 1: he said, kind of banded together. That means style hunters
15:17
Speaker 1: by the way, which which I think is interesting. And
15:20
Speaker 1: this youth movement was so obsessed with like modern trends
15:23
Speaker 1: and culture and a lot of the stuff that was
15:25
Speaker 1: brought back by returning soldiers who had been able to
15:28
Speaker 1: experience modern culture abroad. And this communist crackdown created this
15:34
Speaker 1: thriving black market. But how you know, when that stuff
15:37
Speaker 1: is scarce, what happens? Prices go up? Yeah, through the room.
15:42
Speaker 1: These are kids, they can't afford to pay those kind
15:44
Speaker 1: of prices for for their record discs, you know, And
15:48
Speaker 1: as a result, they were trying to find any other
15:53
Speaker 1: way to access these records because not only would the
15:56
Speaker 1: price be super high, but availability would be very low. Right,
16:00
Speaker 1: So even if you did have the exorbitant amount of
16:03
Speaker 1: cash needed to get uh, the latest Elvis Presley record,
16:07
Speaker 1: which was you know, a hot commodity at that time,
16:10
Speaker 1: the black market might just be sold out, totally sold out,
16:13
Speaker 1: or like, as the supply diminishes, those prices are just
16:18
Speaker 1: gonna go up. Up up. But luckily in nine uh
16:23
Speaker 1: there was an invention called the telefunking recording lathe, and
16:26
Speaker 1: it kind of blew this whole problem wide open. The
16:29
Speaker 1: recording lathe actually allowed an audio signal to be fed
16:33
Speaker 1: into this machine and then a lathe which is like
16:36
Speaker 1: a like almost like a cutting tool kind of that
16:39
Speaker 1: it actually cuts grooves into a plastic material that you
16:44
Speaker 1: can then play back on a standard record player. Right,
16:49
Speaker 1: and so this guy named Stanislav Philo opened a little
16:52
Speaker 1: shop where he charged a nominal fee to allow customers
16:57
Speaker 1: to make little voice recordings onto plastic discs, kind of
17:00
Speaker 1: as a bit of curio tourist trap kind of deal.
17:04
Speaker 1: But the real success from this came from a different
17:07
Speaker 1: use of the lafe. He used it to make copies
17:12
Speaker 1: of this forbidden music. So it's like pre pre pre
17:17
Speaker 1: pre BitTorrent napster pirrating, you know what I mean. Absolutely,
17:22
Speaker 1: And there's there's another material problem that comes in here.
17:25
Speaker 1: So now we finally have the technology to uh to
17:30
Speaker 1: reproduce these recordings, but we're missing something very important and
17:35
Speaker 1: that is vinyl. There's still no vinyl or because the
17:38
Speaker 1: material that he had access to probably had to be
17:41
Speaker 1: special ordered, expensive and not readily available as well. Wasn't
17:46
Speaker 1: something that you could just get at a department store.
17:48
Speaker 1: So the still Yaggi got creative. Yes, these style hunters
17:53
Speaker 1: began get this digging through dumpsters, not just any dumpsters,
17:58
Speaker 1: hospital dumpsters, and they weren't just looking for you know, um,
18:03
Speaker 1: medical waste or weird shoes or something. So we have
18:06
Speaker 1: proto Russian hipsters, pirrating music and dumpster diving right on
18:11
Speaker 1: the same story. History doesn't repeat, but it sure does.
18:13
Speaker 1: Rhyme man, and they were looking for scrapped X rays
18:19
Speaker 1: because X rays were made using thin vinyl sheets, so
18:24
Speaker 1: like X rays, like literally, like I go in with
18:26
Speaker 1: a broken collar bone, they run an X ray of me.
18:29
Speaker 1: They have to throw it out because of laws actually
18:33
Speaker 1: that were meant to protect against fire hazards, because this
18:36
Speaker 1: material is end up with stacks and stacks of like
18:38
Speaker 1: dusty X rays. Stuff can go up in a blaze,
18:41
Speaker 1: you know, So they had to regularly put them out
18:45
Speaker 1: to the trash. And the Stillagi got wise to it
18:48
Speaker 1: and basically had a supply chain for these bootleg copies
18:52
Speaker 1: of recordings. So it was actually a pair of customers
18:56
Speaker 1: of Philo, the guy we talked about they made the
18:57
Speaker 1: voice recordings guy by the name of Risk Tigan and
19:01
Speaker 1: Russian Bagaslavsky. Uh. They somehow managed to like cobbled together
19:06
Speaker 1: their own version of this lathe cutter through like Rando
19:10
Speaker 1: spare parts and god knows what, but I guess they
19:13
Speaker 1: were able to like look at the design of it
19:16
Speaker 1: and figure out a way to make their own, which
19:17
Speaker 1: I think is incredibly entrepreneurial and and and interesting. Um.
19:21
Speaker 1: And this has spawned this entire cottage industry. Yeah, I
19:25
Speaker 1: like that phrase cottage industry. There they would duplicate recordings
19:30
Speaker 1: onto the x ray itself, the x ray sheet, and
19:33
Speaker 1: then they would have to trim the disk by hand,
19:36
Speaker 1: and for me this is one of the neatest parts.
19:38
Speaker 1: They would burn a hole in the center so you
19:40
Speaker 1: could put the record on a record player with a cigarette.
19:44
Speaker 1: You can see this process online if you would like, uh,
19:49
Speaker 1: in well, numerous fan recordings right on YouTube. But it's
19:53
Speaker 1: also in the opening credits of a two thousand eight
19:56
Speaker 1: cult film called Still Yagy. And this old cottage industry,
20:01
Speaker 1: I guess, for lack of a better term, I had
20:03
Speaker 1: a name it was. It was called like the x
20:04
Speaker 1: ray press or hopefully I can do this, right, Rowant
20:08
Speaker 1: Gennis Dot that was pretty good. You're not bad, right,
20:11
Speaker 1: and you know you can actually find these things today. Um,
20:15
Speaker 1: they're pretty rare and you know, kind of counter to
20:17
Speaker 1: what their intent was quite expensive. Um, so I was
20:21
Speaker 1: actually able to find a couple of listings on eBay
20:24
Speaker 1: and and and like discus. I think I found one
20:26
Speaker 1: on Discuise maybe, but they're you know, upwards of three bucks,
20:29
Speaker 1: which is actually lower than I would have thought. So
20:31
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to get a piece and
20:33
Speaker 1: become a bone collector yourself, Um, take a look. They're
20:37
Speaker 1: out there to be to be found. And they sound
20:39
Speaker 1: really neat. They sound really neat. Now, technically the audio
20:43
Speaker 1: quality is is going to be poor. We just want
20:45
Speaker 1: to establish that. But you were also encountering a piece
20:49
Speaker 1: of forbidden history. Well shall we hear a couple of
20:51
Speaker 1: clips of this uh poor quality forbidden history. That's a
20:55
Speaker 1: great idea, Casey, if you would by I'm back waiting
21:06
Speaker 1: when you got never word land to bedy, way to
21:14
Speaker 1: crowd and so there it is. No how would you
21:34
Speaker 1: describe that sound when you when you first heard it, Well,
21:37
Speaker 1: it's super evocative for me, I mean I'm a vinyl
21:41
Speaker 1: fan in general, but when I hear like old jazz
21:44
Speaker 1: or that kind of like tinny recording quality, then you
21:47
Speaker 1: hear it mixed with all those pops and clicks and
21:50
Speaker 1: the hiss of like everything. And like I said, because
21:52
Speaker 1: you're making this on a material it wasn't really intended for,
21:55
Speaker 1: it's also going to sound like extra raw. Um. It
21:58
Speaker 1: kind of gives me goose bumps a little bit. It's
22:00
Speaker 1: a little bit uh ethereal and kind of spooky. Agreed. Agreed,
22:04
Speaker 1: It's sort of the auditory version of the feeling I
22:09
Speaker 1: get when I see old film which has still all
22:12
Speaker 1: the all the contaminants and all the junk on the
22:16
Speaker 1: on the cells. There's a laundry list of reasons why
22:21
Speaker 1: these recordings were imperfect. First, the quality degraded with each
22:26
Speaker 1: play of the bootleg because the lathes could only etch
22:31
Speaker 1: shallow grooves into these into these sheets, and this meant
22:35
Speaker 1: that they were in permanent People would call it jazz
22:39
Speaker 1: on the bones. This is so full of cool phrases.
22:42
Speaker 1: Because they were impermanent. Because each play would degrade the quality,
22:47
Speaker 1: the demand for their production skyrocketed even higher. So I
22:53
Speaker 1: gotta say I'm pretty sure somebody at the hospital eventually noticed.
22:59
Speaker 1: I mean they we have found out about the X
23:01
Speaker 1: rays because of a hook up inside the hospital. So
23:05
Speaker 1: at this point FILO does not have a monopoly anymore
23:09
Speaker 1: by any means, you know, because all you have to
23:12
Speaker 1: do is have an existing bootleg recording from somewhere else
23:16
Speaker 1: on actual vinyl and then go to the nearest hospital
23:20
Speaker 1: dumpster not get caught, and uh, hang out with your
23:24
Speaker 1: friends who can teach you how to do this. So
23:26
Speaker 1: there's there's almost like a hidden culture here operating under
23:31
Speaker 1: the eye of the U. S. S R. Well, it's
23:33
Speaker 1: interesting because I think of like Russian culture and youth
23:35
Speaker 1: culture today. Um, there's a whole scene of super young
23:41
Speaker 1: Russian kids that make these insane YouTube videos or that
23:46
Speaker 1: go up onto like really really really high skyscrapers like
23:49
Speaker 1: a night and break into empty buildings and like hang
23:52
Speaker 1: off the edge and stuff. So like I feel like
23:54
Speaker 1: in a way, that's kind of a continuation of that
23:56
Speaker 1: like badass kind of punk spirit of like we're gonna
23:58
Speaker 1: do what we're gonna do, and you know, we love
24:02
Speaker 1: what we love and the government be damn. That's like
24:04
Speaker 1: living in a regime like that almost forces you to
24:07
Speaker 1: have to kind of like be a bit of a
24:09
Speaker 1: of a badass, right, yeah, a bit of a daredevil.
24:11
Speaker 1: You have to succeed with some daring do And I
24:15
Speaker 1: really love that you mentioned the modern meme of climbing
24:19
Speaker 1: and taking those incredible selfies because one of the things
24:22
Speaker 1: the photographers do is they don't just try to get
24:25
Speaker 1: to the place, they try to recreate a specific like
24:28
Speaker 1: trope or seeing, you know, somebody hanging out of a window,
24:32
Speaker 1: somebody wearing the same outfit doing the same selfie at
24:35
Speaker 1: the top of the same crane. So it is I
24:39
Speaker 1: think the best word to describe it would be badass.
24:49
Speaker 1: These in contrast to the prohibitively expensive actual on vinyl
24:55
Speaker 1: used to make records, bootleg records, the bone records, these
25:01
Speaker 1: bootlegs on X rays would cost between four to six roubles.
25:05
Speaker 1: That was about the price of a of a typical lunch. Uh.
25:09
Speaker 1: And not every record came from those two guys who
25:13
Speaker 1: started what they called the Golden Dog Gang. Many people
25:18
Speaker 1: were accidentally buying records that only had a few seconds
25:22
Speaker 1: of music. How infuriating is that? How angry would you
25:27
Speaker 1: be if you're thinking, oh, yes, my new Elvis record
25:31
Speaker 1: and then you hear the opening riff and that's it.
25:36
Speaker 1: Bait and switch right there, man, I'd be enraged. Enraged, Yeah,
25:40
Speaker 1: that's a good word for it. These also led to
25:44
Speaker 1: the development of a dance tradition, uh, different dances. There's
25:48
Speaker 1: one called the Hamburg style, the Atomic style. Can do
25:52
Speaker 1: a little Hamburg style for me right now, I'm then
25:53
Speaker 1: I'll describe it to the people. I cannot. I would
25:57
Speaker 1: feel like I am culturally appropriating their struggle. Do you
26:02
Speaker 1: like how just because I didn't know it was thanks. Uh.
26:07
Speaker 1: The thing about these dances is they had little to
26:11
Speaker 1: almost no connection to dances in the United States. Instead,
26:17
Speaker 1: this is fascinating. I would want to learn one of these. Uh.
26:22
Speaker 1: They represented the still Yagi's opinion of how they thought
26:26
Speaker 1: Americans might be dancing to these things. So it was
26:29
Speaker 1: just kind of like they're just using their imagination, yeah,
26:31
Speaker 1: to like blindly impersonate or do an impression of their
26:35
Speaker 1: idea of American dancers. Interesting, and there are a couple
26:38
Speaker 1: of layers there, you know, No, it really is. I'm
26:40
Speaker 1: I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around it.
26:42
Speaker 1: So it's like they were fascinated by American culture you know,
26:45
Speaker 1: I can think of a good example. What is There's
26:46
Speaker 1: this rapper named Young Lean. I think we've talked about
26:49
Speaker 1: Young Lean before, and I believe he's Swedish um and
26:54
Speaker 1: he kind of approximates like, you know, Southern trap hip
26:58
Speaker 1: hop music, but like his lyrics or something lost in translation.
27:02
Speaker 1: Like he's a really interesting rapper. But there's something about like,
27:05
Speaker 1: while trying to approximate this thing but not really speaking
27:08
Speaker 1: the language, what comes out the other side is somewhat
27:11
Speaker 1: evocative of the thing, but it's also like its own
27:14
Speaker 1: thing and really kind of strange and interesting. And I
27:17
Speaker 1: really like that. Yeah, it's fascinating, you know. I I
27:20
Speaker 1: love that this conversation did range into a mention of
27:25
Speaker 1: Young Lean. Oh yeah, Ben, this is you know that
27:27
Speaker 1: That's what we do on in ridiculous History. We just
27:29
Speaker 1: kind of go where the where the ridiculous rabbit may lead,
27:33
Speaker 1: and today it led to Young Lean. And I'm gonna
27:35
Speaker 1: quote you just a line and just he says what
27:36
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. He says, uh, I got an empire
27:39
Speaker 1: of emotional squad seemy cruising, cruising in my go kart.
27:42
Speaker 1: I'm war Hoo, I'm warhol, I'm Warrior when I'm in
27:45
Speaker 1: Mario Kart. Okay, there's a there's a rhyme scheme there.
27:50
Speaker 1: He's great. Yeah, okay, check it out. Let's to take it.
27:53
Speaker 1: And Young Lean, if you're enjoying the show, let us know. Yeah,
27:56
Speaker 1: he's really into Arizona iced tea. That's another thing about
27:58
Speaker 1: Young Lean. But just wrap this up. There's a really
28:01
Speaker 1: cool connection to between these bootleg bone records and something
28:05
Speaker 1: that was really popular in the sixties and seventies, which
28:07
Speaker 1: was cereal box records. So like you know, Life Cereal
28:11
Speaker 1: or Wheaties or honeycomb um or fruit loops or whatever
28:15
Speaker 1: would have in the box a forty five rpm record
28:19
Speaker 1: that you cut out literally with scissors, and it's on cardboard.
28:22
Speaker 1: So it goes to show like the material determines probably
28:26
Speaker 1: the fidelity and like the longevity the life of the
28:30
Speaker 1: you know, the record. But you could do it on cardboard.
28:33
Speaker 1: You know. It's just really interesting. I would never have
28:36
Speaker 1: thought that that was the case, and this is it
28:37
Speaker 1: opened my eyes to all sorts of weird thing. Maybe
28:39
Speaker 1: you could do it on you know, would you could
28:42
Speaker 1: probably make a wood record? You can, I'm sure you
28:44
Speaker 1: could quite possibly. Yeah, And again as you said it
28:47
Speaker 1: me just it will have you know, it will have
28:51
Speaker 1: inevitable effects on the quality. Was interesting too, when you
28:54
Speaker 1: listen to a record, if you turn your receiver off
28:57
Speaker 1: your amplifier and you just stick your ear down, can
29:00
Speaker 1: actually hear the sound of it just through the needle.
29:03
Speaker 1: So it's this literally like the music is encoded into
29:06
Speaker 1: these grooves and you can faintly hear it just by
29:08
Speaker 1: listening to the turntable cartridge. So that's that's fascinating in
29:12
Speaker 1: and of itself. And there's this other you know, we're
29:15
Speaker 1: seeing this other world that exists again relatively independent of
29:22
Speaker 1: the authorities, that there were systems of their own. Slang
29:25
Speaker 1: of course, a chuvak, by the way, as male still
29:29
Speaker 1: yagi chuvika is a female still yaggy. I found the
29:34
Speaker 1: list of the terminology, so I know we're still in Uh,
29:38
Speaker 1: we're still in Russia several decades ago, because we haven't
29:41
Speaker 1: traveled back to the present yet. We gotta get better
29:43
Speaker 1: at that, and they we're gonna get left behind. I
29:45
Speaker 1: propose we I propose we travel back to the safety
29:48
Speaker 1: of the studio. Alright, we're back, and luckily it looks
29:54
Speaker 1: like I am uh no longer a little boy, but
29:57
Speaker 1: I've learned a valuable lesson about the story of music. Yeah,
30:02
Speaker 1: we know now that we have the benefit of looking
30:04
Speaker 1: back from the present day. Is we record this, we
30:09
Speaker 1: know that the authorities were intensely aware of the Stillagy,
30:14
Speaker 1: going so far as to send informants, snitches, rats to
30:19
Speaker 1: the bootleggers to pose his record buyers. But we know
30:21
Speaker 1: by the nineteen sixties, restrictions began to loosen. This was
30:25
Speaker 1: after the death of Stalin and the advent of other
30:30
Speaker 1: recording devices like real to real tape recorders began to
30:35
Speaker 1: make bone records less crucial to this. To this cultural
30:42
Speaker 1: war waged through music totally, like you know, because that's
30:46
Speaker 1: when you went out, Like speaking of because you know
30:47
Speaker 1: Casey's Fire mixtape, but still banging in my ears right now,
30:51
Speaker 1: I sound a little distracted. Why I got that beat, Casey,
30:55
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. Um. But yeah,
30:57
Speaker 1: like you know, when I was a kid, I would actually, uh,
31:00
Speaker 1: please don't come after me FCC or whatever. Um. But
31:03
Speaker 1: I used to exchange smashing Pumpkins bootleg cassettes with people
31:07
Speaker 1: through the mail. The mail. It was the whole thing.
31:10
Speaker 1: You'd meet people on message boards and then you would
31:12
Speaker 1: like you would say I've got this one, you know, okay,
31:15
Speaker 1: I've got this one, and then you'd exchange and there'd
31:17
Speaker 1: be no money would change hands. It was literally this
31:19
Speaker 1: like internet marketplace, you know, that was all based on
31:24
Speaker 1: like I've got something you want, You've got something I want.
31:26
Speaker 1: It's on this disposable medium that everyone can get there.
31:28
Speaker 1: There became like standards. You had to have the Maxel cassettes.
31:32
Speaker 1: I can't remember what the exact but it was very
31:35
Speaker 1: specific and they always they I found about this thing
31:38
Speaker 1: called filler, where like whenever there was room at the
31:40
Speaker 1: end of the cassette, they would just fill it with whatever,
31:43
Speaker 1: like cool you know, fire mixtape they had and when
31:45
Speaker 1: they wanted you to hear. So I actually learned about
31:47
Speaker 1: a bunch of cool new music through the filler on
31:51
Speaker 1: my Smashing Pumpkins bootlegs. And that's a little something about me.
31:55
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. That's neat fact I didn't know that before.
31:59
Speaker 1: I do want to say that despite the tactics of
32:03
Speaker 1: the Soviet government at the time, and despite the repression
32:08
Speaker 1: involved in the country at the time, the still yagy
32:12
Speaker 1: I would argue succeeded, and now you can find these records,
32:17
Speaker 1: these bone recordings in museums, as you said, you can
32:20
Speaker 1: find them in private exhibits. You can even if the
32:23
Speaker 1: spirit so moves you participate in the in this historic
32:27
Speaker 1: movement by going online and buying one on your own.
32:31
Speaker 1: But as you said, it's somewhat strange that these things
32:35
Speaker 1: were built to be affordable and accessible. Yeah, And I
32:39
Speaker 1: actually was just digging out on eBay and there's quite
32:41
Speaker 1: a few for sale here and they look so cool. Man.
32:43
Speaker 1: One of them is a Beach Boys I get around
32:46
Speaker 1: U x ray rowan Gun Film Bones record rare SI
32:50
Speaker 1: or best offer H. And then we have one it's
32:52
Speaker 1: just instrumental jazz piece x ray rowan gun Film Bones
32:56
Speaker 1: Record to twenty nine. And this one looks so cool.
32:59
Speaker 1: It's like just you know, it's like with a cigarette
33:01
Speaker 1: burn in the middle, and it's cut out sort of
33:02
Speaker 1: irregularly shaped, because you know, these were page shaped and
33:06
Speaker 1: they had to be cut out into discs, you know,
33:08
Speaker 1: hand by hand. But it's leg you to close up
33:10
Speaker 1: on someone's like stern um like ribs on the side.
33:13
Speaker 1: It looks like a like something from like the nine
33:15
Speaker 1: inch Nails album art or something like that. But there
33:17
Speaker 1: are quite a few of these on eBay and they're
33:20
Speaker 1: not that crazy expensive. There's sixty five dollars for this one.
33:23
Speaker 1: It's a USSR one side X ray record from fifties
33:27
Speaker 1: Bill Haley and the Saddleman. I see Heart seventy eight RPM.
33:31
Speaker 1: It's interesting too, because I wonder if they're all seventy eights.
33:34
Speaker 1: Here's a t REX one mark bowl and t Rex
33:36
Speaker 1: for seven bucks. So not not cheap and available. Yes, available,
33:42
Speaker 1: And do exercise caution when you buy, well, when you
33:47
Speaker 1: buy anything online, but when you buy these online, because
33:51
Speaker 1: some of the Bone records were undercover bait and switches
33:55
Speaker 1: created by the authorities, so you don't want to get
33:57
Speaker 1: your saddlement record that you paid a hefty amount for.
34:02
Speaker 1: And then here the first few bars of music, and
34:04
Speaker 1: then here a very angry and stern Russian voice giving
34:08
Speaker 1: you government warnings. Would lectures is cold blooded. I know
34:15
Speaker 1: it's sore, but if you have experience with this piece
34:21
Speaker 1: of musical history, we would love to hear from you.
34:24
Speaker 1: You can find us all over the internet wherever you
34:29
Speaker 1: find your favorite podcasts, and you can email us directly.
34:33
Speaker 1: Right we are ridiculous at how stuff works dot com
34:36
Speaker 1: and we're all over the usual social media channels and whatnot,
34:39
Speaker 1: but we really just hope you join us again for
34:41
Speaker 1: the next episode. And what more appropriate way to end
34:45
Speaker 1: this exploration today then with a little ultra music, Little
34:49
Speaker 1: bone music. Drop it, Casey M. For more podcasts for
35:22
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
35:25
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.