The history of Russian rock in a nut shell

Mid-1950's: stilyagas

1963 Aleksandr Grandsky & Tarakany (Cockroaches) - Moscow

- strong influences from the Beatles

1968 Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine) - Moscow

- the oldest of the still existing Russian rock bands

- very much influenced by the Beatles aswell, so real style of their own in the beginning

- the leader, Andrei Makarevitch, was accused to be too commercial already in the early 1980's

1972 Boris Grebenshikov and Akvarium - Leningrad

- still playing

- changed the line-up several times, Grebenshikov as the only original member

Officially rock doesn't exist. Magnetophone tapes and later cassettes are copied and the duplicates of duplicates spread all over the country through an underground network.

Concerts are held in people's homes or abandoned building.

1981 The rock club of Leningrad

- Probably started by the KGB to collect the suspicious rock people into one place

Leningrad gathers rock bands from all parts of Russia.

Strong culture of rock poets:

Boris Grebenshikov (Akvarium) - Leningrad

Yuri Shetvchuk (DDT) - Ufa-Leningrad

Konstantin Kintshev (Alisa) - Leningrad

Viktor Tsoi (Kino) - Leningrad

Petr Mamonov (Zvuki Mu) - Moscow

Dmitri Revyakin (Kalinov Most) - Novosibirsk

Mihail "Mike" Naumenko (Zoopark) - Leningrad

Vyacheslav Butusov (Nautilus Pompilius) - Sverdlovsk

Yegor Letov (Grazhdanskaja Oborona) - Omsk

Mihail Borzykin (Televizor) - Leningrad

Aleksandr Bashlatshev - Sverdlovsk/Leningrad

1985 Red Wave

- An album gathered by an American enthusiast Joanna Stingray, released in United States

- Contained music by four bands: Akvarium, Alisa, Kino (Cinema) and Strannie Igri (Strange Games)

1986 Gorbatshev and perestroika

- Rock is officially approved, bands are let out to stadiums

- Te governmental record company Melodiya starts releasing rock vinyls. Independent companies are born soon (f.ex. Teatr DDT 1988)

1987 The first attempts in the west

- Va-Bank and Bravo release their records in Finland

Rock culture is developing but many of the former rebels face difficulties to find their status in the new free system:

- 1988 bard Aleksandr Bashlatshev commits suicide

- 1991 Bashlatshev is followed by Mike Naumenko who dies as a result of a long drinking problem

- 1991 Yanka Diagileva, female punk-rocker with close relationship to Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Civil Defense) commits suicide

- a lot of musicians die because of drugs and alcohol

1989 Boris Grebenshikov is signed by CBS as the first Soviet rock musician in the United States

- "Radio Silence" is a disappointment. Grebenshikov doesn't make the other album he's signed for.

- After returning to Russia BG makes brilliant Russkii albom (Russian album)

1990 Viktor Tsoi, the leader of Kino, dies in a car accident in the middle of a great success

- Tsoi was returning from Riga to St. Petersburg with the master tapes of "Tshernii albom" (The black album)

- Probably the greatest legend of Russian rock is born

1991 Soviet Union falls apart

- DDT releases Aktrisa Vesna (Actress Spring) with songs like Rodina (Fatherland), Dozhd (Rain), V poslednuyu osen (At the last autumn) and Tstho takoye osen (What is autumn?). They all become mega hits which are still played constantly. In the absence of serious competitives DDT becomes the number 1 rock band of the 1990's.

More attempts to make it in the west:

- Hard rock band Gorky Park rises with high hopes and makes one hit "Bang" but doesn't appeal to the audience very much.

The Russian rock movement is facing hard times. There's nothing to fight against and the audience has something else to do but to listen to rock bands.

Soon after Soviet Union has collapsed the western world loses its interest in the former Soviet, nowadays Russian rock which wasn't after all quite ready for the western ears yet. Russian rock culture starts to develop on it's own.

In the 1990's the development of rock and pop and supported by new rock media like magazines Rock-Fuzz, Om and Stas and tv-stations MTV and Muz-TV.

The real renaissance (at least in St. Petersburg) seems to be in 1999 when there's a huge increase of live music: new bands, new clubs, live acts almost every night, usually in several clubs at the same time.

Russian bands A - Z

Agata Kristi
A pop-band formed in Sverdlovsk (nowadays Yekaterinburg) 1988. Number one band in Russia a few years ago. Started as quite an innovative rock-band but turned into playing quite standardized radio-disco-pop. Best albums Kovastvo i ljubov (Treatury and love), 1991 and Dekadans (dekadence), 1989.

Akvarium
One of the oldest existing rock bands, run by singer-song-writer Boris Grebenshikov. Still releasing regularly.

Alisa
One of the still existing giants of the Soviet times. Mostly playing quite hard rock with progressive influences. Lead by charismatic Konstantin Kintshev. According to some opinions already too old to rock'n'roll but anyway still quite innovative and looking for new. Has in its albums changed styles quite fluently from metal to beautiful acoustic melodies.

Auktsion
Slightly avant gardist rock band formed in early 1980's. Still quite popular and touring regularly.

Avia
An avant garde group formed by former members of Strannie Igri in the mid-1980's. Combined avant garde jazz, rock and dance performances.

Babslei
A folk-punk band of six young women. Highly fascinating especially live. Traditional instruments and tunes combined with modern sounds and rock energy.

Chaif
Jekaterinburg is the third center of Russian rock after Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Chaif is one of the bands coming from there, run by singer - guitar player Aleksandr Shahrin, who has a beautiful tenor voice. Really fascinating while singing the newer folk-like melodies and reggae but relatively boring while doing their old rock'n'roll material.

DDT
Formed in Ufa 1980. Won the band competition of Komsomolskaja Pravda but was forbidden right after the first concerts because of Yuri Shevchuk's provocative lyrics. Shevtchuk had to leave Ufa 1984 because of a public campaign arranged against him by KGB. Shevtchuk formed new DDT in Leningrad 1986 and the band became phenomenously famous soon after that.

Deadushki
A rock band playing industrial and ambient. Formed by two former members of the influential avant garde ska band Strannie Igri (Strange Games): Viktor Sologub and Aleksei Rahov (also played in Avia and NOM) and ten years younger drummer Andrei Orlov. Definitely one of the best live bands in Russia nowadays thanks to the exploding energy and the sovereign charisma of the singer-keyboard player-bass playes Viktor Sologub (age 44!).

Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Civil Defense)
The most famous punk band of Russia, formed 1985 in Omsk by Yegor Letov. Famous for provocative lyrics.

Kino (Cinema)
Kino became a real phenomenon in the late 1980's. In Kino's music Viktor Tsoi's ironic texts were attached to simple melodies and sharp and simple soundscapes. Kino's golden era was 1988-1990 and it stopped when Viktor Tsoi's car driven over by a truck in August 1990. Memorial concerts of Tsoi are arranged every year, his grave is visited constantly in St. Petersburg and Kino's records are being sold all the time - still over ten years after Tsoi's death.

Kolibri (Hummingbirds)
A former quartet, nowadays a trio of women singing in a fabulous way with various high-quality background musicians. Quite artistic style which combines jazz, pop, rock into sometimes quite humorous but sometimes quite dark athmospheres. Often described as a feminist band, probably because the band is lead by women.

Korol i Shut (The King and the Joker)
Folk-punk from St. Petersburg. Professional musicians, good singers and good songs. A load of masculine energy which flavoured by a female violin player.

Mumii Troll
Named after the Finnish comic character, Mumii Troll has been one of the most popular bands in the whole Russia in the past few years. The band comes from Vladivostok, but has been recently living in Moscow and London. Their style is brit pop and on that branch they have nothing new to offer.

Nautilus Pompilius
Formed already in the mid-1970's in Sverdlovsk, split 1997. Leader of the band Vyacheslav Butusov has continued on a solo career and a year ago made an album with Deadushki accomplishing real success. In the Soviet time Nautilus was a really innovative band which used modern studio technique but after all the quality of the music varied quite a lot. Made a real break through with the extremely romantic and melodic pop album Knyaz tishini (Duke of silence), 1989.

Nogu Svelo
This band from Moscow has never been actual top-10 band but it has to mentioned because it's one of the most innovative bands during the past few years. Nogu Svelo is a very professional band which plays sometimes pop which fills any radio standard but then surprices by making fun different styles, using peculiar melodies and rich instrumentations.

NOM
Formed 1987. Probably the best rock band to continue the tradition of Russian surrealism and absurdism which was made famous by authors like Nikolai Gogol and Daniil Harms. NOM's music is a fascinating combination of traditional Russian melodies, rock, pop, progressive rock and even opera. NOM (neformalnoye obedinenie molodozhi) means unofficial association of youth, a term which was used in the Soviet time.
NOM has been famous for its astonishing live shows and really amusing videos in which it has made fun of all the taboos which had something to do with Soviet Union or also modern Russia. 1996 the band was voted as the sex symbol of Russian rock for its song 7 %, which was a tragic story of a gay man.
NOM split into two parts, Euro-NOM and Zhir-NOM, in 1997 by the leading Kagadeyev brothers. A little earlier Aleksei Rahov had left for Deadushki and Aleksandr Liver for Bern opera.

Tequilajazzz
Definitely one of the most interesting bands of the 1990's in Russia. Living in St. Petersburg but has been touring all around the world. Tequilajazzz describes its music as power pop which is much too narrow a description for this band which combines styles like pure punk and hardcore to jazz and film music. The leader Yevgeni Fedorov is also a highly respected film composer.

Va-Bank
Powerful rock from Moscow. The charismatic leader Aleksandr Skliar used to be a diplomat but he got tired of his career and decided to change it freedom of rock. Recorded one album in Finland with English texts 1987 but the stupid hard rock didn't find the audience. After that changed back to Russian and started making much more interesting music.

Vopli Vidapliassova
Humorous folk rock from Kiev, Ukraine. The band was formed in 1986 and has been quite popular ever since. Gained some fame in France, too, and even toured with Sonic Youth in USA.

Zemfira
An exception in the strongly male rock-culture of Russia. This Russian version of Alanis Morrissette turned the Russian music business upside with her enormous success. Also from the industrial city of Ufa like DDT's Yuri Shevchuk.

Zvuki Mu (The voices of Mu)
A peculiar rock band lead by the intellectual artist Petr Mamonov, who's been making also film and theatre projects. The most recognizable characters in Zvuki Mu's music are Mamonov's low and tormented voice, the strange melodies and the scary sound scapes.

Ya i drug moi gruzovik (Me and my friend truck)
This Ukrainian trio is one of the most interesting new bands coming from the formes Soviet Union. The peculiar thing is that the band no guitar, just drummer, bass player and singer. Highly talented musicians and an extremely delighting live band. While listening to the bass player Rostislav Chaban you realize that guitar players are actually useless.