On
Wednesday (9th March) I went along to an event at Rough Trade East
off of Brick Lane promoting a book called ‘X-Ray Audio – The Strange Story of
Soviet Music on the Bone’, a tome about bootlegged western and banned music in
post war Russia, in which many Russian citizens suffered imprisonment because of
their love of music and their willingness to make it available in a state that
banned much of it. With little to put their music on these guys pressed music
onto discarded used X-Ray plates. The recorded quality was not great but it was
better than nothing. My attendance was prompted by a performance from Marc
Almond, whose performances were cut to X-Rays live on the night (without too
much success!). This performance of ‘Friendship’ a song Marc knew of from his
Russian musical hero, Vadim Kozim, was recorded to one of Marc’s own X-Rays,
presumably of his gruesome injuries following a life threatening motorcycle accident
in London in 2004. The recording did not work too well (modern X-Ray plates do not lend themselves as well to the
process as much as the older ones used in Russia half a century ago.) Here
though is my trusty iPhone recording of the performance.
The
resultant recording was unplayable, Marc’s crowd rousing foot stomping basically
not helping the process (which can be seen on the projector screen behind him).
Before this, Stephen Coates, the editor of the book and performer in the Real
Tuesday Weld, presented his story of how the book came together. This is his presentation
at TEDxKrakow
The evening
was informative, interesting and enjoyable, including Marc’s all too brief,
under-rehearsed but enthusiastic performance. The book is a wonderful read. Finally,
here is Marc’s BBC World Service radio documentary (from late 2015) on the
previously mentioned Vadim Kozin. Marc cut an album of Kozin’s songs, released
in 2009, called ‘Orpheus In Exile’.
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