[78-L] Soviet Scene (was: Something you don't see every day!)

[Michael Biel]

From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
> Well...Russian record companies had a few IMPORTANT advantages!
> First, their customers HAD to buy from the "People's Record Company"...
> none of this capitalist nonsense about "competition!"


Actually, until 1964 when Melodiya was founded as the nationwide label,
each pressing plant had its own label and label name, and although they
mainly pressed the recordings supplied by the central office, they
occasionally issued recordings intended for their local population. 
There also was the black market competition of recordings cut on x-ray
sheets -- rock on the bones.  The State record stores also imported
records from the other Communist countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, East
Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.  Many cities in the USSR had a
store for every Communist country, and they sold their country's records
and other products which was a type of competition.  They sometimes had
Western artists like Elvis.
 
> Second, the format was whatever the Politburo had DECIDED it was!
> If the official supplier of phonograph records had inadvertantly wound
> up with a few thousand 78rpm phonorecords...that was easily corrected
> through ONE official order!

Yes there was a central government industrial standards system, which is
the GOST (looks like roct) number on each record starting in the 1950s,
roct 5289-50, 56 etc.  But the Long Playing system provided for both 33
and 78 to be used, but they did drop the 78 microgroove system after a
year or two but continued making 78s into the mid-60s for all the people
who still had only 78 players. 
 
> "You vant a record?! THIS one is the one we have!
> Steven C. Barr

This was the major problem all thru the Soviet years.  Big selling items
were not immediately repressed to meet demand.  If you see something in
the store you buy it NOW!  It won't be there tomorrow if it is good. 
They MIGHT be repressed a year or two later, or not.  And when there was
a record that some higher up wanted pressed, THAT would get pressed and
might languish in the stores for years.  Cultural items cost less.  The
cheapest were political, then came classical, childrens, and domestic
folk music.  Pop music was the most expensive but eventually many were
pressed on floppys which were cheaper.  There also was the monthly
magazine Horizon which had 12 floppies, and the last side was often some
Western pop as bait. 

By the late 70s jazz had become officially permissible, and pressing
runs of some weird avant-garde jazz started at 50,000 and went up to
500,000.  And they SOLD.  Some of it was VERY WEIRD.  NONE of it has
been reissued on CD.  But there also was some good revivalist Dixieland,
and I have searched in vain for CDs of it -- I do have most of the LPs
of them, and a few of the weird ones also.  In the mid to late 80s there
was a fantastic series of History of Soviet Jazz that also has not been
reissued on CD.  I have about 7 of them, mostly the early ones.  The
series ran to about 25 LPs.  They had a store life of maybe a day and a
half.  When any of them appeared they FLEW out of the stores.  Phone
calls were made as soon as they were spotted, and the lucky ones bought
extras for their friends.  I don't think any were ever repressed, and
they never hit the official export lists for MK, and I have most of the
catalogs from that era. I have never seen one with English notes.

And much to my surprise, I found there is a large contingent of record
collectors in Russia who have their tiny apartments stuffed to the gills
with records, including many 78 collectors, some with over 10,000 items.
 
 
Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com