This is an exotic view of a world Americans could not imagine, an
insider/outsider perspective on the Leningrad underground music scene,
which American Joanna Stingray witnessed, documented through photos,
videos, and interviews, and in which she was also a protagonist.
Red Wave presents the power of youth culture to unite people across
the world in the quest for freedom and rights. Rock is a universal music
of liberation that carries the winds of change.
Red Wave documents the "Golden Age" of Russian rock, which is a
critical part of the history of art triumphing over repressive state
control in the 1980s.
In the first part of the book, the author tells of her adventures
relating to the conception, realization, and consequences of the
historic split double album "Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the
USSR," which she produced with the Big Time label in Los Angeles after
smuggling the "unofficial" music out of the country in nine successive
trips over 1985-1986.
The album and scandal it provoked spurred the process of rock music's
recognition and legitimization in the USSR, expanded the boundaries of
glasnost and heralded the downfall of communism.
The book is an easy, captivating and fascinating read; a page-turner
full of seamless dialog, filmic scenes, and powerful imagery that
reveals a neophyte's curious, passionate, inquisitive glance into a
hitherto unknown magic world. Stingray writes in a genuine way about
being star-struck, about falling in love (with the lead guitarist of the
band Kino), about the amazing cast of characters with whom she spent her
life in Russia, and about her own development as a musician.
Coauthor and daughter Madison Stingray, a songwriter and musician in her
own right, captures her mother's admirable and enthralling adventures
and conveys them in a language that is accessible but full of genuine
passion and genuine poetry. Joanna's archive has dozens of interviews
with musicians, artists, producers, journalists -- all leading figures
in the underground movement -- and the authors have used these to round
out Joanna's recollections and give authentic voice to the characters in
the book.
The second part of the book details how the Red Wave album not only
revealed Russian rock to the world, but how it was a powerful catalyst
for rock's evolution within Russia as a flood of black market dubs made
their way around the country after the album's release, launching the
four bands to instant stardom, and complicating Joanna's life, her
marriage, her friendships, but also boosting her own career and
notoriety.
Enlightening observations are made about attitudes toward money, work,
and art in Soviet society as well as how Russia's transition in the
1990s to a capitalist system forever changed a society long insulated
from money's corrupting influence.
Through the profound, exhaustive, thoughtful answers of musicians to
Joanna's simplest questions comes an elaboration of deeply hidden truths
about Soviet life, not only about music.
Cultivating her power among the male rockers, Stingray accumulates a fan
base of young women and becomes an important female role model,
launching her public career in Russia by standing up for the environment
and working with Greenpeace. A funny episode is how she becomes famous
overnight for her humorous anti-littering campaign/music video.
The book is full of inspiration for young rebels but is moderated by
Stingray's heartbreak: after many of her closest companions die from
substances, suicide, a tragic accident (Victor Tsoi), and AIDS, she
realizes she carries their mantle in her memories and extensive
archives, and it is for their legacy that she must write the book. It's
a real rock 'n' roll ride,
