Forbidden X-Ray Music

Music contained on X-Ray records was mostly banned. Sometimes they did contain bootlegged approved songs (sold more cheaply than the versions in the shops) but generally the content was forbidden and from three sources:

• Western music. Rhythms such as tango or styles such as Jazz by artists like Ella Fitzgerald were forbidden as being a general bad influence and sometimes specifically anti-soviet. 
• Russian music made by emigres or defectors such as Pyotr Leshchenko (pictured). Whatever their repertoire, such artists were seen as treacherous and their work inherently anti-soviet even if it had previously been approved.
• Russian music by unofficial artists such Arcady Severnyj.  To officially perform and record,  artists would need to be vetted by the state censor.  Many folk songs or the 'criminal' or 'gulag' songs known as blatnyak, whilst not obviously anti-establishment were regarded as being of low culture and not conducive to the ideals of social realism.

Skeleton Satire

As well as facing punishment if caught, those making X-Ray recordings were satirised by state organs. They were referred to as "pisaki” (literally “writers” or 'recorders" but a pejorative term).  The illustration below is from the book "Bull by the Horns" (1962) by the official poet Yurii Blagoff. It contains verses ridiculing such pisaki, saying something like:

"Musical assholes

Selling x-ray vinyls

For the stomach, samba

And for between the ribs, mamba"

('Ribs' is an alternative to the slang name of 'Bones' for the x-ray records). There are stories of recordings being made which contained voices (possibly official) mocking the listener after a few bars of the forbidden music they had been anticipating.

The X-Ray recordings perhaps had a status something like that enjoyed by illegal drugs today - looked down on as being low culture but secretly enjoyed by a bohemian class. They were traded in a similar way to drugs - by dealers who would lurk in public squares or via private contacts for those in the know.  

Whilst being caught in possession would result in confiscation and punishment such as expulsion from the party, being caught manufacturing or selling could result in years in prison.

Courtesy Sergey Stavitskiy 

Cigarette Burn Spindle Holes

Courtesy Valeriy

The X-Ray plates used for recording were rectangular sheets. They would be cut into a circle shape with scissors. To be played on a gramophone or record player, they would need a central spindle hole.  Often this was made by applying  a lit cigarette - the perfect size.  

Courtesy Yuriy Boyarintsev 

The lower example shown below ('Don't Wake Me' from the opera Werther) has two holes - the second was to keep the plate in place during the writing process on certain devices provided with a second spindle for the purpose.

1940s X-Ray Tutorial

This is an image from a 1940s Soviet Radio Ham magazine called “Radiofront”.  The article describes how to use a homemade attachment to a gramophone to make a recording to a plastic matrix - e.g. a used X-ray plate.  

Soviet amateur radio magazines of the time  often described DIY devices for making such recordings. Usually the articles claimed that such devices would allow radio amateurs to record broadcasts of speeches by the Soviet leaders (Stalin, Molotov, et al) to preserve them for posterity. But instead, the technique was actually used to copy recordings by Pyotr Leshchenko and other banned artists. With the advent of more professional  devices copied or adapted from those brought home as war trophies by Russian soldiers after WWII, such articles disappeared.  

With thanks to Yuriy Gladkiy

Home Made Recording Needle

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Courtesy Yuriy Gladkiy.

Needles to cut the X-Ray recordings had by necessity to be home-made. Here is an example - probably made secretly in a factory or machine shop. 

With thanks to Yuriy Gladkiy