Ribs (, translit. ryobra), also known as music on ribs (), jazz on bones (), bones or bone music (''roentgenizdat''), are improvised

gramophone record A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English) or a vinyl record (for later varieties only) is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The g ...

ings made from X-ray films. Mostly made through the 1950s and 1960s, ribs were a

black market A black market is a Secrecy, clandestine Market (economics), market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality, or is not compliant with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the set of goods and services who ...

method of smuggling in and distributing music that was banned from broadcast in the Soviet Union. Banned artists included emigre musicians, such as Pyotr Leshchenko and Alexander Vertinsky, and Western artists, such as Elvis, the

Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

, the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

, the

Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American rock band formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and their friend Al Jardine. Distinguished by thei ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April25, 1917June15, 1996) was an American singer, songwriter and composer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phra ...

and

Chubby Checker Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song " The Twis ...

Production

Medical X-rays, purchased or picked out of the trash from hospitals and clinics, were used to create the recordings. The X-rays were cut into 7-inch discs and the center hole was burned into the disc with a cigarette. According to Russian music critic and rock journalist Artemy Troitsky, "grooves were cut t 78rpmref name=unglued /> with the help of special machines (made, they say, from old phonographs by skilled conspiratorial hands)"; he added that the "quality was awful, but the price was low, a ruble or a ruble and a half." The disks could be played five to ten times.

Legality

The clandestine approach to circulating banned popular foreign music eventually led to a law being passed in 1958 that forbade the home-production of recordings of "a criminally hooligan trend". The "hooligan trend" refers to the '' stilyagi'' (from the word ''stil'' meaning style in Russian), a Soviet youth subculture known for embracing Western styles of dress and dance.

Preservation

The X-Ray Audio Project

While on tour with The Real Tuesday Weld in Saint Petersburg, the English musician Stephen Coates came across an X-ray record at a market stall. Coates was inspired to launch ''The X-Ray Audio Project'', an initiative to provide a resource of information about ''roentgenizdat'' recordings with visual images, audio recordings and interviews. In November 2015, after several years of research and interviewing bone bootleggers, his book ''X-Ray Audio: The Strange Story of Soviet Music on the Bone'' was published by Strange Attractor. In June 2015, Coates gave a TED talk on the subject at TEDX Kraków. He and sound artist and researcher Aleksander Kolkowski went on tour, telling the story of the Soviet X-ray bootleggers and cutting new X-ray records from live musical performances as a demonstration of the process. The touring exhibition Coates created with photographer Paul Heartfield was covered in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' and on BBC Radio 4's '' Today'' programme. In September 2016, the pair released the long-form documentary ''Roentgenizdat'' featuring interviews with original Soviet-era bootleggers and archive footage. In 2019, Coates wrote and presented ''Bone Music'', a documentary based around interviews carried out in Russia for an edition of BBC Radio 3's ''Between The Ears'' series. The programme told the story of underground culture of forbidden music in Cold War era Soviet Union and featured the Russian band Mumiy Troll recording a Vadim Kozin song cut straight to X-ray.

Archival collections

Other preservation projects conserving collections ribs music include: * The ''Richard W. Judy and Jane M. Lommel Collection of X-Ray Film Recordings'' at Great American Songbook Foundation Library & Archives includes 18 distinct records and digitized audio from recordings of

The Andrews Sisters The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (1911–1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (1916–1995), and mezzo ...

and

Bill Haley & His Comets Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band formed in 1947 and continuing until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group record ...

. *

In popular culture

The short story "Bone Music" from the 2020 collection '' Good Citizens Need Not Fear'' by Maria Reva is about a lady who makes her living from the music "on bones".Jessica Payn
Maria Reva: Good Citizens Need Not Fear review - tales of gloomy humour and absurdist charm
19 May 2020

References

External links

X-Ray Audio

The Horse Hospital
* Roman Tschiedl:
Bootlegs auf Röntgenfilm: Der illegale Sound des Kalten Krieges
', Radio OE1, 2. April 2016 (German/English, Interviews with Stephen Coates, Aleksander Kolkowski and Masha Dabelka on Ribs recordings)
"X-Ray Bone Records in the Songbook Archives"
15 March 2023 at Youtube. {{Authority control Audio storage Recorded music Censorship in the Soviet Union Soviet phraseology Music of the Soviet Union Second economy of the Soviet Union X-rays Underground culture