100 Tape Albums of Soviet Rock // Chapter 3: The Great Combinator (Pt. 3)

Part 3 of our translation of Chapter 3 from Alexandr Kushnir’s book 100 Tapes of Soviet Rock (100 Магнитоальбомов Советского Рока). Archives can be found here.

Thanks to everyone supportive of this venture.

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Things weren’t without a healthy dose of cynicism. One of the concerts saw Andrei using trimmed letterheads of Komsomol certificate as numbered tickets with the image of Lenin standing in front of Smolny. The super-cockiness invited certain authorities to look deeper into Tropillo’s work. “Even my lip was trembling, but I was denying everything” – recalls Andrey who was nearly accused of conspiring in act of terror. Sounds familiar.
…After this incident Tropillo grows cold towards managerial work and concentrates all of his effort on studio work. The first step was sound restoration of Mashina Vremeni works that were recorded in rehearsal conditions by sound engineer Igor Klenov. Unpretentiously titled “Happy Birthday” compilation reached the masses through Tropillo and saw him including a few rare songs by Kavagoe. The year was 1978. Tape was replicated at the linguistic laboratory of philological faculty. The recording was made at the ninth speed pattern utilizing side one of the reel. Side two of the reel was empty.
Two hundreds reels were lovingly packed into сardboard boxes that featured photos of Makarevich, Margulis and Kavagoe glued by hand. “Once I balanced incomes and expenses the entire edition turned out to be a profit loss” – Tropillo recalls not without irony.

tbc