"Generation of janitors and watchmen" - where did it come from and where did it go Part 2
Since the concerts of the newly minted stars of the domestic rock scene were semi-legal, and the records were repeatedly rewritten and passed from hand to hand, it was unrealistic to make music your main profession. To make a living and not go to prison for parasitism, musicians chose an occupation that required minimal contact with society - janitors, night watchmen, stokers.
Part 1
Soviet pop music of the 70s was solid and high-quality, moderately light and quite suitable for youth parties, but neither in terms of instrumental design, nor in terms of text content could in any way satisfy the needs of a young sound engineer, and even more so - already broken.
Another thing is Western rock bands, whose records seeped in roundabout ways through the Iron Curtain! This is where the young people heard real sound meanings, guessed the answers to the eternal questions of life … And it doesn't matter that English was mostly known at the level of the school curriculum, while others did not know at all. Where there was a lack of linguistic knowledge, the visual imagination was turned on, and sometimes no words were needed at all - after all, there is music! You can also invent your own words!
This is how the first amateur rock bands appeared, first imitating Western models, and later declaring themselves with their own unique, first of all, poetic creativity! Yes, it is poetic texts that carry deep sound meanings that make it possible to speak of Russian rock as an original phenomenon. And if in the West rock culture nevertheless more met the needs of skin-visual boys who did not want to serve in the army, then in our country it, first of all, became a response to the sound shortages of young people of that period.
Our hearts demand changes …
Meanwhile, the party nomenclature, which itself did not believe in the idea of a bright communist future for a long time, saw in their work a threat to the existing system, or rather, to the myths and slogans on which it held. Needless to say, repressive measures in the form of bans on performances, expulsions from universities, arrests and the like made rock musicians into real "hero-martyrs" in the eyes of their contemporaries! This is due to the peculiarities of our Russian urethral mentality, or more precisely, our attitude to the law.
Any Russian person likes desperate courage, the willingness to sacrifice oneself for the sake of one's neighbor, the Motherland, humanity, as well as disregard for rules and prohibitions, the desire to break out of the box. We perceive any restrictions as an annoying constraining factor that prevents the seething nature from developing in full force.
For comparison, in the West, where the skin mentality has developed, qualities such as concern for one's own well-being, common sense, and strict adherence to all rules and regulations are valued. And the law is perceived as a defense mechanism, and anyone who violates it naturally becomes an enemy of society without any condescension. The skin mentality loves the law because it protects them.
With us, everything is quite the opposite. Justice is above the law, and we perceive the law not as protection or a necessary component of the state and the system of protection and security, but as a restriction. And sometimes this mental feature plays a nasty joke with the Russian people - often we tend to romanticize real criminals, and anyone who went into conflict with the authorities is almost ready to canonize during his lifetime. However, let's not stray too far.
Since the concerts of the newly minted stars of the domestic rock scene were semi-legal, and the records were repeatedly rewritten and passed from hand to hand, it was unrealistic to make music your main profession. To make a living and not go to prison for parasitism, musicians chose an occupation that required minimal contact with society - janitors, night watchmen, stokers.
And if the janitor does his job early in the morning, then the workers of boiler houses and night guards took over the work shift in the dark - well, just like their distant predecessors many millennia ago!
In those ancient times, people with a sound vector listened to the silence of the night, while the whole flock was asleep, in order to warn their relatives in time about the impending danger. It was the soundman, the night guard of the pack, who alone looked into the endless starry sky and listened to the slightest rustle. It was he, who was focused on himself, who first asked the question: “Who am I? Why am I here? What's the point?"
Gorbachev's perestroika, which eventually turned into a colossal tragedy, was perceived by Russian rock musicians and their fans as a long-awaited breath of fresh air. Finally, they were allowed to legally give concerts, and soon the whole country sang along with Viktor Tsoi:
Sunset
"Rock and roll is dead, but I am not yet!" - sang Boris Grebenshchikov in the distant 83rd, when everything was just beginning. It seems like a joke, however, every joke is known to contain a grain of truth.
Russian rock flashed across the Russian pop horizon with a bright flash, a swift comet …
A new era was approaching, and the long-awaited changes were not at all into the hands of those who so desperately brought them closer. Around the same period, when the famous song "Changes!", Which became the anthem of the generation, was born, Viktor Tsoi wrote another song, where with a unique sound instinct he caught the approaching beginning of the end:
Indeed, instead of the long-awaited kingdom of creativity and the free flight of thought, the time has come for acquisitiveness and the complete destruction of all ethical and moral norms. The type of people who are defined by the system-vector psychology as the owners of the anal-skin-muscular vector ligament has become the "masters of life".
The presence of the three lower vectors allows such a person to stand firmly on his feet and look after his interests - somewhere to show stubbornness and intransigence inherent in the anal vector, and somewhere - to cut through, keep silent, adjust to circumstances. The absence of the upper vectors helps such a person to stubbornly go towards his goal, not being distracted either by visual emotions or by a sound search for the meaning of life.
In good condition, these are effective managers, strong business executives, leaders from God. When the vector “bouquet” is not very developed, we see the classic image of the “brother” of the early 90s: the skin's ability to extract and save resources turns into greed and insolence, and anal inflexibility turns into ordinary cruelty.
Of course, they needed a completely different music, and the idols of the youth of the 80s again went into the shadows. How did their further fate develop?
Some - like, for example, Alexander Bashlachev, Yana Diaghileva, Viktor Tsoi, owners of a unique urethral-sound vector ligament - for various reasons did not live up to thirty and did not see with their own eyes everything that happened next.
Of those who survived, someone seriously revised their anti-Soviet views, and someone to this day continues to fight with a country that has not been on the map for a quarter of a century.
Someone's names are remembered only by the most zealous connoisseurs of Russian rock, while others are now quite successfully continuing their musical career, delighting the audience with their creativity.
Epilogue
In modern society, the crisis of meanings is felt even more acutely than at the end of the 20th century, when the "generation of janitors and watchmen" declared themselves. This is read in the texts of the new Russian rock, which replaced the old guard, it is read in the dark eyes of the owners of the sound vector, who do not find the meaning of life and therefore suffer from severe depression.
Today, neither music, nor poetry, nor religious and philosophical search are able to fully provide the sound engineer with answers to the questions that torment him, and the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan, which reveals the most intimate secrets of the unconscious, the secrets of the human soul, the essence of things, cause-and-effect relationships events taking place in the world can become for such a person a real guiding star in the ocean of search for meaning. Get started with free online lectures.
