Part 1
It was the Kharkov's fate to become the pioneer of Ukrainian rock and thus to confirm
its status of "The First Capital". Kharkov had the largest concentration
of higher educational establishments and secondary schools in Ukraine and for this sake
there was the wide students environment in the city both inclined to experiments and
sharp-sensible to the novelty. Therefore Kharkov just couldn't avoid the appearance of
amateur performers of new fashion music already in 1964. The mane spur to this phenomen as
in many other europian countries was made by the music of BEATLES and another
representatives of so called "British beat" - first Kharkov groups copied vocal
and instrumental manner of their idols from Liverpool, laying stress on the guitar sound
and the multivoiced high-pitched vocalization.
The first Kharkov group was "Idols", called so because of the rubric
"Youth Idols" in Franch magazine "NOUS LE GARSONS ET LE FILLES", the
youth communist organization edition. It was the single - for just clear reason -
information source on the new music which was available for kharkovian students and
schoolers, who formed the sceleton of original rock-music. They were the first, these 9th
form pupils of the 105th School headed by the guitarist Alexey Rossiysky. Their mixture of
traditional rock'n'roll, British beat and rhythm'n'blues found the vivid responce in the
young auditory and the concerts at the school and students parties, at culture palaces
were ''sold out" every time. The Student Palace, The Railway Culture House and The
Fooder Culture House became very popular concert halls at that time. Another popular
ensemble was "Sorvantsy" ("Madcaps") created by two students of
Textile College - Alexey Vetchinkin and Alexander Drozdin, they were the first who had
begun to write own compositions (the biggest heat of 1965 - "It's raining all the
time" by A.Vetchinkin).
They were followed by "Integral" of G.Akopyan, "Continental" of
V.Hurgin and "Leleky" ("Storks"), who had written the first ukrainian
texts.
To the middle of 60th almost every higher school educational institution in Kharkov had
its own rock-group (even at the Tank College the group "Epicentre" functioned
successfully, it had become famous for the heat "Tanks are moving as rhombus"),
and this resulted to creation of the first Kharkov rock-club at the Students Palace in
1967, but - alas! - it existed during several months only.
Kharkov beared the palm in the rock-press also. By the evidence of the authoritative
encyclopaedia of underground musical journalizing "Golden Underground", the
first such (self-typed, naturally) edition "Beat-Echo" was born at Kharkov in
1966. Only one number had appeared (8 pages of typescript), with the amount of exemplars
corresponding to one laying into typewriter - the vigilant authorities had reacted
immediately.
To the end of 60th the city rock-culture was subjected to absolute devastation, many
musicians were forced either to leave Kharkov or to change completely their type of
activity. Perhaps, the ensemble "April" of G.Shvartz (performing at the students
club of Kharkov State University) had got the longest life, but in a short time it put the
end to dangerous musical studies too.
More than ten years were necessary before the happening of rock-music as legal in
Kharkov again. The reading of "the second wave" is taken from the
underground concert of B.Grebenshchikov (1984), arranged by the future organizers of new
kharkovian rock-club. But it's already quite another story.
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