Streaming Stories

streaming Stories Curated by Clemence Braud

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Introduction This book was written as a hommage to music and the incredible, fascinating stories surrounding it.

It all started when I watched a video about the Bone vinyls and their story. Following this I digged into the music world deeper, uncovering more stories about it through videos, web research and talking to the people around me that take an interest into music.

From this, came an interest into sharing my new-found knowledge about those stories with the people around me and this story-book was started.

Enjoy the stories !

Clem Braud

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BONE MUSIC

During the Cold War Stalin censored a lot of art, including music. Any music that was not produced in Russia was banned completely in the USSR. Furthermore, music was only allowed to be written by the ‘soviet union of compositors’.

Instruments, rhythms and some dances were forbidden, such as the saxophone. In 1946, a man opened a souvenir shop. He had a machine that he stole from the German army and which allowed whoever to record themselves by turning audio sounds into scratches onto a disk, allowing one to listen to it again. The man decided to create a business out of this concept, by allowing

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people to render ‘memories’ out of their recordings.

Simultaneously, at night, the man held a second business in which he recorded ‘forbidden’ songs on demand. As, one day, Ruslan Bogaslovsky recognised a forbidden song, he offered to buy the recording. After this, they met again and the man bought a record. Him and his friend, Boris Taigin, became regulars in the shop. However, with the price and danger, they became tired of the situationW and started to think: ‘imagine if we had our own machine? We could listen to what we want’.

Thus, they decided to build their own.

“Today, when we can have as much music as we like, we should still remember and bow low to the man who laid the first stone in the foundation of our musical freedom” - Boris Taigin, cofounder of The Golden Dog Gang.

These are a collection of examples of Bone records available on the website : https://www.x-rayaudio.com alongside recordings

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They learnt how the machine and the mechanics worked.

This took them months.

Nonetheless, they managed to recreate the exact replica of the machine. However, there was one problem: what should they print the recordings on?

All materials made of petrol were rare to come by due to the post-war depression. They tried multiple materials until they found a bin full of x-rays and thought ‘this is plastic’, and there was a lot of it. They used the bin’s contents to cut a disk out of a radio and then tried to record on it. It worked! This was the first piracy in music history.

The two men immediately sought to share their recordings and became known as 'The Golden Dog Gang'. The disks could be listened to about 10 times, whereby they punctured a hole in the middle with a cigarette. It worked extremely well. It was cheaper, easier than official disks, but also dangerous and illegal. They sold each disk for 1 rouble and consequently destroyed the music-recording market. Their intention was not to make money but to share music.

As follows, they slowly became the most important label for radio CD smuggling as

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they made more machines and developed their business across the country. Eventually, word got out about their illegal doings, and they were sentenced to 5-7 years of Gulag. However, after two years, Stalin died so they got freed of the Gulag.

They immediately started their business again. Bogaslovsky got another two years of prison after being caught again, but sharing music was more important. In total, he went to prison 3 times for it.

Each copy (called a rib) was handmade. It allowed thousands of people to listen to music when they couldn’t.

Today you can find those ribs on sale on Ebay for around £50 quite easily, they have become a object of collection.

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RObert JOhnsºn Considered one of the biggest guitarists in the world, Robert Johnson had such a strong influence on the music industry, which some consider that without him, parts of the country, jazz, rock and other derived genres, wouldn’t exist.

Robert Johnson’s influence occurred between 1900 and 1910, in post-segregation America. Son to Julia Dodds, Johnson grew up in a black farming family- a typical occupation for black people during this time. Living with his mother and his siblings, Johnson moved a lot due to the seasondepending fieldwork. At 7-8 years of age, he started playing instruments, his passion lying with the guitar. Around the age of 12, he quit school and started working.

Although he didn’t have a choice at the time and so worked in the fields, he didn’t want to follow in his family’s footsteps.

Blues’ origin comes from black culture, the fields of slavery and

a hint of religious singing, as a way to divert from the labour and Johnson played music in the plantations whenever he could. Eventually, he decided to become a travelling musician. He tried to get noticed by bars and make money from his music. He struggled to do so.

In 1920, when he was 17, he married a girl, who asked him to stop playing music because it wasn’t well seen back then.

To this, Johnson agreed. Later, both her, and her new-born, died during childbirth.As follows, Johnson became depressed and started drinking and making music to feel better. He was a fan of Son House, which happened to do concerts where Johnson lived.

He asked Son House if he could play for him, but the artist told him that Johnson had no talent.

Johnson remained determined.

He left his city for a while. He played at another event in front of Son House and baffled

Only three photographs of Robert Johnson exist in the world. Two are confirmed, the other is speculated to be him.

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everyone. Everyone was shocked at how good and how unique his performance was. Upon his return to the city, he started telling a story about how one night, going home, he got lost at a crossroad.

He was very tired and started falling asleep. He suddenly woke to face a tall silhouette with a hat.

The apparition leaned in, took his guitar, tuned it, and gave it back before disappearing.

And accordingly, since that moment, he had been able to play well. Because everyone was quite religious people believed it. On top of this, there was a famous belief in Haitian Voodoo about a Papa Legba, who was considered the devil. According to his description on Wikipedia: He “stands at spiritual crossroads and gives (or denies) permission to speak with the spirits of Guinee, and is believed to speak all human languages.” Johnson, hence, started mentioning him in his songs.

This made people believe that he had indeed made a deal with the devil and become the best musician ever. Johnson started training with Ike Zimmerman, living at his place. To not disturb his family, they would sometimes practice playing the guitar in a cemetery. However, none of the people who knew Johnson ever heard him mention Ike and so it was as if he had never existed.

Johnson became extremely popular, travelling around

to play and jam with other musicians whom he was a fan of.

Furthermore, being an itinerary musician meant one had to know a lot of music because people would ask one to play songs they knew and somehow Johnson could play a song after hearing it once only.In the following two years, Johnson recorded two albums with a total of 29 songs. These are the only ones he ever recorded.

However, if there was indeed a deal made with the devil, it means that eventually, one must pay one’s due. In the following months, Johnson died in mysterious circumstances. He was the first of the 27-club. Many rumours run around his death: poison, syphilis, pneumonia... All that is known is that he suddenly felt bad, suffered terribly for three days, and then died. This only added to the rumours that he had sold his soul to the devil.

Because of his death and the circumstances, he started the 27 club which also suggests that every member of this club sold their soul to the devil.

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ThE Golden Record ‘The Golden Record consists of 115 analogue-encoded photographs, greetings in 55 languages, a 12-minute montage of sounds on Earth and 90 minutes of music’ - Smithsonian Magazine.

In the 1970s, two astronomers, Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, who had experience in sending out messages into space, decided with the collaboration of the Nasa and many artists, to send out a record with a collection of music, information, languages etc into space. The aim was to present a recording of life on Earth.

They etched two figures onto the record to represent human anatomy, alongside information on how to read the record.

The Record also contained information about DNA, eating,

drinking and licking habits, sports to show the human structure, housing and monuments, a page of a book for written visual content, greetings, brain waves and many, many songs.

All of this was etched onto two records, two copies of the Golden Record which were each sent out into space on the Voyager 1 and the Voyager 2 (space probes) which were launched in two separate months in the summer of 1977.

It is expected that eventually, our connection to the probes will die out. The website ‘Astronomy. com’ states in their article written

by Eric Betz and published on the 28th of April 2020: “When Will Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 Die?”

On the right is a photograph of the golden record and above is a graph of what was engraved onto the record alongside explanations.

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'Since their launch more than 40 years ago, NASA has remained in near-constant contact with the Voyager probes. However, the space agency has temporarily stopped receiving messages from Voyager 2 while they work to repair and update one of the three Deep Space Network antennas used to communicate with the probes', The New York Times reported in March.

'It’s a risky move, and there’s a chance we may not hear from Voyager 2 once the receivers are

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turned back on. But Earth is still in contact with Voyager 1. And the discoveries haven’t ended quite yet. Mission planners intend to keep communicating with the spacecraft until they fail or lose power.

Both should be able to keep at least one scientific instrument running until 2025. And even after that, NASA expects to continue receiving engineering data from the probes until 2035, when they exceed the range of the Deep Space Network antennas.’

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SUGAR MªN This story is about a man who unknowingly sold over a million CDs and became a legend but was completely unaware of any of it.

Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was born in Detroit in 1942 to a Mexican working-class family. He was surrounded by music from the beginning because of his father, a blues musician. He grew up in a relatively poor context until he quit school at 16 to dedicate himself to music. He discovered

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the hippie movement and loved it which pushed him to start writing his own songs and singing them whilst playing the guitar.

His 20s were very humble, working during the day and playing the guitar in bars in the evening to get some extra money.

However, Rodriguez was already a character of its own.

Everyone saw him as a vagabond, if not a homeless man. No one knew where he lived or what he did but he was someone that

stood out.

One day he got noticed by two producers who happened to go for a drink in the bar that Rodriguez was playing in. Their names were Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore.

They thought that his voice was quite atypical. They were astounded not only by his voice but also by his writing. They approached him and shortly after, Rodriguez signed a deal with Sussex Records. His music was

compared to Bob Dylan, he was deemed an incredibly interesting man, and they had a lot of hope for him.

He recorded his first album ‘Cold Fact’ in 1969, in which a lot of time and people contributed. It featured some of the world’s best musicians.

However, the album didn’t do well with only about 50 album sales.

They followed this with a second album called ‘Coming from Reality’ (1971) which also didn’t sell well.

After two fails, the record company

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dropped Rodriguez.

Rodriguez stopped playing music and went back to work on construction sites and in restaurants. He did many small jobs and went back to his errant life for years.

After all of this, in 1977, an Australian label ‘Blue Goose Music’ found his two albums and contacted him. They bought the rights and created a project that featured all his ‘unreleased’ songs called ‘At His Best’. His notoriety grew in Australia and New Zealand. His album ‘Cold Fact’ somehow made it to South Africa.

People loved his music and made many copies, turning him into a big phenomenon. Rodriguez’s music seemed to speak to the many fighters against, and victims of the Apartheid in Africa at this time, which separated white people from black people. Rodriguez’s music unconsciously participated in this civil uprising of fighters against the Apartheid. For many people, this was the first time they were hearing music which challenged authorities. Quickly his songs became symbols against the Apartheid. Producers bought the rights and started selling his albums officially. It quickly went gold, and he became a star.

During all of this time, Rodriguez was unaware of any of it, and was still living in America, working

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This is a photograph of Rodriguez around the time he discovered his fame.

small jobs.

The American government in place at the time, forbid people from listening to his music as it challenged their power.

This went on for years. The album ‘At his Best’ became platinum, officially sold over 500 000 times, without counting the illegal copies. He became more popular there than stars like Elvis Presley.

He became a legend. Everyone knew him, loved him and had his albums, but no one knew anything about him. As such, rumours were created to fill the people’s missing knowledge about him, and he thus became a mythical figure.

No one knew who profited from his albums. This mythical persona lasted around 30 years. It took him 30 years before he knew that he was a legend.

In 1997, people finally started looking into his background.

They knew he was dead but not how, and wanted to know more information. Stephen Segerman and another man started looking into it until they published a paper and made a website about it where they called for information and tips at the end. The blog became famous in America and the child of Rodriguez found it by chance and contacted them letting them know he was still alive and well.

The person holding the blog met up with Rodriguez and told him everything.

remained humble and simple. He was not concerned with being a star or making money. He liked his life as a builder and did not feel any resentment towards anyone either. Rodriguez decided to go to South Africa to meet his fans, making a small tour of 6 dates which was fully booked. Fans, fancy cars, paparazzi, flashes, cameras…. Rodriguez thought it was just funny. He toured those six dates, donated the entire money, signed autographs etc but decided to just go back to America, back to work.

His work in the future became a big reference, he was sampled many times, referenced, and later had another shot of fame through the documentary ’Sugar Man’ by Malik Bendjelloul which had all the details of his story. The director Malik, spent years realizing, drawing, animating, editing, and composing the music. It was his only film but he gave it his all and the documentary got an Oscar for best documentary. This brought Rodriguez the fame that he had missed out on, whilst letting him live his simple life.

Of course, he struggled to believe what he was hearing. He

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MILlI VANILli

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This is the story of two singers who sold millions of albums, were incredibly famous and even obtained a Grammy award, one of the best recognitions for a singer.

All of this they achieved without having ever sang once.

and become friends due to their common passions. They decided to create a band called ‘Empire Bizarre’ and release their first song called ‘Dansez!’ which was a complete flop. They could dance but they couldn’t sing.

Milli Vanilli was formed by a duo: Robert Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan. Pilatus was born in New York in 1965 and adopted in Germany when he was 4. He was passionate about music and dance and started his career in a group called ‘Wind’ which even participated in Eurovision in 1987.

Morvan, born in Paris in 1966, also took a big interest in music from a young age. At 18 he moved to Germany and became a dancer and model. The two artists met

However, someone noticed them: Frank Farian, a producer and businessman who became their mentor. He was already of quite a good reputation as he was the producer behind ‘Daddy Cool’

by Boney M. Farian thought that Pilatus and Morvan had class and style and even though their singing wasn’t great, he thought it would be worth giving them a shot. This is how they ended up under his wing. The two formed their group

Milli Vanilli in 1988 photographed by Bernd Muller.

under the name ‘Milli Vanilli’.

They had potential but only through their appearance. Farian decided to use real singers as playback and make Milli Vanilli the front image of the band.

The single ‘Girl you know it’s true’ came out and became an incredible hit. It was first, or top of, the charts in many countries.

It was meant to be a trial, but their success made it impossible to go back anymore. In six weeks, they went from being unknown artists doing it for fun to superstars worldly renown.

They had to suddenly learn English, pretend to speak well, and make believe that they were the ones singing. However, people liked them so much that

no one realized that they weren’t the ones singing.

They released a second, third and fourth single, which was record-breaking each time.

They became superstars and started truly believing that they made it happen. They were living the life, doing drugs, partying, were popular amongst the girls…

Nonetheless, the producer started telling them to tone it down, at risk of them getting caught otherwise. However, Pilatus didn’t agree. He told the New York Times “Musically we are more talented than any Bob Dylan, (…) Paul McCartney…. I’m the new modern rock-and-roll.

I’m the new Elvis”.

They won many prizes until they

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won a Grammy Award, the biggest musical prize. They sold 14 million albums, and 30 million singles and won a Grammy. But truth always eventually comes out.

One year passed and they didn’t get caught, but with the tour more and more people started to become doubtful of the two, especially with the fact that when one lip-synchs it’s extremely hard to not make a single mistake.

One day the soundtrack messed up, replaying the same part multiple times.

After this, one of the real singers declared to be one of the real voices of Milli Vanilli but Farian paid him to keep quiet.

After this, the duo encountered many problems and had to take a break. The group members discussed learning to sing whilst taking a break from the tour, but the producer refused.

Milli Vanilli called for a lawyer against their producer which was an enormous mistake since he was the one who built their group.

Because of this, Farian organized a press interview with journalists from all over the world and told them the entire truth.

The scandal blew up. They had to return the Grammy and had lawsuits lining up against them.

Milli Vanilli in 1990 photographed by Ebet Roberts.

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Everyone was getting reimbursed for their singles, throwing them out. They became the biggest joke in the music world.

“You get something but for that, you make a pact with the devil” - Robert Pilatus.

They never recovered from it; it was the end of their dream.

The fall was twice as quick as the

rise. Everyone hated them. They tried to come back under another name, but it failed. Farian became a DJ and managed to stay in the music industry, but Pilatus fell into drugs completely, depression and suicide attempts. He tried to get help but sadly overdosed before being admitted to a hospital at 32 years old.

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streaming Stories Curated by Clemence Braud