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The term “metalhead” originated in philophonic circles
already in the early 80-s, when at the turn of the decade some of the groups,
that were earlier considered “hard rock” by the Soviet standards, have changed
their rhythms. The slogan “heavy metal” copied from the foreign magazines,
initially applied to Kiss-fans and other “hardrockers” of the early 80-s. But already
by the mid-decade after self-identification by a part of music-fans as
“rockers” and appearance of domestic bands like “99%”, “Metal Corrosion”,
“E.D.F.” (Electric Driving Force) and others, groups of fans, who set up their
own merchandise manufacturing and organized country philophonic street markets
(that were visited every Saturday by up to a couple of thousands people)
started calling themselves the “metalheads”. In Moscow, where all orders and degrees of
teenagers quickly joined the ranks of fans, the contingent mainly consisted of
ex-sport fans and technical school
students, the metalhead mobs rallied round Sergey Okular, Dima Sabbath and
Sergey Pauk (The Spider). The
“heavy-metal” fans hangout, that initially was localized in Gorky Park, by 1986
has covered the whole city center around “Pushka” (Pushkinskaya), “Yama” (Pit)
(taproom “Ladya” (Bark)) and “Kuznya” (Novokuznetskaya), as well as several
district centers like “Bermudas” in Perovo or “Kolokola” (Bells) on Sirenevy
Boulebard. In St.Pete the “metalheads” grouped around Zhenya the “Monk” staked
out a hangout – a “triangle” on Vassilyevsky Island and café “Poganka” (Toadstool).
A drastic increase in the number of this particularly troublesome part the
young encouraged the officials to a closer attention and social pressing for
“improper” appearance in 1984-86. Popularization of “metalrock” on the soviet
pop-scene in the second half of the 80-s increased the number of “metalheads”
and was followed by differentiation in its own ranks and the backbone of the
founders transferred to motorbikes. By the early 90-s the “heavy metal” fans
hangout has migrated to “Gorbushka” (Gorbunov cultural centre), remaining
locally on “Pushka” and by “Melodiya” record store on Mayakovskaya metro
station.
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