Rock czar

Page 3 of 3 -- ''Any instrumental group could play whatever they wanted," says Karen Sarkissov, who played in three prominent Russian bands, Center, Zvukimu, and Brigade S, before moving to Rhode Island in 1996. ''When you put in lyrics, you had to bring them to a special censor office to get stamped and approved. You could do anything but when you start singing, you better be singing something that's allowed. If you didn't, you could go to jail."

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Teenagers traded tapes, knowing that the entire country had just one heavily censored record label. They looked for fliers advertising local shows, usually held with little promotion in basements or community centers. They snickered when the government-approved singer Boris Grebenshikov, once a rebel, was sent to the United States in 1989 to show off the new Russian rock.

It wasn't until after the collapse of the Soviet Union that the music scene really opened up. Immigrants like Rozenblyum were suddenly in a strange position. The once-forbidden music could now only be heard back in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

''That's why the Russian community is so hungry," says Sarkissov. ''We don't have this opportunity like kids in Moscow right now."

The Russian rock impresario lives in a two-room basement in South Brookline. Stacks of discs sit to one side, a handful of family photographs line a nearby shelf. Rozenblyum pays $700 a month for the space, typing out e-mails in an ''office" shared with a washer, dryer, stove, and shower stall. More than a dozen CD burners are stacked in the next room, near his bed.

''The most you can hope for in this business is to get by," says Gross, 42, the Russian rock promoter from New York who works with Rozenblyum. ''Why do we do it? It's music. It's the action. Being in a club and meeting other people. The whole works."

Rozenblyum knows that he's not going to get rich promoting music. He can always get work as a computer programmer, which he studied at Northeastern for a time. But he loves hanging with the Russian musicians and organizing shows. He has been spending more time in Russia recently and contemplates bringing American music there.

''Hip-hop artists are very popular in Moscow and St. Petersburg," he says. ''They need something new. I can always go back to programming, but I want to work for myself. Who knows. Maybe I can be a bridge between Russia and the United States."

Geoff Edgers can be reached at gedgers@globe.com.