Joanna Stingray’s inspiring and poetic memoir introduces Western audiences to the legendary musicians of Soviet rock through her improbable Cold War heroics as a young New Wave musician who, in 1985, produced Red Wave: 4 Underground Bands from the USSR with music by her new friends that she had smuggled to the West. This is her incredible testimony of youthful fortitude and rebellion, her love story, and proof of the power of music and youth culture over stagnancy and oppression.

Wild and vivid — a rollicking memoir of romance and rock ‘n’ roll in an era of upheaval and transition. From Los Angeles to Leningrad and back again, Joanna’s story is borne along by her infectious, headlong enthusiasm. It’s quite a ride. – Patrick Radden Keefe, award winning staff writer at The New Yorker and author of Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland

“You are the mother of Russian rock!” a fan shouted as Stingray promoted her new autobiography at a Moscow bookstore. […] The California musician aroused the suspicions of the KGB and the FBI as she bravely championed the Soviet underground in the 1980s. The Red Wave LP, released in America in 1986, introduced western audiences to Russian rock and helped end the Kremlin’s censorship of homegrown groups. – The Guardian