Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Stasiland

Decided to walk to work today to give me more time for music listening, though at 20 minutes we're talking a third of a CD... But just enough to listen to the strangest thing: two telephone conversations recorded in 1980. The first was between my friend Wolfgang and my mother (I was out!), the second was the follow-up between Wolfgang and me. Why?! Long story, but Wolfgang's father had been involved in a court case and had gotten into the habit of recording all phonecalls. Wolfgang and his brother discovered all the tapes in a big clearout earlier this year.

The two conversations were a bit of a letdown: basically Wolfgang explaining that he was planning on visiting me and me suggesting we meet at Brighton station. There was something else about Chariots of Fire and Asmus Tietchens before it cut off. Maybe his dad couldn't bear any more and hit the stop button... Weird hearing my mother from 30 years ago: she sounded so young. The CD has now usurped Nurse With Wound and Alvin Lucier as the strangest in my collection.

1 comment:

  1. Wish my father had made more secret recordings... And hard to believe I didn't have any Asmus record at that time, while now I have about 30plus.... And there was some mentioning about Wolfgang Düren, Annanka Raghel, and Mr Franke...though not veryu substantial.... Really an odd time capsule!

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