Let me tell you all a story how the life looked like behind the Iron Curtain.
The American music was
almost totally banned from the Poland's media by 1980s; British music was better seen by the media and censorship. The media outlet where you could listen to the Western music was the Polish Radio III (the only FM broadcasting station in the country). Home taping was the norm.
On April Fools 1978, a PR III radio DJ broadcast a single programme of the era presenting PUNK (Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers). That broadcast was listened by many young people in Poland, was home taped, and inspired some people.
The PUNK movement exploded in Warsaw in Autumn 1978. The REMONT student club in Warsaw organised a ‘Sound Club’ playing PUNK & New Wave, which led to the formation of the seminal band Kryzys (I was their first fan). 1979 can be the best described by the lyrics of the Generation X song 'One Hundred Punks'. We young punk-rockers were listening to the new music at homes of those who owned the albums and singles, or at parties. More bands were formed, so we could attend their gigs, too.
At the very end of 1970s, a record exchange was opened in Warsaw's Hybrydy student club. I got a Blondie album (Parallel Lines) from my aunt living in England. I traded that LP for another, then the next album for yet another (always paying a trader a sum for the exchange) and so on. The albums were then home taped. It was mostly the British music. Of the American bands, we could listen to (among others) the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Devo, Pere Ubu, Blondie, B-52s, The Modern Lovers and yes, Talking Heads.
My high school class had an excursion to a village by name Urle on the picturesque River Liwiec in late Spring of 1978. We lived on mattresses in a village school.
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I recognize myself in this photo.
A PR III DJ had announced he would broadcast the Talking Heads "77" album on two following Thursdays. A classmate owned a battery powered combo of a turntable, a cassette recorder and a radio. I went in an empty and dark school gym and enjoyed listening to the album's A side while my mate in Warsaw was home taping the broadcast. Magical days... (Later that year I with friends started illegally publishing one of the first Polish fanzines by name SZMATA (The Rag) but that's another story. I, friends and our families were soon oppressed by the system for doing that! Scans and copies of that fanzine still do exist).
