“I do still remember when that thing came out. On vinyl, that is.
Every record has its story. There we go:
The record shop was in a living room of a stone house, 4 stairs up, dark, records all over the place.
We knew from the famous magazine “Bravo” the street date of the record, and I wanted to be the first to buy it, at any price…
The shop keeper knew me well, from frequently listening to the latest records, but without buying, so he was a bit surprised when I took the record without listening, and went directly to the register. They had a register cash which made “bing-bing” whenever it was working. I took out my whole pocket money for the month and paid, 19,90 DM which was at that time a lot of money, especially for a havenothing-student. But therefore I got a fold-out cover, high-glossy pictures, an inner bag made of cosy plastic that protected the record. The register cash went “bing-bing” and the door bell rang too, “ding-dong”. A very musical buy…
So I went home from school with my treasure, on a bus that took its passengers 3/4 of an hour through forests and around bends to the village where I used to live. Call it a village, but the Americans had their biggest military airport in Europe nearby, so…
And then I had to wait until after midnight, when my parents had finally gone to sleep, sneak out in the garden, get the plastic bag with the record inside. Negro music, they said. American trash, they called it. But I knew it better. I was 15 years old, and a 15 year old knows everything better than his parents. Clumsily I placed the record on the family´s stereo and put on the headphones, not to be heard. Opened the foldout cover, even when the information inside was rather thin.
Fireball.
There it was.
What a relief for my ears.”
Link: Fireball by Deep Purple
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