Foje – As cia esu (I am here)

This story goes back a long time ago in Easter Europe.

I grew up in Lithuania where the most famous local band FOJE was also my favorite. My dad loved music so we had all of their albums. Sadly, he was quite progressive so at some point we got cassettes and then CD’s when records were still available. But there was one particular record my dad had on the wall in his office.

And here is the interesting story about that. The band released a limited edition concert record without a sleeve, just the B side of the record looking like… a pizza. Public wasn’t impressed. So many of those records were turned into lamp shades for one of the first pizzerias in my hometown. Yep. Pizza was a bigger novelty and more interesting than records back then. But as a fan I always wanted that record. Then one day my dad gave away our old record player (of course, CD’s! The progress!) and records to my cousin. We played them. We were pretend to be DJs and scratched them. We grew up, records ended up in aunties basement. I picked some of my favorites as a memento to keep.

Some time later another cousin asked me if I knew where the pizza record was. Nobody could find it. Meanwhile I picked some of my rescue records and took them with me to Australia. Once I wanted to listen to some nostalgia. I picked a record, removed it from it’s sleeve and guess what it was! The pizza record, hidden in some random sleeve!

Then the singer from the band visited Australia and had a concert in Lithuanian club. And I asked for an autograph. He was mildly surprised to see this record here in Australia. “It is quite scratched and does not play well” – I said.
And he replied “It wasn’t made for listening in the first place”. Whatever it meant 🙂