Funky bones

Listening to a BBC podcast about Beatemania in the USSR, I came across an interesting historical tidbit. Apparently most countries in Eastern Europe and in the USSR were denied access to Western music. However, some vinyl records were smuggled across the “Iron Curtain” and made it into the hands of some crafty bootleggers who distributed it illegally to the masses. Since the 1950’s and 60’s were tough economically for the USSR, bootleggers had to find cheap accessible materials on which to make copies of the original vinyl records. After some experimentation it became apparent that discarded x-ray films from hospitals were the best and most freely available material for pressing bootleg records. So imagine buying a Beatles record from a bootlegger, going home and taking it out of its package. You take the record, put it up against the light and you are looking at some stranger’s ribcage. Maybe I am morbid kind of guy, but that’s pretty damn cool…