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*Men
Hey ’20s Americans:
Look how freaking thin these people were
I really dislike live recordings.
Like here is your favourite music, but in bad quality and you can’t hear half of it because people are screaming over it.
You have to realize that popular culture was very tightly controlled and restricted by the Polish communist government at this time. This photo was taken at the Jarocin festival, which was a rare chance to see many bands play that otherwise had no radio play or record contracts and often played styles of music that were viewed with great suspicion by the establishment. Recording these live performances and trading tapes was often the only way people got to hear many of these bands.
I grew up in a neighboring country during this time, but I wasn’t much into the rock scene then - I was into folk music, which had a similar scene in my country - many folk artists were straight up banned by the government, so it was impossible to hear them on the radio or buy their records, but tape recordings of live performances existed and were traded among the fans. Same of my favorite music from this period only existed in this form. There were even recordings of shows that got shut down by the police mid-set.
The 80s were a period of economic stagnation in eastern Europe, resulting in a lot of pent up anger and angst in the youth, and at the same time, the establishment was slowly losing its grip on the population. As a result artists were getting increasingly bold in channeling this anger and dissatisfaction, of pushing the boundaries of what was allowed, sometimes crossing them and getting slapped down - but you never knew what could happen at a large gathering of the youth back then - taping was an important tool to document and spread this to the wider population.
I really dislike this trend of making not so old photos black and white in an effort to make them seem older. It seems disingenuous and misleads people into thinking it was longer ago than it actually was.
Poland was actually in black and white all the way up to 2004 when they joined the EU.
He doesn’t look happy about it.
Tell me you’re recording this concert for your daughter without telling me you’re recording this concert for your daughter.
I bet he’s angry because he knows the built in mics are crap and will pick up just as much noise as they will music, and then he got even angrier as he considered how Poland was part of the USSR and that there was no way he’d be able to pick up a high quality microphone for an affordable price.
