July 22nd

Funny story about OMD — I was about 14 years old and recently discovered that music can have meaning and emotions and make me feel good and excited on a strangely deep level. I was jumping from band to band, from genre to genre — remember that was around 1988, before the internet and readily everywhere available music — so I had to rely on radio and occasional music shows on TV. And OMD was on the radio, just as Pet Shop Boys and Kajagoogoo and Boy George and Madonna and Cindy Lauper. And I remember that before Christmas 1988 I was looking for Christmas gifts bought and hidden by my mom and found a jackpot — among the presents there was a cassette labeled “Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark”. Now I was young and stupid and impulsive then and got very angry seeing that — the word “Orchestral” told me that this has to be some kind of classical music… Obviously, my reaction was that no one understands me, no one listens to what I say, no one knows what my interests are. I mean buying me classical music when I am SO into “new wave”? It came to me after a while — that this is actually “the OMD” — only after opening the gifts and actually playing that cassette. But I remember that for a while I was sulking and snipping at my mom because I thought she bought me the wrong gift for Christmas. Soon after I discovered guitar music — Guns N’ Roses and Pink Floyd and Neil Young and Stevie Ray Vaughn and my life and taste in music were changed completely.

I never told my mom I was sorry about my behavior that Christmas, I don’t think I even told her “thank you” for this gift, bought on a single mother salary, during the deep economic crisis of the late 80s for an ungrateful kid.

You know what — come to think about it, that is not really a funny story…