Sunday, January 4, 2015

Puhdys

Artist: Puhdys
LP: Puhdys
Song: "Langstreckenlauf" 
[ listen ]

My friend Refugio was heading down to Olympia yesterday (it's the capital of Washington state) to pick up some coffee from a local coffee roasting company owned by a friend of his (I had a cup of the Kenyan blend; it was super). He asked me to go along for the ride and we had a lovely time. Of course we stopped into Rainy Day Records, which opened in Olympia the very same year that the East German rock band Puhdys had their photo taken in front of some orange curtains. (I don't know what year the photo of Rainy Day Records included below was taken. I forgot to snap pictures on the trip, so I just grabbed an image from the web. But when we were there yesterday, it was indeed a Rainy Day.)

Released in 1974 or '75, this second Puhdys LP isn't particularly rare, but most available copies are still in Germany or Eastern Europe. I wonder how this copy ended up in a sleepy little town like Olympia! Formed in 1965 and re-arranged in 1969 (read more about that here), Puhdys' took their name from the first letters of each of the founding members' first names—Peter, Udo, Harry and Dieter. One of the first East German rock bands allowed to tour in West Germany, Puhdys are still quite active today, releasing their latest LP, Heilige Nächte, in 2013.

[ Puhdys in 1973 ]

[ Rainy Day Records — Olympia, WA ]

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