PARTY // Sting afterparty

Spring 1988. By the end of the year, the first consistently warm weather had arrived and a patch of land behind a house in Hämariku Street on the outskirts of Paide was ready for the annual digging. At least that was what his mother had told Indrek.

But Indrek had his own plans for that Saturday. Jaanis had just been to the recording studio on Pika Street in Tallinn and had returned with a valuable haul - Sting and his album "Nothing Like The Sun". Even though it had been released half a year earlier, no one in our area had heard of it. Mostly, the only releases in the record collections were those by Melodija, but they were all boringly the same. When things were going well, somebody from Radio Luxembourg would get a tape of the tape, and that without the stereo. If you wanted anything remotely interesting, it was a serious undertaking. First, you took a bus to Tallinn, exchanged God-knows-how-many currency, and bought a couple of empty BASF cassettes in a plastic bag from a red-brick tourist shop for a bargain price, to take to Pikal Street to record.

As Jaanis was the only one with a decent ribbon jacket and we both had no currency, things were immediately easier. Tapes were readily available in the shops and, to be honest, the sound from the big tape and the tape deck was much better. So Jaanis browsed through the catalogue printed on a typewriter in this slightly battered old town studio, somehow blindly ordered a Sting and drove back home. There was nothing there to listen to as a sample. They ordered what sounded exciting, handed in their tape, paid the money and came back a week later. Then when they got home, they found out whether it was suitable or not. Easy. Indrek didn't have a tape deck, but Jaanis, after a short persuasion, agreed to bring the giant Majak player from Parkal Street to Hämarik in his father's yellow truck and leave it there for the weekend. Along with the Sting tape. Indrek had the speakers himself. Indrek was also staying home alone that day, and life looked pretty bright in the short term.

But now with the mother's digging story...Clearly, there was no room for negotiation, the earlier you started, the earlier you finished - simple.
The weather was really nice and Indrek was looking for a compromise. Of course! There didn't seem to be any neighbours and so the speakers could be put up on the window. But the garden shed was right behind the house, under the windows...
I can still remember those first sounds - "Blood of the Lazarus heart", then "Be still my beating heart", "Englishman in New York", "History will teach us nothing".
I didn't know then that even decades later, when I hear the first timid sounds of that record, I always remember that place, that moment, that weather. That's where it started.
No matter what exhilarating musical experiences life has given me later, the root text remains Sting.
And now, 36 years later, he comes to Tartu for the first time...

Jaanis, Indrek, Tanel and Priit have known each other since they were all single digits. The fact that one is an energy engineer, the other a doctor, the third a globetrotting entrepreneur and the fourth an IT man hasn't stopped them from occasionally getting together and spinning vinyl records. When they get together, they're just Diskokoer
Club Gutenberg and Diskokoer invite you to take part in a journey through Sting's world through his music.
Immediately after a Sting concert, in the cosy Aparaat.
Let's recharge ourselves with the emotions of the concert and share our emotions with each other.