Karel Bloch

"...but at an event where we were just having a listening party. I brought a suitcase full of tapes we got from Mikuláš [Chadima] and Cíba [Petr Cibulka]. We were happily playing them and debating. Regulars used to frequent the place, but there must have been a secret police officer or an active idiot sitting among them. After some time, the entire squad arrived, led by Captain Zoubek again. Me, Vrah [Václav Vlach] and the bartender ended up at the police station in Starý Plzenec. Fortunately, they just kicked our asses and kicked us out, but they took the case full of tapes from me. About a week or two later, I got a summons to come to the station to pick it up. The StB office was in Plzeň, somewhere by the river near the swimming pool. They wanted me to spill some beans. First, a nice man came in; Zoubek pretended to be nice. Then a lieutenant stormed in and made himself look like a terrible tough guy. And I kind of laughed at them. They kicked my ass and kicked me out again. They still gave me the suitcase, though, so I was thinking, good, and I didn't pay much attention as they advised me that all the recordings had been impaired. When I played them at home... They had somehow magnetised the tapes. The way the tape is wound on the reel, there's some metal protrusions over it. Only half of each tape wind was magnetized. I put it on, and there was nothing. Suddenly, it started playing out of nowhere, and then it cut out again. The entire tape was like that. And it was brilliant of them! After that, I didn't have to make loops for our shows. I just took a tape and that made for cool background sound before we went onstage. I put that on, and it would make sounds out of the blue. Over and over. Well done, StB!"