Good morning, I hope all is groovy.
Like many in the UK I own a VW. It's diesel. So you can imagine (possibly) some of the unusual thoughts running through my mind about my car and maybe its quite unpleasant future. I then realised there is a soundtrack I released a few years ago on iTunes that is the soundtrack to the film The Right Hand Of Plenty. It was a film shot at the VW factory in the USA, as they reached new heights of automation, and also had started to introduce computers into their production processes. I thought this would make a most interesting and topical #50pFriday album. It can be found here, along with all the other 50p Albums from September. The rare VW album was released as Music To Make Automobiles By, and I've spotted a small section of the original film too, which is here. Sadly it's only the first bit, if you can find the rest do let me know.
I am most upset by this whiole VW saga. The company VW is strangely important to me, I ownded a Beetle, I also studied advertising in the 1980s and the press and TV work for the Beetle by Bill Bernbach was charming, often hilarious, groundbreaking and is still influential today - it's what much of what modern advertising is based on. Here's a classic of the 1960s. And here's another. Famously these brilliant adverts managed to make Jewish America buy a car invented by Hitler.
I now have to use my diesel VW to move all my English soundtrack LPs, but first I have to put them all into little boxes (keeping them in alphabetical order) and then cart them off down the road listening to Radio 4 and waiting for the announcement that VW cars in the UK are also part of this ongoing software scandal. I can't wait.
I also can't wait for tomorrow, as on the OST Show I will be playing LPs from the super groovy Timing Library. But I will be getting the bus to the studio.
Thanks for listening.
Jonny