DIARY 08/04/12
- Written by Steve Harley
- Read: 10497 Times
Spent a couple of days in Frankfurt last week: radio interview and a visit to the Munch exhibition. One hundred and sixty-four pictures. A feast. Mostly oils, with some sketches, water-colours and many of his own photographs. They are, of course, early and mostly self-portraits. For a guy who suffered most of his life with depression and associated ailments, he lived to the very stately age of eighty years. The show doesn’t have The Scream (any one of three copies), but I’ve seen that up-close at least twice. First time, later that evening it was stolen. They dropped in through the roof, as I recall. Went back a year later (both times at The Munch Museum in Oslo) and there it was, back in situ. I’d heard nothing of it being discovered, so asked an attendant. “He painted it three times. We brought another up from the vaults…” he told me. Then that one was filched, along with his other masterpiece, Madonna. I believe both have been found and placed back in their spots in Oslo, albeit behind some serious protection. At dinner with Lydia and Werner, Birgit and Gerald, a recorder was pushed towards me by Lydia, a print music journalist and radio presenter. She had mentioned that next morning she would be interviewing Morten Harket, lately of Aha. I raved quietly about their latest (last?) single, Foot Of The Mountain. I told her I used to (two years ago, maybe?) pull over when it came on my car radio, whack up the volume to at least eleven, sit back and enjoy. I told Morten this, via Lydia’s recorder. She played it to him next day and he responded on the same machine. He was kind and suggested we could work together on song-writing. I will have nothing to lose. And I shall get in touch soon. Sounded like a very decent man.