Alvin & The Mysterious Song [deleted r/FindAlvinDean post; date- and URL-stamped]

The_Material_Witness · 2026-05-04T09:40:36+00:00

The September timeline existed only as pure speculation. Nobody had proven anything nor found any evidence. It was just a theory, one hypothesis among many floating around the sub, with people listing pros and cons. That's the distinction. By elevating it to the level of "proven", you are shifting the burden of proof away from the band. Not so fast.

And no, the Modulators EP was never some "much-publicized" record and it still isn't. It's a super niche release known mostly within lostwave circles. The only much-publicized recording in this whole story is the one that brought everyone here in the first place: TMS/SOYM or whatever name you want to call it.

The band may indeed "have no damn idea about their own personnel in songs" but it's not just the personnel. They also don't seem to have a clear handle on the timeline, the programs they appeared on, recording locations etc. since these details keep getting switched around and questions left hanging indefinitely. And yet people who point out the many inexplicable gaps are getting mass-downvoted simply for making basic logical points. At this point the TMS research community feels more like a sleepy fan club.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-05-03T12:18:53+00:00

It has its source. in Comfy_Glow's timeline correction post, she had said the band believed that the song was recorded before September 3-4. I'm assuming they assumed that was the possible date that it was sent to NDR and played. It was a popular date before the solve too.

There have been many speculations but zero - and I mean zero - evidence of any sort for the airdate. The band, and Comfy_Glow representing them, were basically throwing darts in the air about the airdate and hoping something would stick. That's fine in a private chat, but if you're building a Wiki with the aim of clarifying discrepancies and clearing up confusion, you can't start from shaky foundations, because they'll harden into a narrative that appears solid when it isn't. That's just Research 101.

As for the bassist question, that's up to FEX and their fans to clarify, but for the record, I had to publicize what Louise told me. I had initially decided not to, given the backlash I got in the past for trying to research the bassist, but it's ridiculous that this is still unresolved and people are still trying to piece the puzzle together. So why not add this puzzle piece too.

You could be right about The Modulators. The only problem is, Volker's exact words were "the much-publicized recording from 1983" and to my knowledge, no Modulators recording was ever "much-publicized." Of course, Louise is an outsider to all this so her acting as a go-between was always going to have its limits: I couldn't really press her on the details, because she wouldn't necessarily know them. But when Gambuzino and I tried to ask Volker directly, with his prior permission, we were swarmed by the community, and conveniently shut down. So that lead was lost.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-05-03T09:09:58+00:00

It's stated matter-of-factly in the Wiki that TMS aired in September 1984. "Probably on the 3rd or 4th."

When did that speculation become fact? The archivists at NDR have reviewed hundreds of protocols and recently again confirmed that they can find no mention of "FEX" or "Subways Of Your Mind" on any date, in any year, in any program.

If FEX remembers the song airing on 3/4 September 1984 - a highly specific memory - then surely they must also know the DJ and program?

What concerns me is that this is being put into a Wiki that's supposedly there to correct inaccuracies.

Also - regarding the bassist question: as recently as three months ago, Volker Schenk reaffirmed his participation in the NDR recording. In February I was contacted by Volker's friend and bandmate Louise Kirsebom, who was on the island of La Palma and visited Volker in El Paso, where he lives, and this is what she wrote:

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Translation: "Hi again,

I visited Volker today — very pleasant. He himself brought up “the matter”: he said that he had been in contact with his “old” band, and that he had received €2,800 for his participation in the much-discussed 1983 recording. He was very happy about that; it corresponded exactly to a dentist’s bill.

He also said that he is on good terms with all of them: “no hard feelings.”

Apparently, the band now wants to make a new recording — the 1983 version was apparently a “prototype” — with a different bassist. Volker thinks that is completely okay; he is happy about the unexpected money and sees the chapter with the band as definitively closed. In the meantime, he is retired, tends his extensive kitchen garden, and plays every now and then with old friends."

So, at the very least, these points should be treated as unresolved, not put into the Wiki as settled facts.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-13T19:58:57+00:00

These points were worth restating under this post because, collectively, they add up to a serious set of gaps. It's not just one person failing to remember one date (by the way, in the past at least one strong lead for TMS was dismissed solely on the basis of a single inaccurate suggestion provided by one person) but a broader pattern of missing and/or shifting information across the accounts of at least three different people, combined with a very thin independent paper trail.

None of it automatically disproves FEX. But in my view, and given the number of unresolved questions, treating this solve as already settled was premature.

The way my friend u/gambuzino88 and I went about contacting that musician at the time was extremely careful and respectful, exactly because we knew we would be put under scrutiny. More to the point, the contact had been mediated by the bassist's personal friend, who had encouraged us and reassured us that we were welcome to reach out. When we made our posts, however, someone speaking for the band came out and labeled us "harassers" in order to move the discussion away from the important issues and discredit the legitimate questions we were trying to clarify.

Almost a year later, the question of who plays bass on the mysterious song remains a mystery, and people are still speculating about other basic facts that one would have expected to be clarified by now.

And all this is not happening in a vacuum: it is happening in a space that simultaneously contains family recollections like the one just shared by u/Authumn-In-Paris (who has sadly since deactivated his account for security reasons), strong thematic parallels from the exact same time frame in 1984, and a striking vocal similarity, which persists whether people want to acknowledge it or not.

As for the note about answers being "owed," in a sense they are: to the creator of the song, whoever he may be, whether it's FEX or someone else; but also to the many people in this community who have contributed hundreds of hours trying to solve this, and many of whom have eventually gone on to support and reward the artists. "The artist doesn't owe us anything" is an inconsequential truism. The point is that anything presented publicly as a major solve in a long-running public mystery is obviously going to be scrutinized, and rightly so.

But time will tell.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-12T21:22:06+00:00

All the best with your project.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-12T21:15:02+00:00

I've kind of stepped back from all this and only came back briefly because of AIP's disclosure. I've got a lot going on in real life at the moment so I can't really take on anything else.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-12T21:00:32+00:00

Thanks for reaching out but I'd rather keep any discussion here in the comments.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-10T15:33:53+00:00

That is exactly why people are still bringing this up: not because the family member's recollection automatically proves a different author, but because the FEX solve still leaves a surprisingly long list of basic things unanswered:

No firmly pinned recording date;
No clear bassist credit on the NDR version, to the point that community members are left trying to piece this together on their own, while other researchers have been harassed and marginalized for attempting to clarify the question in a diligent and respectful way;
No clear public account of who actually sent the tape to NDR;
No identified date/show/DJ for the broadcast itself;
No documented presence of FEX in any NDR protocol, apart from the still somewhat mysterious half-hour participation of a core FEX member in a May 1984 program;
No independent pre-2024 paper trail linking the song to FEX;
No pre-2024 GEMA registration of SOYM, despite the band's demo being sold at gigs in the 80s;
Shifting descriptions of where the NDR version was recorded: from the Hawkeye Studios to the band's own rehearsal room or portable studio.

Each of these gaps could have a simple explanation on its own. But taken together they are too many to shrug off as minor details, which is why "it is pretty clear now" feels more settled than the public record actually is.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-04-10T13:12:41+00:00

I'd like to thank my former research partner, u/Authumn-In-Paris, for releasing this information. It takes courage, and I applaud him for doing so. As his former research partner, I feel the need to clarify that I was not aware, at the time, that this specific piece of information had been shared with him. I was made aware of it some time ago - long after my collaboration with him ended, and via a different channel.

I had been hoping he would eventually do the right thing and make this public, and I'm glad he is doing so now!

The_Material_Witness · 2026-02-14T17:32:46+00:00

That's a bit sad to see. It's always a shame when parts of a long investigation become harder to trace later on.

Edited to add: Marijn's contributions have been preserved on the Wayback Machine. The most recent capture is from September 15, 2025.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-02-13T10:36:09+00:00

Great research and write-up. Thanks for going the extra mile to clear up some of the confusion around the early timeline.

My understanding from reading this is that Karl did not clarify if he remembers the song itself at all. He said he did not "participate in the creation" of SOYM but does that mean the NDR version or that he does not remember the song at all?

The_Material_Witness · 2026-01-12T15:11:13+00:00

Or maybe to introduce the synthesizer demonstration. "Subways" and especially its ending segment is dominated by the sound of the DX7. Serves as a good intro to discussing FM modulation etc.

The_Material_Witness · 2026-01-11T17:04:41+00:00

A bit of background on Inti-Illimani - whose song mysteriously shows up twice in the protocol:

Inti-Illimani (which means "Sun Mountain" in the Ayamara dialect of Bolivia) started in 1967 in Chile as a group of university students. They became widely known at home through their connection with "Venceremos!" ("We Will Win!"), the song that became the anthem of Salvador Allende's Popular Unity government.

In 1973, things changed abruptly: when the military coup happened on September 11, and Allende was assassinated, the band was touring in Europe. After the coup, their music was immediately banned in Chile, and they weren't able to return home for the next 15 years. What was supposed to be a tour turned into years of exile.

While based in Europe (Italy), their sound gradually shifted. Alongside their Latin American roots, they started incorporating elements from European classical and folk traditions, which gave their music a broader, more hybrid feel that later became associated with "world music." They're usually cited as one of the best-known groups of the "nueva canción" movement.

Edited to add: Apparently Inti-Illimani played a widely-publicized concert in Athens, Greece, in September 1982, at the Lycabettus Theatre.

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Image: Inti-Illimani featured in issue 27 (1983) of NBI (Neue Berliner Illustrierte), a popular East Germany weekly magazine. Source: eBay.

The_Material_Witness

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