As I write this I am listening to the playlist of New Wave music I compiled today. Some songs from Kazaa, some from the Gerry collection. It reminds me of the grand old days when MTV first started and every video was excitingly new. Not because the bands were better, or the videos, which were actually pretty bad. It was exciting because worldwide exposure and technology were bringing us new acts and sounds like Flock of Seagulls and Howard Jones. MTV�s programming strategy used to be: �Do they have a video? Put it on after Pat Benatar. Hurry, she�s coming up in the rotation again!� Now you only see videos for acts that have presented a marketing and image synergy package. And yes, we are now used to hearing about England�s newest sensation, or even Brazil�s. But back in the day, that didn�t happen. Prior to then, Rod Stewart and Queen were exotic. When the New Romantics hit, it was a whole new culture.

That�s not to say that every band stood a chance back in the early 80�s. One of the most golden of nuggets that on-line downloading has delivered to my hard-drive is a song titled Burning Flame, by Vitamin Z. This song barely lasted a few weeks. Its sound was already derivative in the quickly evolving tastes of the time. But the lyrics told the story of a jilted and teased love who puts on a brave face seeing is old girl with her new guy. It was a familiar feeling for a high school band geek. I really liked the video. It was a performance video, with the band in the center of a room. A girl was seated among them, obviously not a musician, but sitting close to one of them. The camera rotated around the room, pointed in, as the band members shot each other disgusted and suspicious glances. It was obvious that she was working her way through the band, if you know what I mean. (We always know what you mean, Joey.)

That song was one that proved very hard to find on 80�s collections. But no longer. The vast powers of the internet have brought it to me, doing my bidding like an evil henchman. If this were an episode of Batman, my computer would be wearing a black shirt with white lettering identifying it as either �Megabyte� or �Reboot�. The young moll at my side would be �Pixel�. Mwahahahaha!