First, my boss was on the left coast of the U.S. yesterday, talking to a major company that we're going to partner with, and I'm really hyped. I couldn't sleep last night thinking of all the projects we could do.

Second, my favorite band EVER released their first album in 10 years yesterday on iTunes and I'm enjoying listening to it as we speak.

"Strang Haircuts, Carboard Guitars and Computer Samples."
--Kurt Loder (?) on MTV, describing "Information Society"

Today's off-topic post primarily regards this resurrection of musical computerized misfits from the 1980's.

Their name is "Information Society" and you probably remember them as those 1-hit wonders from the 1980's. I, on the other hand, have followed the synth-pop band's work fanatically since then, buying every CD, CD-ROM, CD+G and Floppy Disc release that I could find. To say they are my favorite band is something important, because I own, and listen to, a lot of music.

I fell in love with the band when I first saw their "What's On Your Mind? (Pure Energy)" video at My Beach [JessePedia] (the only place where I had access to MTV, or cable television, for that matter).

In High School at the time, I adopted Kurt Harland as my idol. With his casual suits, Star Trek samples, wild punk hair and computer obsessions, he may have been the first widely distributed Cyberpunk [JessePedia] and no doubt contributed to my exploration of cyberculture during college. In short, he made being a computer geek cool.

During College (1993?), I went to an Information Society concert at a nightclub in Greenville, South Carolina at a nightclub. This is noteable because I've only been to 3 concerts in my life (sorry, not a big fan of large groups of people) and this was the only one that I really wanted to go to, as opposed to getting dragged to by cohorts or coworkers. They did a lot of cool stuff involving electronics such as fog machines, and they were always running through the audience.

Kurt sustained the band and the website through the 1990's as the other band members faded out (see VH1's attempt to get everyone back together and Kurt's rant of what really happened). He even put out an album by himself, under the Information Society name, in 1997. Sidenote: At the time, he asked in a usenet newsgroup that (which I posted to) for fans to "virtually sign" the album by emailing him their name, email address, I was the first to reach his Inbox. If you own the 2-disc album "Don't Be Afraid" you can see the file on the accompanying CD-ROM, it's called "Names.txt". Screenshot below.

But now, like me, Kurt is older, busier, and has a job and a family. This has taken its toll and in 2006 he gave up the rights to the band's name to bandmate Paul Robb (blog).

That said, Paul has finally launched the new information society website. It had been online since mid 2006 but was a splash page only until January. When I checked it and it was really there last month, I was filled with geeky glee. The site includes with new music and (maybe even more importantly) MP3s of all of their unreleased music from the 1980's, including "Signals" which is possibly my favorite song ever. Kurt had put out teaser MP3s of some of this unreleased stuff in the 1990's and once I heard it I was hellbent to buy the records (which were only released at one record store in Minneapolis) and somehow get them converted to a more friendly format. Now, I can skip that drama and own them all digitally.

Needless to say, as soon as I realized it was live, I hit their website and MySpace page to grab the songs and remixes available. I even emailed them to let them know of some inconsistencies and broken links on the website. Three of the songs publicly available are on the new "Oscillator" EP. Their new music is awesome, and modern yet true to their previous work.

And now you know, what got me up at 5:30 in the morning.

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