I’ve been a fan of Information Society for years (late 80s ?) and still enjoy their fun techno beat every now and then. But I can’t remember when the first time was that I heard them, or even what song it was (although it was probably What’s On Your Mind/Pure Energy from their self titled CD). So I’ve always like my original history with listening to them was some how lost in some section of mind that no longer wants to be actively used. At some point I got around to purchasing their self titled CD (back then I bought on tape first) and their next two CDs, Hack and Peace and Love, Inc. and enjoyed them both immensely. I enjoy listening to music (though Sarah is the real music buff in the family, she knows everything about 80s music), I was just always drawn to Information Society (InSoc), something about that catchy techno-pop style.
I never got to see them in concert (heck, I’ve only been to one major music concert and that was for the B-52’s), which was a shame. I need get to see a few bits of a couple of videos on MTV and most of the appearance on MTV’s dance show (what was that called, Club MTV or something like that?), so that was my only InSoc fix beyond just listening to their music.
Fast forward to the mid to late 90s, during which time the InSoc that I remembered was no longer together. But I did discover their “official” website eventually and got to read through all of the little history bits that I never knew about. Most of it was from when they were still more of a “local band” and weren’t known well outside of the areas they played in. Kurt did release more work under the InSoc name, but it was very different than their previous work and I never really got into it. There’s even still an active InSoc news group which gets interesting posts from time to time.
This brings us up to the last year or so. VH-1 has a show Sarah likes to watch called Bands Reunited which tries to reunite old broken up bands to bring the members back together and play one last show. Usually their are successful, but not always. So rumor has it that Bands Reunited is going an InSoc episode, but the feeling is that Kurt would never go for it. A few months later I come up home one night and Sarah tells me that they had InSoc on Bands Reunited that night, but that they Kurt didn’t show so the band didn’t play at the end of the show. I was bummed that I missed it and of course they haven’t re-shown that episode since. So if you’ve got a copy of it some where leave comment, I’d like to see it.
So tonight I started thinking about all of this again, and came across a detailed report from Kurt’s point of view on the Bands Reunited InSoc episode. As much as I’d like to see InSoc play again, I can respect Kurt’s decision not to.
Ahhh how I miss the days when the old InSoc was making new stuff.