Kottke has a little post on what I consider my quintessential college radio song - New Order's Blue Monday.

Thanks to 24 Hour Party People, I'm discovering New Wave, albeit about 20 years late. From 1983, here's the original UK release version of New Order's Blue Monday (mp3, 10.2 MB), the best selling 12" single of all time.

Get it while it's hot, and there. The first 30 seconds of that song are all it takes to put me back into my days in the cramped, unventilated DJ booth at Plattsburgh State's WPLT "Pilot 94" in Yokum Hall. There I am, watching the turntable spin around and around, waiting for the cue to open my mic and say something witty to all 3 of my listeners. I had a noon-2pm shift called the "Sanity Assassin Lunch Hour." Don't ask...the show's name came from an obscure Bauhaus song.

Occasionally the neon indicator light on the phone would flash, signaling an incoming call. Adoring fans? No, usually it was my music director Bob Grimm, asking why I played four Love and Rockets songs that hour, or whichever band I was currently besotted with...yeah, I was a stone cold professional. Still, I'd rather associate the song with those memories than the fact it appeared in "The Wedding Singer" or was recently slaughtered rehashed by Orgy. Remember them? No, of course not.

On a related note, NewOrderOnline.com reports that Jude Law may star as late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis in a forthcoming biopic. Curtis committed suicide in 1980, giving immortal poignancy to signature tune "Love Will Tear Us Apart", while remaining members of the band including Peter Hook formed New Order.

Lesson? Some moments in life are better remembered than experienced.

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