I was 14 years old, and getting really heavy into 70's punk rock. My favorite bands were The Sex Pistols and PIL. I was also pretty heavy into the Cure, NIN,Talking Heads, Patti Smith, The Buzzcocks, Nick Cave, and Depeche Mode.
A friend of mine gave me a VHS tape (this was around 1996) with a PBS documentary called Punk and the Perfect Beat. I loved the Punk half...watched the second half with great interest, learning about early NYC hip hop and Afrika Bambaatta..
Then it got to a section where a called called Bernard and a guy called Hooky were talking about some song they made called Blue Monday..they played a snippet of it and I was hooked.
A few days later, I bought The Best of New Order on a cassette tape for a dollar.
New Order became my favorite band. Their use of punk energy and sleek Electronic dance music inspired me to make my own music.
New Order reached for perfection, and always fell a little short. Their beauty was in that space where they fell short. Because their music was joyous, happy, sad, reflective, but always full of life, and that's why I love them.
As a teenager, growing up in a poor inner city city neighborhood infested with gangs, crime, and drugs, New Order's music gave me a light to dance towards, and provided me the soundtrack to dance my way out of that shithole in Columbus all the way to my office in SoHo in NYC.
I love them and always will.