April 10,2026
The Internet can be the “back catalog” of our history. Let me explain.
One of the cool things about our Internet-connected world is that it can change our perceptions and beliefs about the world around us. Not in a government-controlled, PR-massaged kind of way — that happens too much already — but in things regular people put out there. Things that increase the spread of knowledge about topics that are interesting to them.
It probably speaks to my training as a print journalist, coupled with my love of history, when I say this: history is not a single monolith, but lots of little things and events that eventually become more of the complete story. We have lots of examples where the facts in history books that we learned as kids are now obsolete, as more facts have come to light. Case in point: the Brontosaurus, which then went away, replaced by the Apatosaurus, and now redeemed as a separate genus. Or the planet formerly known as Pluto. You get the idea.
In the early, heady days of the Internet, this was one of the utopian promises: information would be democratized, and that over time, truth and justice would become ascendant.
I’ve written before about how Hungarian articles and transcripts of the Mosonmagyaróvár Volley, now accessible via the Internet and translatable via Google, have bulked up my previous incorrect personal knowledge about my Dad and his life in the Hungarian Army in 1956.
Back when I lived in Seattle, I loved listening on Sunday morning to Jim Keller’s “Resurrection Flashback Sunday” on KNDD 107.7. His show was all about the 80s/Alternative era, but it was interesting hearing stuff that never got airplay in Tulsa. Friends in Seattle knew them ALL. I learned during this time that there were lots of things that naturally cross-pollinated all along the West Coast that never made it 2,200 miles inland.
Today’s a bit like that: I found someone on YouTube (Ilanie Goldenfang, @ultravioletROX) who’s posted lots of INXS songs, concerts, and documentaries. It’s fascinating to hear audio from bar concerts in 1980, before the US heard of them, when they were a guitar band in a pub, just beginning to include synths.
Their Punkish version of Steely Dan’s ‘Pretzel Logic’ is almost unrecognizable. But listen a few times, and it’s not bad. An homage to the era, as we all remember bar bands making interesting choices.
A 1983 Rolling Stone article heralding the New Wave Aussie Invasion (INXS, Men At Work, Divinyls, the Church, Midnight Oil), said that these Aussie bands had WORKED FOREVER, playing tons of gigs for little money but honing their skills and craft. Experimenting every night and getting immediate feedback from audiences.
Hearing that raw, up-tempo version of ‘Pretzel Logic’ and other songs makes their later success and stadium tours feel earned. It turns out the Aussie Invasion wasn’t just a trend; it was a decade of sweat and pub-rock feedback finally reaching our shores. It’s a reminder that we often build our version of the world based on what we can see from our own front porch—whether in Tulsa, Seattle, or Budapest. But as these digital archives grow, our porches expand. I like living in a world where a forgotten concert tape can change my morning, where history is constantly being corrected, and where the story is never truly finished.
