About This Site

The New Wave Outpost is devoted to the musical phenomenon which came to be known as New Wave, in all its glorious guises. No other genre of music holds so many memories for me, where songs from countless flashes-in-the-pan and effective one-hit-wonders were on equal grounds with the smash successes of the time.

This site is devoted to much more than obvious icons of new wave music like Human League, Culture Club, A Flock of Seagulls or Devo; it also includes music from the 80's radio underground and indie scene—early alternative, you might say, before it went effectively mainstream. Punk and power pop (along with a few AOR and R&B crossovers) are here too, being essential in completing the big picture.

The New Wave Outpost was created in February 1996 and is maintained by me, Mike Paulsen, with the intention of helping fans of New Wave and 80's underground music locate classic and hard-to-find songs that are now available on numerous CD compilations, as well as notable album reissues. It also serves as a repository of sorts in remembering many forgotten and overlooked new wave-era artists.

This site has been improved to make it easier to track down lost favorites, however please understand that I do not own all the songs, albums or videos listed on this site! Also, understand that the New Wave Outpost is not a retail store and the titles listed are not for sale by me or anyone else, for that matter, through my site. This seems to be a frequent matter of confusion. My music friends and I amassed a huge archive of lost 80's music recorded to CD-R known as the Obscure80's series. If you're interested in the titles we've recorded, visit the Obscure80's and MFV Series page. We are willing to trade or accept "donations" as time permits.

A bit about me

I'm a 38-year old web developer and die hard music junkie. As a wee tike I was mesmerized by my dad's reel-to-reel tape deck ... watching the wheels go round and round while soaking up the tunes: Lawrence Welk (don't laugh ... I was 3 for crissake!), Herb Alpert, Bob Dylan, Beethoven, CCR, bluegrass. In the mid-70's, I was buying K-Tel records and Beatles albums, and soon after I graduated on to ELO and The Cars. I recorded my first off-the-radio compilation back in 1978 (I still have the damn thing!), and continued to make tape compilations up until 1996. Thankfully, CD-R's have allowed me to satisfy this urge to keep up with the latest and greatest music that the radio, for the most part, ignores.

I suppose I was lucky to have grown up in the Denver, Colorado area during the late 70's and through most of the 80's, since it proved to be one of the more progressive cities in the States when it came to New Wave and alternative radio. I remember when the locally legendary rock station KBPI modified its format to "Rock of the 80's" during the New Wave invasion of '82-'83. Elsewhere, I was tuning in to KIIQ out of Colorado Springs, which played many club and extended mixes; and in the late 80's, after New Wave had run its course, I had KBCO (Boulder) and KTCL (Ft. Collins) to provide me with the alternative rock I craved in the wake of Whitney Houston, Milli Vanilli and Debbi Gibson. I also have some great public access music video programs (FMTV, Teletunes) to thank for corrupting me in my early teens by exposing me to videos from The Residents, Renaldo & the Loaf, Laurie Anderson, Devo, Ultravox, Classix Nouveaux, Joe "King" Carrasco, Michael Nesmith, etc., even before MTV had debuted.

If I didn't go geek and get my B.S. in Computer Science and end up developing web sites? I would have given film direction or writing music a shot. I often dreamed of being a music video director, but it ain't all it's cracked up to be anymore, I'm sure. Perhaps Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry would have something to add? Instead, I watched as my former USC dorm-mate, Bryan Singer, went on to direct The Usual Suspects and now The X-Men (see photo below: dweeb 2nd on the left and Bryan on the right). Good for him. I should have kept in touch!

As far as the New Wave Outpost is concerned, it's truly been a labor of love. This was the music of my generation, and the current and future generations are entitled to have a perspective about what was really going on back then according to the discerning listeners of the time. Recall that the 80's were the last decade in which all albums that came out were released on vinyl. A huge number of pre-1988 albums still have yet to be released on CD. As I mentioned above, some friends and I have already managed to record over 500 vinyl albums (you got it!) from the 1977-1987 era to CD-R, in hopes of preserving this era for our listening pleasure, at the very least.

Cheers,
Mike Paulsen