Remember back in the day when there weren't whole channels devoted to playing music videos? There were, like, weekly hour shows, and then at some point they became daily half-hours.

Well, during one of these broadcasts way back in our youth -- say, 1983 -- my sister and I caught this one paricular video that changed us. It wasn't even a video, it was a live performance. And not even live, it was a lip-synch performance from Top of the Pops.

It was this wacky Scottish band called Orange Juice doing a catchy song called "Rip It Up."

Here it is:



We both loved it. The next time she was in Toronto, the nearest place with record stores big enough to have Import sections, she spent a fortune (like, $20) on an Orange Juice EP. Two new songs by the group. We loved it.

Subsequent visits to Import sections in the finer records stores yielded a few more LPs, including the one with Rip It Up on it.

Awesome.

You might recognize the vocalist. His name is Edwyn Collins; he had a hit with A Girl Like You a few years back.

That solo hit made a long-standing dream possible: we got to see him play live. Sure, it was 20 years after that fateful video on TV lead to an obsession. He was much chubbier than the guy whose image adorned my sister's locker door. But it was Edwyn, and he still had the groove.

Still love the Orange Juice, too.