I remember being 11 years old and jamming out to Too Short's "Short Dog's In The House" mesmerized by the cartoon album cover and obsessively drawing that gangster dog throwing the peace sign all over my notebooks and text book covers. I would play that tape over and over on our boom box and feverishly write out the lyrics in order to memorize 'The Ghetto'. Then my older brother bought a Radiohead cassette single by the name of "Creep" and Rock took over as my primary genre of choice. I remember spinning Pearl Jam's "VS." on our Sega CD and feeling like such an outcast and true individual for liking such an alternative band: ignorant in my young age of all the punk, indie and flat out superior music that preceded it. Pixies who? Replacements what? Ramones huh? Anyway, before I was 11 I was just obsessed with emulating Lorenzo White of the Houston Oilers when me and my friends played football. I was into TMNT and waking up at 5AM just to watch the old school Dick Tracy cartoons on 20 Vision. Upon being cognizant of rap and rock, I changed, man! In summation: Too Short and Radiohead is where I first actually "listened" to music. Where I actually felt goose bumps and my eyes were opened to a a whole new world. What about you?
My parents bought me a record player and gave me their entire Beatles catalog on vinyl. I still thank them for showing me the light. I was like twelve back in 1983 when this happened, and the Thriller album came out a year or so later. I was all like "'Sup!"?
The first band I really ever got into was The Toadies. It was on the radio. I used to record songs off the radio via cassette and take them on trips when I went out of the country. I grew up mostly in the hey days of 90's alternative rock. Other bands I can vividly remember hearing for the first time and still remembering where I was at the time... include Pearl Jam, Cornershop, and Coolio.
When I got "bold" enough as a kid to not just listen to my parents usual preset stations, and actually turn the radio knob for myself to see what else was out there.. For some reason the radio seemed like some off-limits grown up device, with the songs talking about working hard at the job all week, relationship problems, themes I didnt quite identify with. When I got my first radio with cassette recorder(!) for christmas and blank tapes it was like what I can actually search for sounds and not get limited to just whats on your dial, or fed the same soda pop Disneyfied bubble gum stuff outside of that? So I was exposed to "heightened possibilities" at first, with new wave and synth pop... Well, Depeche Mode just didnt sound like New Edition, so abstract and conceptual! But it went from that into liking rap, which turned to following alternative rock cuz it "meant something".. like a lot of people did at the time.
'82 or '83. First/second grade. I grew up on: Motley Crue, Led Zeppelin, Ozzy, Black Sabbath, The Who, Motorhead, Twisted Sister, Pink Floyd, Quiet Riot, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and a whole bunch of others that I'm too drunk to come up with at the moment. My dad was a band director. Music was in my blood from day one.
I grew up with teenage siblings in the mid to late 70's. So while they were in school or out at a friends, I would listen to all of their albums. Rock, Blues(Parent) and even MoTown. I was a teenager in the 80's, so I listened to all of that crap. But its also where I discovered bands like The Pixies, RHCP and others. The 80's also brought guitarist like BB King and SRV into my life.
1975 I was 6 and heard this on the turn table at my older cousins house. I remember it like it was yesterday. Still my favorite KISS song to this day. What a ripping guitar riff. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DOf1IOF8wbE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DOf1IOF8wbE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
My older brother told my parents he wanted to take guitar lessons. They bought him an old Stella acoustic guitar from Sears. He lasted 3 months. My folks then put the guitar in my bedroom. I took beginner lessons in 1968 when I was 7. Then they bought me "Pete Seeger's Folksingers Guitar Guide" which had music for old folk songs but also had a chord chart in the back with every permutation of every chord you can make on a guitar. A year later they enrolled me in intermediate lessons. I was ahead of the class the whole time and gave a recital at the end of the class. Haven't taken a lesson since...learned everything since by mimicking records.
I always liked listening to the radio especially the pop stations growing up as a kid. When I was in junior high, "Casey's Top 40 and/or American Top 40" were shows on the radio I listened to religiously. One of my best friends actually had every Billboard #1 single on cassette from "Rock Around the Clock" to songs in the '90s (I think he finally quit doing this when he got married, lol). But when I went off to college and later grad school, I didn't own many CDs. I had a handful of tape cassettes but I was more about buying cassette singles. It wasn't until I got in my late 20s that I really delved into music. It started with Moby's "Play" and quickly into many other electronica acts like Orbital, Underworld, The Orb, Massive Attack (more trip-hop than electronica), Fatboy Slim, etc. Then I bought Radiohead's "OK Computer" and the album that supposedly inspired it, "Dark Side of the Moon". And my life has never been the same, since. EDIT - Oh and growing up in the '80s right when MTV started was a big influence plus having an older sister who was into The Smiths, The Cure, Depeche Mode, etc.
I have to thank or blame my mom. When she was younger, if she really liked an album, she would play it over and over and over and over and over. By the time I was 6 y.o., I would go to sleep with the radio on.
1st Tape I owned - LL COOL J - Bigger and Deffer 2nd - IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK - PUBLIC ENEMY 3rd - GRIP IT ON THAT OTHER LEVEL - Ghetto Boys 4th - I GO TO WORK [forget the album name] - KOOL MOE DEE LL Cool J was basically lost and forgotten after Public Enemy from then on . . I was in HipHop Maddness In college my 1st roommate and I compromised He had a Player that would switch between cds all through the nite [we both like to sleep to music] His choice - Depeche Mode - Violator My Choice - Boogie Down Production - Jack of Spades Been into Alt/Depeche/etc music since I'm pretty open to all music now I'm very Lyric Driven Rocket River Good Lyrics. . i will listen
