What band/music first got you hooked?

[Strypes]

OK, since we're all talking about what music and bands we all do/don't like... let's head back into nostalgia (actually that probably isn't all THAT far back for some of ya).

We all had some music that got us "hooked"... some genre, album or band that led to where we are today. What was that for you?

Myself I had sorta conservative parents so my first taste of musical independence was into Baroque organ music I borrowed from school. Then I began to raid my parents' collection of '20s, '30s and 40's hits. Elton John figured in there somewhere, too, when someone gave me my first ever CD as a gift (it happened to be Elton's "Live in Australia", so that's why). But the real explosion started when I got a hold of some Manfred Mann and Small Faces tunes.

I still listen to pretty much everything and have been known to veer off on occasional phases (for example Southern hip-hop, French ska, and trance techno) but it was the Faces that I look back on as giving me the taste to experiment and the drive to listen.

I credit my rock "education" to someone else who posts here... but that's another story.

How 'bout y'all?

[johansen smith]

Stereolab.

[Paul]

Pat Benetar, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot"

It was then that I fell in love with the mighty power chord.

[tinobeat]

first first first tape ever (got me hooked on music): The Monkees greatest hits.

first tape I bought myself (got me hooked on getting it myself): REM Green. I was in the 3rd grade.

first albums that made me realize I need to look harder to find the really good shit:
Crooked Rain Crooked Rain and Electro-Pura

[earl grey]

i went to india the summer after eighth grade with four tapes:

R.E.M. - out of time
nirvana - nevermind
pearl jam - ten
the B-52's - cosmic thing

i listened to each *SO* much, came back in the fall, got a CD player. my older brother lent me a bunch of his CD's - starting me on new order, depeche mode, etc. - and i joined columbia house and got my first 10 CD's of new stuff. and it was on.

[Strypes]

Originally posted by tinobeat
\
first tape I bought myself (got me hooked on getting it myself): REM Green. I was in the 3rd grade.


Jesus... in the 3rd grade we were all into Poison.

And we used to think the big hair and the leather was SO bad-ass...

[johansen smith]

Maloze.

[tinobeat]

Originally posted by Strypes
Jesus... in the 3rd grade we were all into Poison.

And we used to think the big hair and the leather was SO bad-ass...

full disclosure: 2nd tape I bought after Green was Appetite for Destruction. 3rd? The Raw and the Cooked.

[Paul]

Originally posted by tinobeat
full disclosure: 2nd tape I bought after Green was Appetite for Destruction. 3rd? The Raw and the Cooked. As schizo as that seems, I loved all three of those albums at the same time too.

[Miss Tasty Princess]

As a child of the 70s, especially one who paid no attention to rock music until he was 12-or-so, the band that got me hooked was Kiss, naturally. The first record I bought with my own money was The Originals, the discount repackaging (with a book and stickers!) of the first three Kiss albums, when I was 13. I already had The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a gift from my parents as the first song that ever grabbed me was "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (though it was Elton John's hit cover that I first heard), and I liked it but Kiss was way cooler (or so I thought at the time).

[hstencil]

the Beatles and John Lennon, I started listening to my parents' records around 3 or 4 years old. I was five years old when he was murdered, and I cried all day long when I found out.

[Thor]

When I was a kid I used to get up early on the weekends and watch not cartoons, but "video hits" (the oz equivalent of mtv). I'd also listen to and tape my favourite songs from the top 40 countdown when it was on the radio. There are loads of probably bad songs that hold incredible sentimental value for me from that era... off the top of my head, a song by Roxette called "joyride". I also used to love the spin doctors.

I was very into michael jackson when I was around 10-12, I had tapes of Thriller, Bad and Dangerous and I played them to death. And Billy Joel. My mum took me to my first concert when I was 5, and it was a big open arena concert with billy joel. I listened to a lot of him after that. I loved that saigon song.

Another song I recall that stunned me as a child was Bohemian Rhapsody.. I used to sing along to it with a make shift microphone and pretend I'd written it (a practice that continued for many years with many different songs). I recall telling my dad when I was 9 or so that I was going to be a singer and I had him buy me a microphone (I used to go over to the hi-fi store after school every day and sit looking at the microphones in the glass cases). Other childhood music obsessions were the "cats" soundtrack, and in a big way, john farnham.

When I was 12 I heard "Light My Fire" and the opening keyboard melody was the most revelatory sound I had ever, ever heard. I used to restart the song over and over just to listen to it. And that john lennon song, "happy xmas" was another favourite.

Around 14 I started to actually get into the beatles, the doors and bob dylan, and everything started to really change. Then when I was 17 I met Patrick and was steered in ever more wonderful musical directions.

[Maximo]

I saw the yellow submarine movie when I was wee tiny, I think I watched it daily for abou t half a year.

My dad has always had great taste in the good ol' things. He has about 2,000 tapes or so. I used to go through them and listen to the ones that had cool covers. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon was the first that ever stayed in my tape player for a long time. I remember it used to scare me shitless at night.

In terms of my own collection though-- I think the first CD I bought on my own was Queen - Greatest Hits I a few years ago.

[flo's garage]

I guess the first thing that I really felt was 'the real thing' by faith no more, I found them really accessable considering it had been all pop up until them.

Without doubt though everything changed for me when I heard 'where you been' by dinosaur jr - the solo in start choppin' was the coolest thing I'd ever heard.

[the Pawnbroker]

Originally posted by tinobeat
first tape I bought myself (got me hooked on getting it myself): REM Green. I was in the 3rd grade.



My god I feel old. I was in high school.

Some early music moments:

1. Loved The Beatles since I can remember. During recess in 5th Grade, some friends and I would stand on the school playground equipment as if it was a stage, and sing "She Loves You", "I Saw Her Standing There," and other early stuff. I was Paul.

2. In high school, hearing a tape of Led Zeppelin IV in my friend's first car. Zeppelin was the soundtrack for the freedom that we had when we first had our licenses.

3. High School. First concert was Rush. First time I ever got drunk.

I did not listen to underground/indie type stuff until much later. Pavement was my "gateway" band.

[TheSadDebaser]

My entire family and all their friends like the Beatles, so I can remember sometime very early in my life, walking out of my mother's room and hearing "Come Together" and being enchanted. Another early memory is being made fun of in first grade at lunch for liking the Beatles as much as I did.

First album that ever totally blew my mind was Pet Sounds which I was TOTALLY obsessed with in 7th grade. First concert I ever went to was a They Might Be Giants show in Central Park my older brother took me to in fourth or fifth grade. First CD I ever bought with my "own" money was Third Eye Blind's Blue in sixth(?) grade.

In the eighth grade I started listening to Nirvana, which led to the Ramones and Velvet Underground. And that summer I started listening to the Pixies, and that was probably the last major band for me.

[Wallerton]

First "grown-up" records I ever owned:

"Sleepin' Single in a Double Bed"--a 45 by Barbra Mandrell. I had no frikkin' idea what the song meant, but I liked it. My parents had pretty much stopped buying records years before I was born (and what they had was cheesy--no rock & roll whatsoever, but stuff like Ferrante & Teicher, the 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett, etc.) but they listened to country music on the radio, so that's what I heard most of the time.

A K-Tel compilation featuring, among many other hits, "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates, "Gonna Fly Now" (the theme from Rocky), and "Lonely Boy" by Andrew Gold. But my favorite track by far was "The Name of the Game" by ABBA. I played it over and over and over and over and over again. I just stood staring at my record player, my toes wriggling in ecstasy in our shit-brown shag carpet.

Other formative musical influences:

My friend across the street had Cat Stevens' Greatest Hits on 8-track, and we wore that thing out.

At "school" (day care, whatever) I was introduced to top 40, so I have fond memories of the Bee Gees (and everything else from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which pretty much dominated the airwaves in the late seventies).

Skipping ahead a few years... I had a major Beatles obsession in middle school. Early in high school, I discovered the Smiths and R.E.M., and those are the bands that introduced me to "alternative" music.

(I apologize for what seems like an excessive and gratuitous use of quotation marks in this post.)

[earl grey]

Originally posted by flo's garage

Without doubt though everything changed for me when I heard 'where you been' by dinosaur jr - the solo in start choppin' was the coolest thing I'd ever heard.

*great* song.

[Salman]

When I was much younger my mother use to play old Bollywood soundtracks and qawwali artists like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The first ever tape I bought was Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em by MC Hammer. I think I still have it somewhere. The album that got me into rock in general though was Nevermind.

[flo's garage]

Originally posted by Salman
The first ever tape I bought was Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em by MC Hammer. I think I still have it somewhere.

Cool! My dad had that tape, he used to rock that and En Vogue in the car on family holidays!!

[Futureman]

When I was in college, I knew this guy (he was also a college DJ) who listened to the Minutemen, Husker Du, early REM, early 10,000 Maniacs, etc. For some reason I thought of the whole "underground" thing to be spooky and intimidating. I didn't know the right bands, the right places to hear them, the language, etc. So I really didn't get into the whole "scene."

And then in graduate school I had a roommate who listened to the Pogues, the Pixies, and Afghan Whigs. My initial reaction was similar to the one I had in college. But I couldn't get the tunes from Dootlittle out of my head. I was hooked. And then came Pavement. I was obsessed.

[9000]

i'm farily certain my first record, not including the star wars soundtrack, was the b-52's self-titled debut. i remember seeing them perform on SNL and begging the parents to hook me up.

then i got these cool records called rat music for rat people vol. 1 and wave news, which really set the path. the former was all US punk like bad brains, black flag, the circle jerks, flipper; while the latter came on cool orange vinyl and was consisted of the UK acts: exploited, damned, fad gadget, and the like.

other early notables:
devo - are we not men/ people of choice
ramones - road to ruin

man, i've got to dust through the oldies to really remember what else shaped my impressionable little mind.

[flo's garage]

I've just remembered when I was really young, about 6 maybe, some friends of my parents giving me and my brother a bad-ass battery powered turntable, along with a shawaddy-waddy record and the 7" of bowie/jagger doing dancing in the street!!

[Brushback]

Minor Threat and the Replacements. This was around '82-'83.

I grew up listening to the same metal stuff that a lot of other high school kids were listening to (Judas Priest, Scorpions, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden), though at the time it seemed "fringe" and "rebellious". I remember that a lot of the rock albums I was shelling out $8.99 for would only have 3 or 4 good songs, and the rest would be crap/filler (Van Halen quickly springs to mind), but that seemed to be the way that commercial music worked, and I didn't really know any better to complain.

Once I moved to a city where I could pick up college stations on the radio, things changed, and I started becoming aware of the alternatives that were out there. I remember when I first heard Minor Threat on the radio, and I thought it was cool that Ian said "Boo fucking hoo!" at the end of the song, so I had to find that record. As soon as I heard the Replacements, I started buying their records in bunches ("Sorry Ma", "Stink", "Hootenany", then "Let It Be"). It was a revelation to find bands whose records had all good songs on them, no filler, and who wrote songs that mirrored what my life was like at the time, instead of all the mythological devil crap that was on most of the metal records I had been listening to. It opened my eyes to how off-track my music interests had been before that point.

I didn't have any friends around me at the time who were into any of this stuff, so it took getting away from the department stores and chain stores and into the small mom-and-pop shops that carried these "new" records to also make me aware of local punk rock bands and punk rock shows, and the world of xeroxed fanzines that I hadn't known existed. I started picking up on the local scene, and it snowballed pretty quickly from there.

[redheaven]

Started collecting anything and everything by the Cure when I was in grade four, right after hearing "Just Like Heaven".....which sounds cool now, I think, but definitely wasn't then......

[Dave]

The first record that I ever got was a copy of Sweet's Desolation Blvd.. My Aunt had given it to my sister who in turn gave it to me. I was in 2nd grade. For a long time I couldn't figure out which members of Sweet were guys and which were girls and I was afraid that if I asked anyone they'd take the record from me so I kept quiet and it took me years to figure out FOR SURE. I also kind of appropriated a copy of ZZ Top's Fandango from the same sister. The aerial photo of them live at the University of Austin football arena just seemed so unreal to me.
The first records that I ever paid my own money for were Kiss records (Kiss Alive & Destroyer ) and Blue Oyster Cult's Some Enchanted Evening quickly followed. From there it's all a blur, with a few notable exceptions.

Dave

[tinobeat]

I found Level Headed by Sweet in the basement of the house my parents and I moved into in Somerville when I was in the 7th grade. "Love Is Like Oxygen" blew my mind. the rest of the album, I have no idea about...

[Dave]

Level Headed is a pretty tough go, but I still recommend everything up until that point. In fact the catalog has been reissued on CD w/bonus tracks and expanded liner notes in the UK (where the catalog differs a lot from the US) and they're high on my list of things I "need."

Dave

[vesper]

i have really fond memories of sitting on my sister's shag-carpeted floor and listening to hum's you'd prefer an astronaut, smashing pumpkin's siamese dream, and tripping daisy's i am an elastic firecracker. she got all of those through either BMG or Columbia's join-and-get-11-cds deal. the first two tapes i ever bought with my own cash were nirvana's nevermind and sonic youth's washing machine. as for what i listen to now, well bitches brew probably has more to do with the music i love than anything else in my collection.

[tinobeat]

Originally posted by Dave
Level Headed is a pretty tough go, but I still recommend everything up until that point. In fact the catalog has been reissued on CD w/bonus tracks and expanded liner notes in the UK (where the catalog differs a lot from the US) and they're high on my list of things I "need."

Yeah, it took me ages to realize that it was the same Sweet who did "Ballroom Blitz" and others... I should pick up Desolation Blvd. sounds like it'd be up my alley.

"Love Is Like Oxygen" is a ridiculously awesome song, though, I have to say...

[pabost]

First record: Thriller by Michael Jackson, a reward for cleaning my room (probably around 1985).

First cassette: Hits of the 50's by various artists, including Danny and the Juniors, Buddy Holly, etc . . . For my 6th birthday.

First compact disc: Achtung Baby by U2.

I was a Beatles/Beach Boys/oldies obsessive until a somewhat strange occurence in 9th grade: visiting England, I was watching Glastonbury footage on television and was swept away by Supergrass. That was when I really began paying attention to modern music.

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by Dave
Level Headed is a pretty tough go, but I still recommend everything up until that point. In fact the catalog has been reissued on CD w/bonus tracks and expanded liner notes in the UK (where the catalog differs a lot from the US) and they're high on my list of things I "need." The CD version of Level Headed on Repetoire has some bonus tracks that are better than some of the album tracks, IIRC (it's not an album I pull out all that often).

As for the earlier album remasters, yes, you definitely need them! One caveat though: BMG decided to append the contemporaneous b-sides as bonus tracks but totally ignored the fact that some of the a-sides were single-only tracks, as well. I ended up getting all the remasters then snagging some comps to fill in the missing a-sides in my collection.

You also need to get the Live at the Rainbow album, recorded in 1973. It was originally released as half of the double-LP set Strung Up but the CD adds several unreleased songs from the same concert and it's pretty damn ferocious.

You probably don't need the first album, Funny Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be, as it's the early bubblegum dreck (and I mean dreck).

On the other hand, you do need their first US-only album (pre-Sweet Fanny Adams). Though it's primarily a compilation of UK 45 tracks there are a few new numbers thrown in experimenting with harder rocking stuff.

Finally, there's also a nice compilation called First Recordings 1968-1971 on Repetoire of really early singles (and tracks from a split LP with another band whose name I don't recall) that are better, IMO, than the stuff on Funny Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be.

DAMMIT!

After typing all of this, I just went to www.CDUniverse.com and found that Sweet Fanny Adams through Off the Record have been remastered and reissued again by BMG Germany with the missing a-sides and additional unreleased material. I need more money . . .

Edit: I just checked www.musicexpress.com (in Germany) and they have 'em for $15 apiece (and their shipping to the US is cheap or at least it was the last time I ordered from them). Looks like it's time to get these and finish off my Scorpions remasters collection (still need Lovedrive and Blackout, screw Love at First Sting and after, though).

[Patrick]

'Desolation Boulevard' is one of the great records of all time.

My first music purchase was a 7" single of "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow.

The Beatles are what really got me into music, when I was 12. I purchased 'Yellow Submarine', then the red and blue albums respectively, then the White Album (I remember having a crush on Paul) in that order, all in about a week. I was hooked.

Graduation to more alternative musics didn't happen until I was 16, when I got into Brian Eno, Talking Heads, Joy Division and New Order... and then this led to the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, then Minor Threat, then the fizzing Boston music scene of the early '80s - Mission Of Burma, Neats, SS Decontrol, Christmas etc.

Punk, dudez.

Patrick

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by Patrick
My first music purchase was a 7" single of "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow.A friend of mine went to a Barry Manilow concert on a date solely so he could sleep with the guy he went with. I have no idea if it was worth it or not. I can't imagine it was.

Originally posted by Patrick
The Beatles are what really got me into music . . . I remember having a crush on Paul. He was a cutey in the early days!

[hstencil]

I would guess that there are millions of women born between 1975 and 1980 named "Mandy." Don't know any "Copacabanas" though.

[bitterfruit]

Originally posted by johansen smith
Maloze.

Their double CD entitled "Live Aid For Bangladesh" and the bootleg remixes fo' sure.

[abevigoda]

Has Maloze humor "jumped the shark?"

[bitterfruit]

What got me hooked to music?

Rg Veda.

[bitterfruit]

Originally posted by pabost
[B]First record: Thriller by Michael Jackson, a reward for cleaning my room (probably around 1985).


Oh, no doubt. I threw Thriller in the other day and was jammin'.

[tinobeat]

Originally posted by abevigoda
Has Maloze humor "jumped the shark?"

NEVER!

[fivefourtwo]

But my first five albums
R.E.M-Out of TIme
PAvement-S&E

[Thor]

Originally posted by Patrick
I remember having a crush on Paul

When I was that age, I had a crush on Leonardo from the teenage mutant ninja turtles. It kinda weirds me out remembering that...

[Strypes]

Originally posted by Thor
When I was that age, I had a crush on Leonardo from the teenage mutant ninja turtles. It kinda weirds me out remembering that...
Actually, so did I. Used to run home from school so I could catch those few minutes in front of the TV. Makes ya think, doesn't it?

And going back even further into the mists of time, Astro Boy... and even, briefly, Tintin...

I also remember I fell wildly in love at first sight with Gavroche from the '93 London cast of Les Miserables (I was around his age). My parents had to drag me away from the theater.

You would think I would have twigged onto the general pattern by this point, but noooo....

[Strypes]

Oh man... while we're on the 80's subject, check out this site (http://eightiesclub.tripod.com/id14.htm) for a trip down memory lane...

That sparked a memory... we used to have a rooster named Billy Idol. My parents said they called him that because he was "big, loud and obnoxious".

I remember I kinda liked his image, insofar as I ever paid attention to that kind of music at that age (i.e. to fit in, not because I actually really *listened* at that time...).

Then there's INXS, the Bangles (the bus driver used to play "Manic Monday" EVERY morning on the way to school, used to drive me nuts)... The Police...

Ah, memories... hang on, I'm not OLD enough yet to be nostalgic?!

[River Tigris]

As a kid, it was Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. I had the blue album and the red album - though not the white one, lol. The band that got me into the music I listen to today? Probably Nirvana. Got a cassette copy of "Nevermind" in 92 - I was just getting into Nirvana as everyone else was moving away from them and gravitating toward the more arena-friendly rock of Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains etc. Saw them play with the Breeders and Half Japanese in late 93 and they were basically supernatural. But I was long sold by then anyway. My older bro noticed the Nirvana, Pixies and SY in my collection and hooked me up with some of his favourites - the first Violent Femmes record (still one of my all-time favs), the Replacements, R.E.M., etc. Two years later I went to the 90s indie rock Woodstock, aka Lollapalooza 95, where I saw, among others, Sonic Youth, Pavement and Beck. Good times. And that's the end of chapter one I think.

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by River Tigris
. . . Half Japanese . . . Best band of all time! Though, by '93, when you saw them open for Nirvana, they were unfortunately past their prime. :(

[Dave]

One of my biggest musical regrets is not paying more attention to the Half Japanese set at a gig (opening for Naked Raygun and Marginal Man) in 1986 in D.C. (at the short lived venue the Complex which was a rather hard core leather bar that had punk shows for a while). A rather expanded line up, but at the time I had no idea who they really were so I don't know who was doing what.
Mr. HCI: Were you there?

Dave

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by Dave
One of my biggest musical regrets is not paying more attention to the Half Japanese set at a gig (opening for Naked Raygun and Marginal Man) in 1986 in D.C. (at the short lived venue the Complex which was a rather hard core leather bar that had punk shows for a while). A rather expanded line up, but at the time I had no idea who they really were so I don't know who was doing what.
Mr. HCI: Were you there?

Dave I don't remember The Complex at all and I never saw Naked Raygun in DC (though we played with them in Europe in '89). HJ sets back then were always with a rotating cast of players. Jad was always on hand, of course, as was Mark Jickling on guitar and often Don Fleming on lead guitar. I think Jad's brother David was still a regular part of the band at that point (he sadly left to concentrate on his art sometime in the mid-to-late 80s) and was always a lot of fun to watch. Bass around then was often Howard Wuelfling and primary drumming was usually Rucky Dreyfuss or Jay Spiegel. Shows in the Richmond area involved the addition of various Ortho-Tonics (usually Rebby and Pippin). Good Lord, those were the days!

[Dave]

Well there some girls in the band, but it was a few years before I even knew who the Orthotonics were, but I always imagined that it had to be Rebby.

Dave

[Miss Tasty Princess]

Originally posted by Dave
Well there some girls in the band, but it was a few years before I even knew who the Orthotonics were, but I always imagined that it had to be Rebby. If she was playing keyboards, it was Rebby Sharp. If she was playing saxomophone, it was most likely Lana Zabko (sp?). I don't remember ever seeing another women peform with 'em.

Edit: I'm pretty sure I saw Mo Tucker play drums with them once when they opened for her at the old 9:30 Club but I could be wrong.