Early Music Experiences

I was raised on a bizarre collection of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee, Willie Nelson and the Beatles. Which would make you think that my first music memory is a very cool one but sadly it's my parents taking my brother and I to see Harry Belafonte in Saskatoon.

My dad had boxes and boxes of old 45s from the 50s and 60s, plus a ton of albums. Old doo wop songs, Beach Boys, Beatles, Stones, Elvis, novelty songs, pretty much everything he'd ever bought as a kid and young adult. He used to pull out "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" by Allan Sherman and it would just crack me up. I must have worn that thing to death making him play it over and over again. He finally broke down and gave it to me, which is comparable to Queen Elizabeth giving away one of the Crown Jewels as far as my dad is concerned. I remember days working with him in our garage on some project and he'd have the radio tuned in to some barely-there signal from an oldies station somewhere. Funny thing is, as he is with the 50s and 60s, that's me with the 80s -- we'd both rather listen to music from the decades we first got into music than anything else.

It's a shame that I'm your mix cd partner...

As I am hippie spawn, my earliest musical memories involve Janis Joplin, The Doors (I loved "Riders on the Storm" when I was 3), Three Dog Night, and Led Zepplin (oo! Look at all the naked people on this one!). I am also told that I would regularly crack my parents up by singing along with "Heartache Tonight" when it would come on the car stereo.

Raffi is for squares.

I am thankful everyday that my dad raised me on oldies.

I had a mother who was a operatic voice major, an older sister who played piano since 5 and a dad who played guitar most of his life...so from my earliest memories, I was immersed in all kinds of music. My parents always used to play records on Sat and Sun mornings. I used to wake up to Simon & Garfunkel and Nat King Cole, and then hear classical music through the afternoons while my sister grew older and continually got better (she graduated with a Masters in classical piano performance). My dad was obsessed with Lionel Richie for some strange reason, and I remember my parents used to make me sing "You Are the Sun, You Are the Rain" for their friends because it was one of my favorite songs. Somewhere in our attic, there still exists a tape of me singing it. Someday I will find it and burn it. Though I admittedly still do love Lionel Richie.

I have a lot of memories, but I know my little brother and I really, really loved "Carry On Wayward Son" and "Africa". It would be fair to say that my dad didn't develop the best taste in music (though his old record collection is amazing), but he did instill the right amount of love for cheesy rock ballads in my brother and me.

After a mid-70s formative phase with the greater works of Dylan, obscure blues guys, and Jacques Brel, I moved on to the Stooges and Velvets, which led me to Stockhausen and, later, the krautrock stuff. Then I turned three...

Dave actually invented mathcore in 2nd grade. You can look it up.

I was raised on Born to Run, Bat Out of Hell, Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, and Rumors. The first albums I ever owned were Third Eye Blind, Battle for Las Angeles, The Matrix soundtrack, and Magical Mystery Tour.

I didn't start to get really into music until I bought White Blood Cells. Jack White's lyrics really really connected well with this lonely 8th grader. I dove into every song on the album. It also helped that that was when I first got my guitar. The White Stripes are GREAT for beginning guitarists. I learned how to play that whole album that year.

Some of my most extravagant outbursts as an infant were instrumental in the founding of emo in the early 80s. I have the pictures to prove it.

He could be into .38 Special, he could be into .38 Special, he could be into .38 Special...

Edit - Dave, I have a scanner and pictures of you in middle school band. Don't make me do it.

My dad's a musician (a pretty good drummer, though I won't tell him, the ego would be too much) and did a great job opening me to music as soon as I was born. His massive vinyl collection, which has been asked for in the will, was amazing as a kid. Cream, Zeppelin, SRV, ZZ Top, Sabbath, Maiden, BB King, tons of great rock, blues, and metal. When I got a bit older my dad and I would go once a week to the record store to each buy an album/tape.

I remember when we went and both picked out The Black Album. Or the first time the old Z-Rock station in Houston played Megadeth and we both air guitared. Or the oldies station playing Aqualung, and both of us singing all the words.

These days I introduce my dad to a lot more, rather than the other way around. I was pretty fortunate though. Most of my friends were in trouble for listening to what I listened too, or grounded for what was on an Iron Maiden cover, while my dad just wanted me to learn to play Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers on his drum set.

The hell with that. DO IT.

Also, in response to Ripoll, that's an interesting collection of first CDs. Allow me to respond with my first two discs (received along with my first boombox back when people knew what a boombox was): To The Extreme and Please Hammer, Don't Hurt'em. I win.

Even at age 10, I knew that Vanilla Ice's "Stop That Train" was somehow awesome.

The first album I remember buying that wasn't a Star Wars soundtrack was Pac Man Fever by Buckner and Garcia. I got better.

My first CD (i had tons of tapes and honestly I can't remember what my first one was) was Toad the Wet Sprocket's Dulcinea.

Though I had both of LD's mentions and wore out my Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em tape. So awesome.

Man, I remember those cardboard boxes. Idiotic. Also, those plastic things they used to keep CD's in at the store that were the same size are comical to think of now too.

I remember always going to certain stores to buy parental advisory albums where I knew they didnt' check. What sucked was that Planet Music had a membership deal where it gave you an automatic discount on all CD's, but they also checked your age for parental advisory albums. Such bullshit.

Hell, so far as I know, Sam's Club still sells CDs in those giant plastic shells, occasionally with the giant cardboard sleeve. I'd love to know the original rationale for that decision.

I think the longbox was a bit of hedge-betting -- they could fit on a standard album rack, so if the CD thing didn't work out, record stores wouldn't have had to buy brand new display space for the format and could just keep stocking records.

I had completely forgotten about that cardboard CD packaging. When they stopped packaging that way, I was actually bummed since I was using the cardboard covers as wall decorations in my bedroom.

My first tape was Michael Jackson's Thriller, soon to be followed by Huey Lewis & the News' Sports. Not bad choices for a second grader in the early 1980s. My first CDs were backlist stuff: The Doors Greatest Hits and KISS Destroyer. I still have the Doors although I rarely give it a listen. As for KISS, I probably would still play it occassionally had it not been stolen many years ago. Not one that I've ever felt the need to replace.

My earliest musical influences were listening to the LP collections of my older brothers & sisters. Each had really distinctive taste: my oldest brother was into hair metal and FM rock, my second brother was into New Wave and Punk, my sister was into MTV pop. These influences all converged in me, I guess, providing for an eclecticism that I carry to this day.

Okay, my first musical memory, aside from an old record player and a 45 of "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," is sitting on the bus to kindergarten, top 40 radio playing a lot of Blondie, Billy Joel, and "Funkytown." Then we got an 8-track player, which inspired my dad, far more comfortable with standards and Sinatra, to pick up a number of K-Tel compilations of current music and Billy Joel's Glass Houses (the latter at the request of 6-year-old me, who liked the cover).

Also, just because I was in the middle-school band doesn't mean I wasn't listening to Zeppelin, U2, the Who, and REM (admittedly, after several years of mid-80s top 40 fandom). And Rush, of course, because I was learning the drums.

I was a late-ish convert to CDs, since I didn't get a player until I was a freshman or sophomore in high school. The first CDs I bought were Bob Mould's Workbook and Living Colour's Time's Up. I'd already discovered the Pixies, Replacements, Sonic Youth, and others by then.

I remember getting ZZ Top - Recycler (probably in the first 10 CD/Tapes I bought myself) and it came in the massive cardboard box. Original PS1 games also came in those types of boxes.

I was in the middle school band too. Little did everyone else know, we were actually the coolest kids in school.*

*untrue

My parents weren't music fans until I began buying them stuff in college, so I really discovered music at a babysitter's house when I was probably 9 or 10.

I'd go to her house after school - she had a teenaged son who was never home but was cool about letting me hang out in his room and listen to his albums. Rebel battle flag hanging over the bed, Led Zepplin "Song Remains The Same" blacklight poster on the wall, and I'd sit with those giant cans on my ears pouring over liner notes and listening to The Allman Brothers, Skynyrd, Rush and Black Sabbath.

I grew up listening to only jazz music. I still dont understand why to this day, my father doesnt listen to anything but jazz music. He never listened to oldies, 50's, 60's, anything else. Just jazz.

However, in '77, he bought the 8-track of the Star Wars soundtrack. We listened to the shit out of that, til it broke, then bought another. That's what influenced my love of soundtracks. And in junior high, I got my first radio. That was when I realized that there was other music on the radio, besides jazz.

Today, I listen to everything. I can find something I like in every genre of music. Except country. Me no likey.

My Dad was from Louisiana. The first song I remember my Dad singing to me was Jesse Hill's Ooh Poo Pah Doo.

I also heard a lot of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.


That being said, the first song I sang religiously as a child was "The Doo Doo Runs" aka The Do Run Run by Shaun Cassidy.

I was fed music by TV with the advent of MTV by the time I was in 3rd grade. So I went from enjoying Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, and Duran Duran to falling into the 60's with the Monkees on TV.

I went through Yo! MTV Raps and enjoyed the follies of Kwame and Kid N Play and De La Soul.

And then I found Nirvanna. Really.

With the advent of the CD player and my interest in music increasing by 8th grade, the first CD I bought was REM's GREEN. The second CD I bought was Faith No More's The Real Thing and the third CD I bought was Young MC.

So there are my beginnings...

I grew up in a household that mixed classic 70's rock (my stepfather), disco (my mother), and Star Wars (me), so it was not unusual to listen to John Williams, Styx and Donna Summer back to back to back.

First album I bought with my own money was Heart's Greatest Hit Live. I used to really be into 70's-era Heart back in my pre-teens. That and horror soundtracks like all of Carpenter's stuff plus Creepshow and Dawn of the Dead.

Rocker from birth

Parents had a massive record collection which ran the gamut between Miles Davis and Black Sabbath, Johnny Mathis and the Eagles.

Mom and Dad intersected at The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, and The Doors. Dad skewed toward heavier stuff like prog and proto-metal/punk (Stooges, MC5, King Crimson, Yes, Sabbath, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Alice Cooper) as well as Jazz (Miles, Coltrane, Wes Montgomery) and blues (Son House, Howlin Wolf, Walter "Furry" Lewis). Later in the 70's my Dad got into wankery stuff like Steely Dan and The Alan Parsons Project. Mom went toward a lighter sound (Juice Newton, Hall And Oates, Linda Ronstadt, Manilow, Air Supply) for her extreme. Coming from Detroit there was also lots of Motown as well as Stax and Specialty being played. My parents would take us on car trips through the country side where Fleetwood Mac, Roy Orbison, Elton John, hell almost any one you can imagine was played in the 8 track installed in my Dad's 68 Camaro.

At the age of 5 my cousins and I were obsessed with the Bay City Rollers and I would march around singing Little Willy (which I later found out was by Sweet). My sister loved that Shaun Cassidy version of Da Doo Run Run. The age of 5 was when my mother told me of a tragedy, the king of rock and roll had died. I thought she meant Elton John. And when I got the first record I ever owned, Queen - News Of The World. Bought for me by my dad because my favorite song was We Are The Champions. Later at the age of 11 I would buy my first record with my own money. Quiet Riot - Metal Health. 5 would also be the age I started my life long obsession cum love/hate relationship with KISS. Iremember my parents letting me stay up late to see a KISS segment on 20/20 and later at about age 9 or so my best friend, an otherwise quiet jehova's witness, got put on punishment when his mom caught us watching KISS on Solid Gold.

We were baby sat by my dad's parents where we were exposed to country. Strictly Grand Old Opry country as well as bluegrass. Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, Jimmie Rogers, Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills Texas Swing.

1981 - My first concerts. AC/DC, For Those About To Rock tour - Seattle Kingdome. Rolling Stones, Tattoo You tour. Same venue with George Thorogood and The J.Geils Band opening. Can't remember which came first.

Parents had a friend who ran a pizza parlor. He gave us old 45s from the juke box. We spent hours upon hours listening to Tom Petty, Jefferson Starship, Heart, Aerosmith, Johnny Cougar, ZZ Top, Cheap Trick etc. on our Mickey Mouse Close and Play.

1983 - I go into Fallout Records and Skateboards in Seattle with paper route money to buy my first real skateboard (Powell Peralta Skull & Sword) with the change left over I purchase this weird looking record with an album cover of cars on fire and on back a headless wedding band. Dead Kennedy's Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables.

Summer 84 I was beginning to figure out that Seattle had some rad bands of its own. I spent That summer and fall frequenting Gorilla Gardens a sleazy all ages rock venue in Seattle's Chinatown that would later be responsible for all ages shows being shut down here for the better part of a decade as well as anywhere there was an all-ages punk or metal show. Some highlights, Green River with Sonic Youth and The U-Men @ Gorilla Gardens, Black Flag and Sacchrine Trust @ the Moutaineers Club, The Dead Kennedys and The Crucificks again with Green River @ The Moore Theatre. I was 12. Later, January of 1986, I was 14. the Circle Jerks played. A couple songs into their set the law busted into the Gorilla Gardens and shut down the show. The crowd was pissed and bottles were thrown. Cops stormed in and started beating people with clubs. As people hauled ass chaos ensued--cops chased punks, punks threw iceballs or snowballs packed with rocks at cops, dumpsters were lit on fire, a car tipped over. That was pretty much the death-knell for Gorilla Gardens.

December 10th, 1984 - Iron Maiden, Powerslave Tour Seattle Center Coliseum.

I saw The Replacements on the Pleased To Meet Me tour as well as Husker Du on the Candy Apple Grey tour alone. None of my friends wanted to go because they hadn't heard of them. I'd be willing to bet that now they tell all their friends that they were there.

I saw G.B.H. D.R.I. and the Accused in October of 87 at a club called Natasha's in Bremerton, WA. On the ferry rid back to Seattle and anti-authority punk riot broke out and the ferry was trashed. Many were taken off the boat in cuffs. My crew and I managed to escape.

Saw Guns N' Roses open for both The Cult and Iron Maiden. Saw Nirvana open for The Butthole Surfers and saw The Butthole Surfers open for Nirvana. Saw the laundry list of "grunge" bands more times than I can count.

To this day I still buy the records of and see live bands I have never heard of. I wish you could get paid to be a rock and roller.

There was an AM station literally on my street where I grew up. For the first 10 years of my life, I pretty much just listened to that station and my parent's 8-tracks. Some songs I remember liking: "Rhinestone Cowboy," "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover," "Kung Fu Fighting," "The Old Man On The Mountain" (Merle Haggard). Oh, and Roger Whittaker's version of "Whiskey in the Jar." My earliest musical memory is singing "Hit the Road, Jack" over and over. Just the chorus. Over and over.

My first album was the Star Wars score, which my Dad bought for me on 8-Track. After that, I got a couple Meco albums. Anyone remember this guy? He basically recorded the Star Wars score with a disco beat behind it. Then, when I was 9 or 10, I saw KISS vs. The Phantom on TV, and that was it, man. KISS 24-7. I bought a bunch of KISS 8-tracks, and a couple Steve Martin comedy albums, too.

Summer of '79, when I turned 11, the moment when puberty kicked in, that's when I discovered everything else. First "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner, which I heard on a jukebox (I thought it was a new KISS song, because I assumed they were the only band that played that kind of music). Then (as mentioned in another thread), that idiotic Sgt. Pepper movie was on HBO, and I was so blown away by Aerosmith doing "Come Together" that I taped it off the TV with a cassette recorder. Then someone came by my friends house with a tape of "Eruption/You Really Got Me" which just exploded my brain. By the end of the summer, I had figured out that if you turned the switch on your radio to "FM" you could get these channels that actually played rock music. My favorite song in those days was "Wango Tango" by Ted Nugent.

When I got a record player that Christmas, I signed up for Columbia House, and the first albums I ordered were Van Halen I, Led Zeppelin IV, Back in Black and Toys in the Attic. Actually, no, it wasn't Toys in the Attic, it was Aerosmith: Live Bootleg.

Oh god yeah, Cloumbia House. I used to use these guys, too. I would sign up under a fake name, get the tapes or whatever and then when the bill came I'd send it back with not at this address written on the envelope. I still have my vinyl copy of Aerosmith Live: Bootleg that I got signed by Steven Tyler and Tom Hamilton years ago (81?)

I really don't know how that company stays in business. I've personally burned them 3 times, and almost everyone I know has done the same.

Man, I love that weird, funky wah-wah-laden version of "Walk This Way" on the live album. And the "Mama Kin/S.O.S." medley.

Great thread...

I was raised on classic rock but I also listened to a lot of new music in the '90s at the same time so that's probably why I have a really weird taste in music. My mom was a huge fan of classic rock so I was introduced to Zeppelin, The Who, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones and The Beatles from her. But at the same time I also listened to Collective Soul, Matchbox 20, Metallica and other bands growing up in the '90s.

My dad had an 8-track/reel to reel he bought when he came back from his tour in Vietnam.

The two songs I remember making an impression were Johnny Cash's "Dirty Old Egg Sucking Dog" and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" by the Tolkens (Cash was Dad, Tolkens were Mom). I also remember swinging on my swingset and singing "Blueberry Hill", only to turn around to find my Dad laughing his ass off...

When I was six, I got my first record player and the double vinyl Magic of Abba as a Christmas gift. I still freakin' love Abba to this day.

My first record purchase was Queen's Greatest Hits (the version with "Under Pressure"), from a Harmony House in Waterford, MI. My first cassette tape was Duran Duran's Arena, which I received when I got an upgraded record/tape player the Christmas of my 5th grade year. I blew the speakers out the first time I put in the tape. Remember when they had that leader, followed by the little tones before the music started? Well, I didn't know that, it being my first cassette, so I turned it all the way up, struggling to hear the tones - and wham, "Is There Something I Should Know" came on and wrecked the speakers. We took it back and got a new set.

I also purposely destroyed my brother's Vanilla Ice tape, when he accidentally left it in my player. I taped over the protective divots and recorded my "Chariots of Fire" 45 onto it, over and over. He wasn't supposed to be going into my room and using my things, so he was smart enough never to say a word about it and incriminate himself.

My first cds were purchased on a trip to Toronto, at a HMV in the Eaton Centre: Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra and Depeche Mode's Violator.

I'm a little fuzzy on the first album I bought on iTunes, but I really think it was Andrew Bird's The Mysterious Production of Eggs...

It's kind of strange that I can remember the exact settings of each of my first musical media types, except for the digital. Anyone else have that problem?

I was listening to Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" in the 5th grade. No wonder I'm fcking depressed all the time. :-|