[ihateyouth]

I really liked your posts guys, thanks for sharing.

[Dead-Air]

Sometime around 1980, 13 years old, purchased a used copy of Led Zeppelin I at my comic book store for one dollar. Soon thereafter picked up The Yes Album for the same price at the same place.

Early '80s, early teen years, spent listening to huge amounts of Led Zeppelin, Yes, Rush, and also stuff as ridiculous as Triumph.

Fall of 1984, age 17, thoroughly bored with the radio as I understood it, I was randomly flipping around the dial and hit the tail end of Sonic Youth's "She's in a Bad Mood" on Seattle's college station KCMU. Life forever changed instantly.

Later that year and into next (senior year of High School), purchased Bad Moon Rising, Let It Be by the Replacements, the first couple R.E.M. albums, and some lesser but still decent college rock like Rain Parade.

August of 1985 saw Sonic Youth at Gorilla Gardens in Seattle with Upright Citizens (German hardcore) and Green River opening. The crowd was mostly "death rock" (proto-goth) kids as that was the scene in Seattle at the time. First two bands were well received by crowd and I was blown away by Green River myself. Room full at start of SY set, which is basically Bad Moon Rising straight through including segues. Room empty except for about 5 people by the time they finished, my head burried in Thurston's monitor.

The rest of that summer included seeing shows by Tupelo Chain Sex, U-men, more Green River, and Malfunkshun.

Fall of 1985, went to Western Washington University in Bellingham. Immediately set out to get a radio show on KUGS FM and did, using the name Ricardo Wang I'd used in a garage band earlier that year for God knows what reason. Stayed up all night on the air playing noise rock, psychedelic stuff, and really just about everything (discovered Sun Ra around this time). Started smoking pot and taking copious amounts of LSD.

1986 - made friends with fellow KUGS dj Steve Turner who'd been the guitarist in Green River from before when I'd seen them. He hated the band at that point for being too "progressive". I used to borrow a lot of records from him for my radio show. Saw the first K tour in Bellingham with Screaming Trees, Girl Trouble, Beat Happening, and Mecca Normal. Lots of other amazing shows including everyone from Burning Spear to the Wipers. With all of the pot I was smoking, I got pretty heavy into undergroundish metal at the time too, especially Metallica who I continued to love until the boring black album. Not doing too well in school...

1987-1988 moved back to Seattle and started working for a living in a really lame print shop/art gallery in Pioneer Square. Really good time to be in Seattle musically though. Green River until they broke up, U-men until they broke up (including opening for Big Black!), Pere Ubu reunion tour, Walkabouts (a whole lot, they were one of my favorite local bands), Pussy Galore, Sonic Youth every tour except Sister (they played the Central Tavern weeks before I turned 21!), Live Skull, Butthole Surfers, Jesse Bernstein (I was doing my own live poetry thing at the time too and kept at that until the early '90s), Alice in Chains when they were actually a pretty decent club band (I never liked a single record they did), and of course Mudhoney after Green River broke up.

Towards the end of 1988 I went to see Skin Yard at Squid Row and there was this opening band Nirvana. There were like three people in the audience, me included. They were the most powerful underground metal band I'd ever heard, completely blew my mind. I decided I'd been rocked as hard as was possible and left before the headliners, saying to myself as I walked out the door, "That's the best band in the world, and nobody will ever know!"

End of '80s start of '90s: you know what happened in Seattle. I was at many shows before it all blew up and some afterward. My own tastes diversified and I saw people like Sun Ra and Allen Ginsberg live, though of course Mudhoney, Nirvana, Coffin Break and all the rest too. I got pretty heavy into Patti Smith and then Brian Eno records. I got married for the fist time to a girl I met at a Kildozer show (though she wasn't into them and had been dragged there by friends). Went with her to see the Grateful Dead and took way, way too many mushrooms leading to a major identity questioning trip while they played "Feel Like a Stranger". Continued doing the poetry thing, but usually with musician friends behind me, or weird cut up casette things I'd do.

1993 moved to Olympia to try to finish school at the Evergreen State College where they gave people degrees for the weird shit I did on my own. Immediately got on the air at KAOS FM where I would remain for ten years, now with a focus more on "experimental music" but really playing everything from Miles Davis to the Sun City Girls. Met Calvin Johnson through a friend who was sleeping with him after I'd been there about two months. Saw Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear, Azalia Snail, Godheadsilo, Irving Klaw Trio, Witchy Poo, Unwound, and really so many bands I couldn't begin to list them all. Then Cobain killed himself, and I formed my first active band That Stupid Club in honor of the news headlines (yes this was a bad thing to name your band in Olympia where many people had been his friends, live and learn). We played a sort of experimental post-grunge noise rock that never really connected with the indie rock scene of the day in Oly. Plus the name was instant animosity with some. My wife left me in 1995, which meant she left the band, but we became heavier for it. Also that year, I started the annual Olympia Experimental Music Festival, which is still going strong coming on #15.

Best divorce period live gig: Painkiller up in Seattle, without ear plugs!

Around 1997ish, after doing the vocalist in a rock group thing for a while to no acclaim, I decided to start a side project built primarily around my borrowed moog keyboard and other weird electronics. While walking through the parking lot of the night club Thekla, my foot accidentally kicked a discarded pine tree air freshener, and I said to myself, "Wow, a dead air freshener" which became the name of the band. I decided to make the cast of people in it non-fixed so we couldn't ever really "break up", and just get various friends I knew who were great musicians to play when they felt like it. 13 years later, and that's still pretty much the way it goes though now the members are spread over close to 300 miles.

I turned 30 that year, and Karp played my birthday party. I also became the Sunday night dj at Thekla spinning '80s music (ironically, mostly the new wave stuff I hated in the '80s, but the money and sex were really good...) I called myself DJ Dead Air as a spin off from Dead Air Fresheners and also because when I fucked up, which was a lot, I could claim it was all part of the act.

2002 was the year Thekla closed and I was suddenly washing dishes for a living in my '30s and it was also the year Unwound broke up which was essentially the last gasp of the legendary Olympia music scene. My girlfriend and I had quit drinking to pull our lives together and decided it was time to get the hell out of town, so we moved to Portland. Somehow we ended up in a house on Olympia Street and we ended up buying it from the landlords. There is no escape.

I've seen some great acts in Portland since moving here of course: Rocket from the Tombs, Melvins, Legendary Pink Dots, Sun City Girls (RIP!) with No Neck Blues Band opening, Sonic Youth a few times too. My wife and I were married in 2003 and played a Sun Ra song as part of the ceremony. Dead Air Fresheners continued to play and have gotten a surprising amount of local recognition we never got in Olympia.

I found KPSU in 2005 and convinced them to let me do my former late night KAOS show What's This Called? on Saturdays at noon. I'm still there.

Turned 40 in 2007 on stage with the Dead Air Fresheners: photo here.

[Death & the Maiden]

12 - Robbie Williams was my favourite musician, leads to accusations of being gay.

13 - The Caesars became my favourite band, it gives me a taste for liking something that nobody else knew about. Later in the year I watch School of Rock, which has a Ramones song in its soundtrack. I buy Hey! Ho! Let's Go! The Anthology, and music becomes the main part of my life. The Ramones inspire me to learn guitar (though my friend also helped: he told me he was going to learn drums and he'd found someone to play bass, and I could join his band. I said I wanted to be the singer, and he told me I had the worst singing voice ever, so I wasn't allowed to, and I decided to do the next best thing). I discover more of the punk bands such as The Clash, the Sex Pistols etc.

14 - I listen to Television's Marquee Moon, soon after I parade around school claiming Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd are the greatest guitarists ever. Everyone laughs at me because they all think Television is the worst band name ever. More discoveries include The Smiths and The Saints.

15 - I watch Silver Rockets and Kool Things... I buy Daydream Nation, which I will soon love. The Verlaines and other Flying Nun bands. I have a go at playing keyboard, once I work out how to play chords, I decide I want to get a quality one. I discover the Laughing Clowns, who will later become my favourite band. For my birthday I get an Epiphone Les Paul, based on its looks.

16 - I get a keyboard. After searching through Wikipedia, I discover a band called Mayhem - I'm intrigued my the stories behind them, but I don't like the music. Later I buy an album of theirs, and Black Metal becomes one of my main obsessions. I discover Ed Kuepper, who soon becomes my idol. The Laughing Clowns inspire me to get a saxophone, and I decide I want to learn as many instruments as possible, later I get a drum kit and start up my one man band. Einstuerzende Neubauten's Haus der Luege becomes my allt ime favourite album.

[Sonic Youth 37]

I'll also mention that the songs that made me love Zeppelin were the early versions of Dazed and Confused and White Summer. Also, Jimmy Page inspired me to play guitar and buy a Telecaster instead of a Strat.

[alteredcourse]

A lot of thoughtful responses here, and thats awesome. Good thread to read.

I'm actually listening to Daydream Nation at the moment and, dont kill me but, I havent listened to it in a few years. It's difficult for me, because the event of my first listening to it coincides with the very first explosion of what music could be outside of my household. I was 14, and since then at the time it'd been 5 years that I'd been gulping down some vigorous chokes of my parents music - the doors, led zep, fleetwood mac, the beatles, black sabbath.

But then this boy appeared with golden cobain locks, painted nails, acoustic guitar and modest ideals. It was 1998 at the time, and I'd just been digging into my older brothers collection of nirvana and white zombie.

Well, as it turns out. I'd rather leave it at that and continue to appreciate this than dig more into those times.

Point is, that is some sonic chronology on my part .

[GeneticKiss]

6-11: Listened to whatever was on the radio, usually picked by my older sister.
12-16: Very unusual time. Could appreciate classical, film scores, and some techno, but didn't listen to it actively. A little afraid of loud guitar-based stuff, which caused me to miss out on experiencing firsthand some of the stuff I worship today (Nirvana, Pantera, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Radiohead, and of course, SY). Irony: learned basics of guitar in school at this time, but gave it up in about a year.
17: First exposure to real punk rock via hearing some punker chick's Aus Rotten tape. Started trying to experience music by looking at band tees, hanging around music nerds, and reading books about it-basically, doing everything but actually LISTENING to it.
18-19: My radio rock years. Totally into rap metal, pop punk, and industrial (of the Static-X/Orgy/Spineshank/Rammstein variety). Picked up the guitar again, but dabbled in keyboards first. Evicted from cableless home to cabled home, which gave access to MTV2, MTVX, and the 1st generation of Music Choice. Later, got into classic rock when I felt I'd heard everything on modern rock radio. Discovered Nirvana.
20: Discovered SY! Took real guitar lessons for a year. Discovered indie, Brit-rock and early punk (Sex Pistols, the Damned, etc.).
21-22: Music snob years. Despised (sp?) anything on the radio. Discovered classic alternative (Velvet Underground, the Pixies, the Cure, the Smiths, Joy Division). Decided to play some keyboard again.
23-24: Began listening to non-guitar based music more actively. Learned to appreciate jazz, funk, soul, R 'n' B, and some pop. Started playing with other people and formed first band. Really into Pink Floyd.
25 to present: I'll pretty much listen to anything as long as it doesn't annoy me in some way.

[alteredcourse]

This is completely irrevalent, but I really dont get a lot of pink floyd influence. I mean...I get a track here and there, but how theres this whole statement devoted to being into pink floyd and that representing something.....they (the mish mash) are either truly culturally vital, or the culture is continually dependant on vague constants. Who knows.

[ihateyouth]

Originally Posted by alteredcourse

they are either truly culturally vital, or the culture is continually dependant on vague constants. Who knows.

both.

[stu666]

10-12years old i was really into U2, then around '92 i got bitten by the Nirvana bug and the whole grunge thing and i built up a nice record collection with the likes of SY,Pixies Dinosaur Jr etc but even had older groups like the Rolling Stones, i was also heavily into all the "Riot Grrrl" stuff aswell and bought every Huggy Bear release. I was now about 14 and in my second year of high school i think and then something happend Kurt died and i stopped listening to Nirvana and got into Jungle and old skool Hardcore/Rave i sold almost every record i owned to buy illegal substances but for some reason i keeped all my SY stuff (thankfully!) even though i didn't really listen to it anymore, the last SY album i bought was EJSTANS and at the time i thought it wasn't very good, anyway after about 4 years of Drum 'n Bass i started to find it all boring, even now i think that DnB from 97 onwards is generally shit. Probably around 1998 i went through a phase of listening to a lot hip hop and also got into Aphex Twin. 2000 onwards was when i started listening to lots of "Noise". I am listening to a bit of everything now but SY have always and i think will always remain my fav, i'm so glad i didn't sell my SY collection but i did get rid of alot of rare vinyl which i am still regret and i'm trying to buy again, oh and i can now even appreciate EJSTANS now not one of their best but not shit either. I still really like Jungle from between 1991-1996.

[batreleaser]

4-7; the stones, led zeppelin, the kinks, van morrison, neil young, the who

7-10: sabbath, metallica, slayer, iron maiden

10-14: black flag, bad brains, dri, mdc, crass, punk pretty much

14-17: the velvet underground, the stooges, sonic youth, captain beefheart, albert ayler, coltrane, etc..

17-19: boredoms, sun city girls, teenage jesus and the jerks, to live and shave in la

20-21 (aka now): everything that doesn't suck, but mostly OUT shit

[atsonicpark]

Ah, batreleaser has the right idea.

4-7; guns n roses, metallica, the misfits (first tape i ever got that my stepdad gave me!), suicidal tendencies

7-10: slayer, iron maiden, black sabbath

10-14: pixies, melt banana, various grindcore bands, merzbow

14-17: boredoms, captain beefheart, polysics, william basinski, stereolab

17-19: slowdive, harry partch, sun city girls, stars of the lid, various no wave bands

20-22 (aka now): iannis xenakis, john fahey, robbie basho, six organs of admittance, etc.... also constantly in search for weird stuff.

[batreleaser]

nice comprehensive list, i tried to keep it as basic as possible.

[batreleaser]

Oh, I also wanted to mention, there isn't one band I mentioned that I don't listen to anymore, I still love all of those. I prolly listened to some real shit stuff to, just can't remember it.