music geek part I

who's your favorite band???

that was a question i started asking in junior high. we all had our favorite bands, we'd write their names on our paper-bag covered text books. and as an adult, i still love music and am interested in finding out what music people are listening to.

recently i asked a girl at work what kind of music she liked and she answered, "oh, whatever's on the radio!" i was stunned. i asked, "well, if you had to pick a band or an album, what would be your favorite?" she looked me right in the eye and said, "i'm not that into music. i don't pay attention. i guess U2 or coldplay. aren't they what's popular?"

i knew then that there was something very wrong with this girl (but i'll save that for another time.) her disturbing answer got me to thinking about how i came to like the music i listen to now. what influenced me? what did i like early on?

my earliest memories of music are from when i was about 5 years old (1975) riding around in my parents van. i remember not liking the modern country music they played (good old WGAR in cleveland.) but i loved the 8 track they had of hank williams (senior, not junior!) i'd beg them to play "jumbalaya" over and over. i can remember loving his strange, high lonesome voice. around this time we moved to kentucky and i remember driving through the hills and asking my dad to play the jim croce 8-track again and again.

in 1978 we were back in cleveland and in a new house (in willowick). i got my own alarm clock with a radio too. i can remember being blown away at the idea that i could turn the dial and hear all kinds of music, people talking, and on clear nights a spanish station! i became obsessed with the local rock station and even called in to win a fleetwood mac album (i don't think they knew i was only 8!) i remember my mom and dad driving us into inner city cleveland to try and find the radio station. we gave up and i went home without my "rumors" LP, devastated.

i got my first stereo around this time. i went to "peaches" record store with my dad and bought my first album, olivia newton john's "have you ever been mellow". i remember having the soundtrack to "grease" and every wacky k-tell album of songs like "monster mash" and "my ding-a-ling". my mom tried to slip in a few leif garrett and andy gibb albums (she claims that's what other little girls were listening to) but i wasn't interested.

there were 2 songs that really got me, that blew me away and had me obsessed. blondie's "heart of glass" and billie joel's "honesty". i am guessing this is around 1980 (10 years old...) these were the songs that made me save my paper route money and start spending it all at the record store. the blondie album and the birth of MTV got me interested in "new wave" bands like thompson twins and berliin. billy joel just possessed me. i eventually taught myself to play piano and my parents gave in and bought me a piano.

i loved billy joel's music and collected every album, dragged my mom to shows and evetually learned to play his music on piano. this lasted from the late 70's well into the early 80's. his marriage to christie brinkey and subsequent sell-out, bullshit song "uptown girl" broke my heart. i put billy joel aside, but a few albums since then have yielded some decent songs. some day i shall blog my "super excellant billy joel song list", another time.

continuing in my "new wave" interested, i got interested in duran duran, INXS and REM. the "pretty in pink" soundtrack came out and introduced me to the smiths, which lead to the cure, cocteau twins, and siousxie and the banshees. by junion year of high school i was considered "the weird punk girl" because of my affinity for black clothes, leggings, and cure t-shirts.

around this time i stumbled up tom waits, on an old episode of "night flight". i saw the video for "in the neighborhood" and couldn't believe what i was hearing. that strange raspy voice, and a song that sounded like a weird old german oompa- marching tune.

from here i went off to college, with my tom waits cassettes, morrissey posters, and a cassette tape my friend mark had made me; one side was nanci griffith and the other lyle lovett. these 2 were part of a folk-country-rock revival out of texas. maybe it was my early days of hank williams and jim croce that made me love this music so much. it was country music, but more folky and alternative. i came to love nanci and lyle, and discovered musicians like john prine, lucinda williams, and john hiatt. this music still remains a part of my life, along with "newcomers" like ryan adams and hem.

bands like the cure and the smiths broke up, and i found new bands like his name is alive, radiohead and moloko. and in the last year, groundcat and i were able to see tom waits and lyle lovett in concert!!! it's funny to think i've listened to their music for 15-20 years now....

so that's my musical journey...... i'd like to see what everyone else comes up with for their own. get to blogging!!!!! and you're welcome for all the damn links!