evolution of a music nerd...

i know i've talked about my love of music on past posts.  and i'm too lazy to look them up to see what i talked about.

lately i've been listening to satellite radio, a station called "the bridge".  it's soft rock, singer song writer stuff.  the music i grew up listening to.

music was always a big deal to me, even as a small child.  i was obsessed with an 8 track my parents had of hank williams.  i think that 8 track of old hank singing his lonesome tunes was my first musical obsession.  i must have been around 4 or 5 years old.

when i was 6 we moved to kentucky.  i remember driving through the hills of appalachia with my dad, listening to jim croce.  "operator" was such a sad song.  and "bad bad leroy brown" was hilarious.  we'd sing out loud to that one.

my next musical memory is when we moved back to ohio.  my parents bought a house in willowick and let me have the large attic bedroom.  i also got my first radio.  i was 8 years old, and that clock radio blew my mind!  i couldn't believe all the free music, different stations, DJs who were interesting, it was all in that small clock radio.

here's a pic of me in my new bedroom, back in 1978, before we painted and decorated.

the song that changed my life:  billy joel's "honesty".  i can remember hearing it, sitting on my bed in that attic bedroom, in that new & strange house.  i LOVED that song.  and so began my billy joel obsession.  i bought every one of his albums, and learned to play piano.

in 1980 we got cable and MTV.  so much good music!  i loved new wave.  berlin "metro" was an obsession.  i think my mom bought me the cassette and put it in my easter basket.  i loved john waite's "missing you", the thompson twins, "der kommissar"(the version by after the fire, not falco.)  frankie goes to hollywood, hall & outs, til tuesday, etc...

by high school i was ready for something new.  i fell in love with the soundtrack to "pretty in pink".  i was mesmerized by the final track, "please please please let me get what i want" by the smiths.  i'd never heard anything like it.

so the smiths became my obsession, along with REM, the cure, and the cocteau twins.  MTV's "120 minutes" became a sunday night ritual.

i discovered tom waits, kate bush, bjork, so many alternative musicians, some that i still listen to today, some 25 years later.

this post is too long, but i guess i'll publish, with some random pics!