Early Music Memories

My musical taste in life has changed several times adjusting to the times, the radio stations' preferences, and to what my family is listening to.  Now in my life, I can say I have a variety of tastes in music, at least a little bit.  I try not to get stuck in one place for so long, but I would like to find a genre to call home.  As I grew up, I tended to go with either the crowd or what my family liked.  I was lucky though that my family had pretty good taste in music. 

As a kid, the earliest music I can remember other than Raffi would have to be the White Album by the beetles.  I don't know why, but this album I can remember listening to as far back as I know.  But, after listening to this music for so long, I think I just got a little tired of it or something because after awhile any Beetles song just seemed boring.  I guess listening to music that was written during a time of heavy drug use and social conflict might come across as boring.  I can say though that now I do not believe that they are not boring.  By about the age of seven or eight, I believe the Rolling Stones and the Allman Brother Band started getting played or at least I remember them getting played.  My dad would play them on all road trips.  To me during the early and mid 90's, it didn't seem like there was any other music around.  I can't tell you any of the musicians that were around then except for Michael Jackson.   Even then, I could tell something was up with him.  Honestly, I remember two songs from that time, Zoot Suit Riot by god knows who and that Michael Jackson song for Free Willy. 

I don't know the exact year, but when the late 90's pop star revival happened, you know with all the rejects from Star Search and the Mickey Mouse Club, I took a step back from music that was popular which still affects me to this day.  All that crap just came across to me as crap(pardon my simplicity).  It wasn't music, it was, is, an abomination created by the record companies to make money.  Well, at least they got there's with karma; online downloading of music has hurt them terribly.  I started listening to bands that were on a rock radio station called Kroq.  Not bad for the time.  They played many different stuff from Nirvana and Weezer to Sublime and Blink -182.   For a time, I thought Blink-182 was so good, but now looking back at it, they sucked, a lot.  I did and still do love Sublime and Weezer though, so for that, I am grateful to Kroq.  Kroq itself slowly has become a radio station in the last few years that stuck with the same music it played in the 90's.  The music they play now is bad and I believe they know it.  I can see that station turing into a 90's rock station very soon, if it technically is not one already.

Entering the 2000's, Kroq still ruled my life, but music like Led Zeppelin, Donovan, CCR, Cream, The Steve Miller Band, Traffic, Beck, Bob Dylan, The White Strips, and specifically Jethro Tull start getting to me.  I only say specifically Jethro Tull because I can clearly remember listening to them for the first time.  I heard the on the way to my drum practice and I kept asking my dad who was this and he always told me, yet I usually ended up forgetting the name within a few days.  I don't listen to them quite that much now, but the were the beginning of a different music wave in my life.  Listening to that group of music eventually lead my to groups like Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, AC/DC, the Band, David Bowie, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Johnny Cash, and Eric Clapton and all his endeavors.  He has been in 9 major music groups since 1963 not to mention several studio appearances for albums which include, if you didn't know, even the Beetles.  I hung around this group for a good while along with the other guys that were played on Kroq.

Not until maybe half way through high school did I really change what I listen to and to this day still listen to.  My brother's friend, Nick, was a huge Phish phan, but with their demise, had to change and find a new band; he did.  Wilco.  He subsequently got my brother hooked on them and eventually me as well.  I listened to their album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  The first 2 times I listened to it, I really didn't know what to think.  Even for all the music I had ever listened to, I had never listened to a band like them.  I still don't know what it is, but by the 3rd time I listened to it, it hit me that this was good, really good.  I can only describe it as everything that pop music and crapy late 90's music wasn't.  To be completely honest, the singer is absolutely atune, without tune.  It is conventional and unconventional all at once.  They were the beginning of a new wave of music for me, a wave that is still washing over me.  They have lead to bands like Of Montreal, Radiohead, and LCD Soundsystem.  They say that the music taste of your 20's is the musical taste of your life and I hope for it to stay this way.  I really wouldn't mind having this kind of music the same sort I am listening to in 30 years.