it's always intersting to hear how people got into music. what was their first band they loved. i know somone who first listened to hardcore and speedmetal, then changed to free jazz and now is completely into bach and classical music.
so what is your musical "socialisation"? what were the band/songs/artist that changed your way of listening to music, youre way of thinking/living etc.?

for me it was like this:

stones with 9 (didnt know about sex and drugs, but i felt the energy of it, and i knew its gonna be the soundtrack to my live))

sex pistols, dead kennedys with 12 (the anger of punk really impressed me)

hendrix (and lots of other blues/rock stuff)with 13 (started playing guitar because of him)

acdc with 15 (funny that i got into them after the punk-period)

guns n roses

nirvana with 18 (grunge is the soundtrack for all 90ies teenagers)

of course i loved and listened to many other bands and artists (including jazz, folk, metal, classical), but nothing touched me as deep as those artists.

what about you??

More styles... Glam & hardrock generally when young.
New wave and punk later on. Eventually more and more styles have gathered in me.

never really charted my path.

age 5 - heard the carpenters and really loved them - im on top of the world
age 6 - overheard 'sounds of silence' being played in a neighbors house - haunting
age 5-12 easy rider sd trk and sgt peppers - everyday before school - mainly beatles, 70s disco, soul, some early new wave - but music was dead in my town. it was a struggle.
age 13 the police - reggatta de blanc and zenyatta mondatta - pirated tapes - blew my mind for the first time. smart rock i thought.
age 14 - 'urgh its a music war' came through my small town and i watched four or five times. deal sealed - i was educated. highly recommend this film. got to thank ian copeland (rip) for it later.
age 15 - drum lessons - quit after one lesson the dude wanted me to play breakfast in america. i wanted to play jam covers. saw david bowie play.
age 16 - found old drumset dragged it back- as charlie says - my parents both deserve medals. learned a lot of material with headphones playing after school, sometimes with cops interrupting. pests.
age 17 - formed high school rock band and played live for the first time. first song we played was 'rescue' by echo and the bunnymen. thrills.

i still play and music is still a big part of my life.

Born in an Eastern Europe Country, communist way of living, no western music allowed.
11 years old, first Beatles tape, the first notes of Beatles For Sale, that was the start of everything.
14 years old, learned every Beatles' song, every note and word; discovered the Stones, Rolled Gold, you know...
High School,1983,17 years old; my mother bought my first guitar; then she buyed from Vienna a book: The Rolling Stones Complete, with sheet music and words; this is how I learned to play. This is also how I learned English. My only English teachers were the Beatles and the Stones; now I live a good live using my English skills.
During high school, discovered the big music: Zeppelin, Hendrix, The Doors, Deep Purple. Saw The Last Waltz by Scorsese about 20 times in theatre before going to archive.
During the university: played guitar at home, at school, in the mountains...
Then the revolution days were coming... communism was out...
Started working in television, broadcast engineering: most of my rock idols visited my country, I was in charge with technical setup to do big TV recordings: Page+Plant, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Paul Rodgers.
One day, in the summer of 1995, went on a bus to Budapest to see my lifetime idols.
Another day, in the summer of 2007, they came to play in front of my home...
To be continued...

If you speak about Hungary it werent forbidden to go see AC/DC at the
Cinema of Miskolc back in 1982. But Western records costed a fortune.

I think the androgyny of beat group was compelling to me as a 6 year old. I obviously didn't think this back when I saw footage of the Beatles at Shea, then watched the Monkees obsessively for 2 years. By '69 or so I knew the Monkees were 'bubblegum' (or so I read, there was REAL rock n roll out there!)...So I explored "heavier" groups who had hits I liked - Steppenwolf, Creedence, at first and picking up the drums I got into Cream and Ginger Baker, and soon The Stones. Xmas '70 I got "Through the Past Darkly" and the cover - the Stones - was almost as potent as the music.

Age 5? - Dropping the needle on my mother's Elvis and Buddy Holly records.
Age 8? - Seen The Beatles movie Help!.
Age 10? - Seen the movie Gimme Shelter.
Age 11 - picked up a guitar so I could learn 'Satisfaction'.

Not Hungary, Baboon. I live in Romania. Western music was not really.. forbidden. It was simply not available. In 1983 we had Smokie and The Boomtown Rats in concert, in Bucharest; those were the last important gigs until 1989.
LP's were available through black market only, costed a fortune as you mentioned.
Had to travel 2000 km to and from my first Stones concert.

Re my androgyny comment, people who werent there may not realize what a big deal - how subversive - "long hair" (remember 'Are You A Boy or Are You A Girl?") was in the mid 60s.

Brrr... But are you of Hungarian origin, or 'pure' Romanian?

I find now that Kadar, Hungarians current president at time,
must have changed policy 3-4-5 times from mid-70s to mid-80s.
(I once stumbled over an interesting web-article about that
particular system, odd in its relative flexibility.
I will try to re-find this article.)

All my favorite Hungarian groups were totally underground and forbidden
till circa 1980. After that followed an extreme explosion.

.. Do you know if the increasing charter-tourism to the Black Sea
in the late 70s-early 80s made some more Western music streamin' into the country?

Let's see, I'm 52. The folks used to take me to their rehersal halls while my mother practiced the leads for musicals, my dad was in the orchestra. I recall sitting in smokey coffee houses with beatniks around 1959-60 while my dad played in folk combos. I recall sitting next to my dad (percussionest) in orchestra pits. Recall my dad taking me to see the movie Nat King Cole which impressed me. Other than that I rode the typical NA wave of do-wap to rock, to pop, acid rock (now metal), on and on.

Naaah......

Quote
grizzlybear
Not Hungary, Baboon. I live in Romania. Western music was not really.. forbidden. It was simply not available. In 1983 we had Smokie and The Boomtown Rats in concert, in Bucharest; those were the last important gigs until 1989.
LP's were available through black market only, costed a fortune as you mentioned.
Had to travel 2000 km to and from my first Stones concert.

respect - were all here on the same page - no matter what roads we took.

We have a free country but some of us still have to travel 3,000 km to
to the nearest Stones show. Same or worse in Finland & Norway.

age 9 - A friend told me to watch Ed Sullivan because this group called the Beatles we going to be on.
A few weeks later I discovered radio station KRLA, and before you know it, I was into the whole British invasion thing.

age 11 - my parents bought me my first guitar; Tom Dooley was the first song I learned.

age 13 - I won tickets to see Hendrix at the Hollywood Bowl. I was lucky my parents didn't mind driving me to these events. A month after Hendrix, I saw Cream, then the Doors and so forth and so on.

age 14 - I formed my first rock band.

5-10 y o: Most inspired by Beatles-albums
10 y o - now: Most inspired by Stones-albums

Instruments:
7- 14 y o: Classical piano.
14 - 19 y o: Guitar
19 - now: Guitar and vocals

Age 5-7: Love Me Do, Yellow Submarine, Take It To The Limit.
Age 11: Whitesnake's Hear I Go Again transformed me into what I am today.
Age 13: AC/DC, especially the Dirty Deeds album. Also, bought Steel Wheels and received the London Years for Christmas that year.
Age 14-17: Nirvana, all thru the high school years. Was so enladened with my own drug use and tried heroin because Kurt did it. Came close to throwing my own life away after he did. Thankfully I came out of it OK.
Age 16: Bought Neil Young's Harvest Moon, which is to this day my one album I couldn't live without. Absolute masterpiece.
Age 18: Bought and wore out Voodoo Lounge on Cassette, increasing my love of a band whose catalogue I'd yet to fully discover.
Age 21: Saw the Stones in concert for the first time at the old Foxboro stadium on the Bridges tour. The Stones have been cemented has my all-time favorite band ever since, not only knocking the Beatles out of the top spot, but off of the chart all together.

There have been many other moments along the way, but I'd say those are the defining ones.

Pre-school - Stones, "Little Old Lady From Pasadena", Beatles, British Invasion, Beach Boys

Elemenatry school - Stones, CCR, Steppenwolf, 3 Dog Night, etc.

High school - Stones, Zep, Kiss, Southern rock, bluegrass

Since then - Stones, classic country, blues

First song I learned to play on guitar was "Get Drunk & Screw" by Jimmy Buffett - no barre chords!

Love most types of music except opera. Not much grunge or rap though.

"No Anchovies, Please"

Quote
Baboon Bro
Brrr... But are you of Hungarian origin, or 'pure' Romanian?

I find now that Kadar, Hungarians current president at time,
must have changed policy 3-4-5 times from mid-70s to mid-80s.
(I once stumbled over an interesting web-article about that
particular system, odd in its relative flexibility.
I will try to re-find this article.)

All my favorite Hungarian groups were totally underground and forbidden
till circa 1980. After that followed an extreme explosion.

.. Do you know if the increasing charter-tourism to the Black Sea
in the late 70s-early 80s made some more Western music streamin' into the country?

Well...let's see...
Born in Bucharest, no Hungarian origin for me...
No touristic influence in the underground music market during the mentioned period.
Another important effect: due to the lack of resources and to the extreme censorship, only the best local bands were able to succeed; therefore most of the local bands were excellent. Some of them playing pure rock and roll or hard rock; others mixing rock with traditional elements and folklore.
I know the same happened in other East European countries, like Hungary or Eastern Germany. There were beautiful groups like Omega in Hungary or Die Puhdys. A kind of music never played since...
What I may add, that at the Black Sea, in the disco's, you could eventually hear Miss You during the late 70's. Not a big delight for the fans



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008-01-22 22:59 by grizzlybear.

Any good Romanian music from the heydays you could post?

3-5 yrs old -johnny cash-buck owens
6-8 yrs old monkees and baycity rollers
9-12 yrs old funk and disco music
13 waylon jennings
14 rolling stones
many others after that

Quote
Baboon Bro
Any good Romanian music from the heydays you could post?

Take a look at this link: [www.radio3net.ro]
An online radio with a great archive of Romanian rock music.
Look for Phoenix ( album "Cantafabule") and for Sfinx ( album "Zalmoxe" ).
Phoenix, they have a nice history. Started in 1962 ( like another big band ), they had a big success during the 70's. Their concerts were forbidden after 1976, they run away from the country in 1977, in an equipment truck, hidden in the loudspeakers boxes. They came back in the country after 1989, still having big success and big shows.

Just listen to "Invoca?ie" from the album Cantafabule I impressed

__________________________

For me it really started with the Stones. I must have been around 6 years old when hanging out with my cousin and hearing him play Still Life and Tattoo You. Around 1983... And I managed to get hooked at the time the Stones were releasing things like Rewind and Dirty Work...

I remember buying Jagger's She's The Boss and renting Running Out of Luck... so if those years got me into the Stones I guess you can say it was bound to happen sooner or later.

- 6 years old : starting playing piano ( classical composers years later)

- 10 years old : an older cousin made me listen to " Carol". That never left me since then.

i started piano when i was 4 and was forced to play for 10 years. could play chopin's minute waltz in under a minute. now i can barely play chop sticks.

age 10 - found a manfred mann 45 in an alley - blinded by the light. at the same age, changed my mom's radio channel - heard "lay down sally" by EC.

age 11 - shattered and miss you on the radio, along with foreigner's hot blooded. i never looked back after that.

I got into music, really, through the Stones. I learnt about them around 1990, when I was 15. At school I met another fan (I lost contact with him since - a real shame) and we traded the albums as we bought the complete discography. I went back to guitar - a less formal approach than when I started around 12 - and by 1992 was reading everything about Keith and the Stones.

Keith interviews were really interesting and I started to dig their influences and who they had influenced. Most of my musical knowledge was build that way, around the Stones mostly. Keith "passed it on" to me.

I feel lucky I was able to discover some great music on my own and "pass it on" to them. And very proud that some of the stuff was appreciated, or so it seems.

It started with Stones and Troggs in the 60s.Then came CHAMPION JACK DUPREE and John Mayall.In the 70s turned to Amon Duul2 ,Magma,Hakwind,Embryo and many other continental bands.With B2B and ABB i remembered my old love again.