How did you get to what you listen today?

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: ordinaryman.

[Deleted User]

I am fascinated, interested in how people got to the music that they listen to now What came before and led you there. Where did you start? What piece of music/style in particular sent you down your current road? As for me? I bounce around, even after all these years. The music that is familiar is precious, the new rewarding. 

uglymusic

I blame Dave Brubeck, Van Morrison and Johnny Rotten.
I'll leave you with that thought because I have food to cook 

Docfoster

ordinaryman said:

I am fascinated, interested in how people got to the music that they listen to now What came before and led you there. Where did you start? What piece of music/style in particular sent you down your current road? As for me? I bounce around, even after all these years. The music that is familiar is precious, the new rewarding. 

Unusually for me, I can remember this very clearly.
Not just the band or the song, but the specific moment into the video for this song when it was first shown on ITV’s The Chart Show in 1990.
1:50 into this…
https://youtu.be/Y3ixEzKA4k0

 
At 16 I thought that motor bike riding over the song’s drop out was the coolest moment in human history.

Before that moment I was only into late 60s rock, pop and blues. Beatles, Hendrix, Cream and early Fleetwood Mac.
Primal Scream’s Loaded instantly interested me in indie, sampling, soul-funk, percussion and dance. Just like that.
i haven’t really moved on very far in 32 years.

[Deleted User]

In my youth I used to go to a hairdresser/barber on Ealing Broadway called (I think) Miguel's Late 60s/ 70s. Anyway the only barber that I ever encountered who had a turntable on there premises, something Michell as I recall. He would get into into cutting your hair and stop to turn the album over. On one day he put on a John Mc Laughlin record on and that was it, changed my perception of what could be considerably. God bless him.

cj66

Mine was mainly by influence. Obviously as a youngster I was into much of the current pop of the times. However, having elder brothers meant I heard a back log of earlier stuff, us their tastes were already maturing so mine was hastened.

A very early exposure to prog. and heavy rock along with early days of bands like The Stranglers who were local boys for me.

All this music I still enjoy to this day.

Another great influence was my music teacher at school, who in hindsight chose some fantastic classical pieces to educate the young philistines,  mostly pearls before swine but a goodly amount stuck with me.

My father rarely played any music at all and my mother was mainly into the female version of crooners of that time. Elkie Brookes, Barbara Streisand, Crystle Gayle etc. I wasn't impressed at the time but have a secret pleasure for some of these now!

Then a general maturing and expansion of tastes since.

AntiCrap

Living with a Opera singer (mum), then married to one once.

Docfoster

ordinaryman said:

In my youth I used to go to a hairdresser/barber on Ealing Broadway called (I think) Miguel's Late 60s/ 70s. Anyway the only barber that I ever encountered who had a turntable on there premises, something Michell as I recall. He would get into into cutting your hair and stop to turn the album over. On one day he put on a John Mc Laughlin record on and that was it, changed my perception of what could be considerably. God bless him.

Sounds like a cool barber shop! :-)

Docfoster

cj66 said:

Mine was mainly by influence. Obviously as a youngster I was into much of the current pop of the times. However, having elder brothers meant I heard a back log of earlier stuff, us their tastes were already maturing so mine was hastened.

A very early exposure to prog. and heavy rock along with early days of bands like The Stranglers who were local boys for me.

All this music I still enjoy to this day.

Another great influence was my music teacher at school, who in hindsight chose some fantastic classical pieces to educate the young philistines,  mostly pearls before swine but a goodly amount stuck with me.

My father rarely played any music at all and my mother was mainly into the female version of crooners of that time. Elkie Brookes, Barbara Streisand, Crystle Gayle etc. I wasn't impressed at the time but have a secret pleasure for some of these now!

Then a general maturing and expansion of tastes since.

I’m struck by how many of these posts tell of how music is something that is passed along social connections. And then makes those connections stronger.

Docfoster

AntiCrap said:

Living with a Opera singer (mum), then married to one once.

Did you sing the bass parts…?

[Deleted User]

Wow, did you manage to get to hear your mother on full song? I hope you did. Though not a great opera fan I hope one day to experience it, if possible. Its on my "bucket list"

AntiCrap

Docfoster said:

AntiCrap said:

Living with a Opera singer (mum), then married to one once.

Did you sing the bass parts…?

I did on Christmas carol days out, manly grunts. like grrrrrrrr hic 

uglymusic

I tried to answer this one on the same day as the original post and found the answer to be too complicated for a few words; I said 'I blame Dave Brubeck, Van Morrison and Johnny Rotten' and went off to make dinner.

Dave Brubeck and Van Morrison—Take Five and Moondance were the jazz tracks that followed me for almost as long as I can remember. There was almost always the radio on in the house. Pirate radio and Luxembourg, then Radio 1.

In my early teens, my friends were into prog. Yes, Genesis, ELP, Gentle Giant and all that stuff. It never did much for me. I wasn’t cool. 

What I did find was Steely Dan. Pretzel Logic. WTF was that about? The album had a Duke Ellington number and track about Charlie Parker. And Becker and Fagwn talked a lot about their jazz influences. 

I started exploring jazz, but I didn’t find much I liked in the stuff Becker and Fagen raved about. I started listening to jazz-rock and jazz-funk.

Then there was the stuff on the radio. With hindsight, there was a lot of soul and related music—Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder etc. Along with Little Feat and their fantastic rhythms.

Then we get to Johnny Rotten… I never got on with punk. I escaped into free jazz and improv; it made far more alarming noises. Friends and family agreed ;-)

It was also about this time when I went to university and found friends with other non-mainstream music interests. We explored jazz and folk, Zappa and Bach through the night.

Sometimes it's been live music that has brought the breakthroughs. Other times, it's been playing an album over and over until it makes sense. Or putting the thing aside as too difficult for the moment, sometimes for years until its time came.

Right from the start, music has been exploration. It still is. I burrow deeper and deeper into jazz, leaving world music and rock interests on the side as I find more and more to interest me.