Soundtrack To Your Life
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As some of you may know I am a huge music buff. It is one of my passions. I do not play any instruments, can't sing a note and certainly cant write a lyric. However, music brings out emotions in me that are are hard to replicate.
So this is what I would love to hear from you guys songs, albums, artists that have changed your life, molded you into what you are today or just bring back amazing memories. Im not looking for a top 10 list of your favorites. Im looking for the "Soundtrack to your Life"
I will start
Music came to me at a very early age probably around 4-5 years old. I remember my parents listerning to Skip James, Roy Orbison and Van Morrison all the time. Listening to these amazing song writers have always made me feel warm and at home. I listened to my parents music until the mid 80's. My parents always claimed they had the best music and to this day they may be right.
I started off strong listening to those classics and it went in the polar opposite direction when I started listening to music on my own. I found rap and was blown away. Not by the lyrics but by the culture and the beats. I grew up in a wealthy sub-urban area and never experienced the sound before and it was invigorating. Stand out's for me were Eric B & Rakim's Follow the Leader record holy shit was I floored by the machine gun beats. Also at that time loved EPMD. Erick Sermon and Parish Smith played so well off one another. I just couldnt get enough. I listened to rap music until I got to High School. This is were my appreciation for music once again changed.
Like the typical sad, unsure of himself young teen that felt the world was crumpling down on him. Enter The Cure, Nine Inch Nails and The Smiths. Pretty Hate Machine & The Queen is Dead just spoke to me. Just Couldn't get enough. As High School changed once again so did my musical taste. Holy fucking shit FUGAZI/JAWBREAKER/LEATHERFACE. This is what Im talking about I was an angsty lil' fucker and was ready to fucking destroy "The Man" I stayed this way until I went to college. The lyrics to "Chemistry" by Jawbreaker summed up my life back then.
This school's a living hell.
I work and don't get paid.
I smoke a lot but can't get laid.
Sit and stare, it's all we do.
All my friends are broken, too.
We're just waiting. Waiting to begin.College came and I found LSD at Green Mountain College in VT. I had a full basketball scholarship but all I wanted to do was do drugs, snowboard and listen to music. Hello Mr Al Jourgensen and Ministry. I remember my 1st time tripping and I thought Al was in the room only talking to me. I still get shivers up my spine any time I throw on Psalm 69 and Tool's Undertow.
Colllege ended and all of a sudden I found shoegazing soft lyrics amazing soaring guitars. I was in "Loveless" w/ My Bloody Valentine, and The Catherine Wheel just melted my face. Also fell in love with real "EMO" not the billshit they call emo nowadays btw labeling music sucks. Bands like Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral destroyed me listen to "Parking Lot" and you will know what Im talking about. I was a pretencious asshole ha.
Next came the Indie days. I was way to cool for school a legend in my own mind and Pavement was on my turntable non stop. To this day Wowee Zowee is still holds water.
Other highlights my wedding day, sat in a room with my best friend with Surfer Rosa by the Pixies on repeat for hours until he literally forced me leave to go to the ceremony.
Jake screaming Clutch lyrics in the backseat of my car
and most recently Phish wow phucking Phish who would have thought. This band brings me to present time I think Iron Heart, the Phorum and Phriends. I will leave you with the immortal words of Jake singing "The Wolfman's Brother"
"It's the wolfman's brother
going down on - going down on me"As you can see my musical taste is pretty eclectic but it is part of me. This is the Soundtrack to my Life.
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Nice, our soundtracks aren't entirely different. I'll contribute something here when I get an extra minute.
The current soundtrack is ringing in my ears and grinding teeth. And I still need more coffee
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Great new thread, looking forward to putting my musical life together (although most of you will probably never have heard the stuff from the early, prehistoric years)
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This is going to take me hours…!
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@BH I put this together with you, MikeC & Mega in mind
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Awesome D, I'll start this journey after I plow through some work here…
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Love it D666!
I first became aware of music in the mid-80s when my Mum would play George Benson, The Style Council and ABC, although she always reminds that I was often played Rod Stewart when very young to help me sleep. Luckily my memory doesn't go back that far. Hearing the Cafe Bleu album or Give Me The Night still takes me back to our old front room with the records playing on the big hi-fi stack.
I then started rifling through her record collection (wow, that Roxy Music album has women in their knickers on the cover!) discovering more stuff that I liked, such as The Doors, and disliked, thanks but no thanks Dire Straits. Time to take some of my paper round money and buy my own music then. I returned from Our Price with Madonna - Get Into The Groove and Duran Duran - The Reflex on 7" single. OK, not the best start but I still played them over and over again.
Next came my first Walkman and the appearance of BDP, Public Enemy and EPMD tapes at school. Like D666 this just blew my mind and before I knew it I was scratching my vinyl in time to the start of My Philosophy. I continued buying vinyl during this period with some highlights (for me at least) being Inner City - Paradise and De La Soul - A Roller Skating Jam Called Saturday.
Then, during my last year at school, tapes of Acid House and early Rave & Hardcore started appearing along with rumours of these all night parties on remote beaches or in abandoned warehouses. On attending my first one of these raves I heard my favourite styles of drum machine rhythms, such as those of Scott La Rock and Erick Sermon, combined with weird synthesised sounds and sampled vocals and loops etc. I was gobsmacked and starting hunting down these tracks, hoarding vinyl and calling myself a DJ.
My love for what eventually became known as Drum & Bass is still going strong over two decades later and is without doubt the soundtrack to my life. Labels like Reinforced Records, Metalheadz and Good Looking and artists like Goldie (before becoming too much of a celebrity), 4Hero, Hidden Agenda, Lemon D and Source Direct are constantly on my playlist whether i'm DJing, working out or strolling to work.
My passion for DJ'ing was soon replaced with wanting to make tracks like the ones I was buying hence my passion for drum machines, samplers and delay units. This then lead to my studying music technology for 5 years in total and working within the audio industry for the best part of a decade, before joining IH. So my passion for music has had a huge impact on my life!
Finally, the great thing about getting so involved in music that relied heavily on sampling meant that I also discovered other artists and songs that help to fill up my iPod. Herbie Hancock, King Tubby and Kraftwerk being some of the main culprits. Other stuff I love that deserves a mention includes Bernard Herrman, Mark Mothersbaugh, King Midas Sound, Boards Of Canada, Flying Lotus, Rancid and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
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kinda shocked i thought you guys would dig this. surprised not to see any love.
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You will…
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You know cc, Al Jorgensen just came out with his autobiography…
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Ole Alien Junkie… Love all the weird Chicago shit/people... him, Albini, Jesus Lizard, Pigface.... Such dark brilliance out of that scene...
I don't know when, probably this weekend, but I definitely look forward to sharing here.
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this thread will grow, be easy. would be great to add music clips to it.
this is my place marker . . .
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Growing up I was raised on the classics like Black Sabbath, The Doors, and Pink Floyd. I remember hearing "Supernaut" and "Sweet Leaf" (Not knowing at the time what it was about) and just falling in love with the sound. I used to play Master Of Reality over and over. To this day, it's one of my favorite records. The Doors I was introduced to by my grandpa. "LA Woman" and "The End" are powerful tracks that warped my ten year old mind. Same with The Animals, "House Of The Rising Sun." I used to burn those songs onto a CD and just listen for hours.
As I got older, I was drawn more into punk and hardcore. My first legitimate hardcore record was Black Flag's My War. It sucked me in like no other album, especially side-b. They had songs that expressed what I couldn't…. there's this claustrophobic anxiety that just permeates from "Nothing Left Inside" and "Scream." And then I fell down the rabbit hole to speak and absorbed everything I could like Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Flipper, and Poison Idea. Black Flag though helped me through some tough times.
I moved onto more current bands like Haymaker, World Burns To Death, Pulling Teeth, and discovered Integrity which like Black Flag was a revelation. Here was a band that had this strange and mysterious history with killer riffs and gnarly vocals. It took all over a minute into "Mischa" for me to become completely obsessed. Through World Burns To Death, I learned about classic Japanese hardcore like G.I.S.M., Death Side, Forward, Poison (Arts), etc. As well as Japanese hardcore, WB2D introduced me to bands like Anti-Cimex, Wolfbrigade, and that killer d-beat sound. They also got me into record collecting.
Stepping away from the foreign punk, I was enthralled by Converge's Jane Doe. It was so chaotic and savage yet everything gelled to create this masterpiece. So alongside the classic 80s bands, there was definitely a heavy amount of bands like The Dillinger Escape Plan and Converge. I still remember listening to a mix-CD of Jane Doe and Starkweather's Into The Wire on a road trip to Vermont when I was like fourteen or fifteen.
That being said I was introduced to my favorite band via Integrity. Gehenna were listed as a 'holy terror' band so I checked them out. I bought their early discography LP, put it on and was just blown away. The sheer brutality in songs like "83%" and "Dead Shell" was unparalleled. I immediately bought everything I could and amassed an insane collection of test presses, odd covers, rare bits and pieces. I sold a majority of them since but still have some of the rarer ones. After getting into contact with the members, I found a ton of great music.... from hip hop rarities to garage rock. I'm proud to say I've seen them a handful of times live and the never disappoint.
Integrity also made me check out the weirder side of Cleveland punk like The Inmates, Cider, H-100s, and Gordon Solie Motherfuckers!. While punk has pretty much dominated my musical interest, I've always had a love for rap. Perhaps it was watching Baker skateboard videos and late night music videos... I don't know but whenever I'd grow bored, I'd go the solid choices like Three 6 Mafia, Ol' Dirty Bastard, and Wu-Tang Clan.
In the last couple years, I've really liked bands like High On Fire, Sleep, Doomriders, and Kylesa. Crazy riffs are always appreciated. "Darkness Comes Alive" didn't leave my car stereo for a good two months. Every day I'd jam out to it.
Yet I still like to switch things up and try different genres. Whether it's an electropop group like Chromatics or classic Johnny Cash, it's all good. But I'm still a hardcore kid at heart.
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the first song i can clearly remember and i HATED IT was canary in a coalmine by the police
my mother was obsessed with this track and played it over and over again (side note i fucking LOVE the police now including this track
my first concert ever was glass tiger on the thin red line tour
i was in grade 3
so as a kid my grandparents had a trailer at the beach and me and my brother spent all summer there from the age of 4 until 10 i believe
this place very much shaped us, from my grand mother playing her patsy cline, tom jones and other oldies
to the older brothers of some of our friends introducing us to stuff
at the age of seven my favorite albums were gnr's welcome to the jungle, the smiths the queen is dead and ice t's o.g. original gansta
i remember smoking my first joint at the ripe age of 10 at a beach party while we had the lies album on repeat
i also remember hear just dont bite it for the first time hahaha
then came some confusing years of liking whatever was on the radio
hearing immigrant song for the first time around 12 blew my fucking mind
i dont think anything was the same after that song
enter the grunge years and a unrelenting love of cypress hill
but it wasnt enough, something was missing
i hit highschool
i was introduced to slayer, biohazard, sepultura, white zombie and nailbomb
fuck i loved nailbomb and white zombie
i was also at this time really starting to get into nine inch nails, marylin manson, ministry, and the revolting cocks
i remember the crow sound track being super important
then some friends started getting me into punk rock
the cramps, misfits, sex pistols and the ramones, fugazi.
around this time i started getting into some dumb shit and found myself on the wrong side of the law, whoops. 15 and dumb
being in computer class one day and we were discussing that none of us had ever heard the bad brains only heard of them
i had been looking for something heavier then punk but with a punk attitude and no bullshit guitar wanking
i was at the local cd store when i came across this compilation that had one bad brains song and a bunch of shit id never heard of, but it was 5 bucks and there was no highspeed interenet, shit i think we only had midi files anyways then
that cd was victory style 3
man my mind imploded
had i just stumbled across exactly what id been after?
when track one hit me square in the face the answer was yes
i quickly proceeded to get a victory catalog and order a shit ton of records
at this time i spent a fair amount of time in chatrooms discussing hardcore with others
this lead me to find other bands, poison the well, bane, converge, buried alive
and of course i started to get into a lot of real emo , the get up kids, braid, and the promise ring
as most hc kids know you end up with a lot of compilations in your collections, enter hot water music and small brown bikeafter that came a few years of ocd like behavior over bands like saetia, neil perry, the orchid, joshua fit for battle, you and i. all that stuff (yes i still have most of those lp's and 7's and other obscure shit)
then came a thundering return to loving hardcore, fueled by terror
now i started to return to those compilations at this time and fell in love with a band called rumbleseat
i was also super into johnny cash at the time
so enter my current ocd obsessions with everything chuck ragan and everything lucero
which obviously got me hooked on jawbreaker again
shortly after that i got obsessed with knowing where everything came from
that lead me back to the stiff little finger, bruce springsteen, the velvet underground, desmond dekker, robert johnson and so on
plus a huge love of "outlaw country"
and i'll leave you with this gem
hope you guys enjoyed
i know im missing some shit
i may edit -
Bravo Nate, very well done. Looking forward to seeing more.
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^^
Fucking incredible. Thank you for that. -
glad you guys enjoyed my little run down memory lane
looking forward to yours joe
and riffblaster generals
and black hearts
and wolfbloodsFUCK i can not believe i wrote that whole thing and never once mentioned my undying man crush on otis redding
fuck
in my eyes hands down thee greatest male vocalist ever
but thats just me
my obsession may have start with the first time i saw top gun
but i probably heard dock of the bay threw my grandmother before that
who knows -
Phew - amazing contributions here.
When I get around to putting my soundtrack together it's going to be very tame by comparison!
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Great Thread. I'll start putting mine together
