Where were you in...

i had graduated 8th grade from a local catholic school but was switching to the local high school as a freshman later that fall as i was 14 in newport vermont and working my first job with my states summer youth program cleaning school buses at the local high school and making money just in time for the movie breakin to come out and suddenly i and my friends were born again as we had never seen or heard anything like this before and my friends and i were instantly transformed into breakdancers getting everything we could find about it including music videos books boomboxes clothes sneakers and then i was off to see my cousins in amityville new york and gobbling up whatever i could find to feed this new craze at the busy bee mall and the massapequa sunrise mall and the wiz and then back to newport vermont to share my goods at others amazement as i was the tape jockey and mainly at the time i had soundtracks and many compilations to help explore better before focusing more on specific artists later and then we had an article in the local paper and danced at the local summer fest on the closed off main st as that was the best month of my life!

In 1984 I was 12. I was listening to pop and classic rock radio but my favorite band was Judas Priest — I had a half dozen of their albums already (Unleashed in the East, Hell Bent for Leather, British Steel, Point of Entry, Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith). I had a slightly older friend who had introduced me to some punk (Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Flipper) and I might have heard that Suicidal Tendencies song. I think I already had a copy of the Clash's London Calling, too, because I had really liked "Rock the Casbah" when it was a top 40 hit and had borrowed the cassette of Combat Rock from the local library several times.