How did you discover not-chart pop music?

a. fellow student letting me listen to his tapes (ministry, fugazi, dead kennedys) on the bus during a french field trip.

b. seeking out every interview or article on public enemy circa 1990/1991 and following up all the artists mentioned therein that i could.

c. my best friend in junior high having an older cousin who was kind enough to drag the two of us along to shows and let us touch his record collection.

d. same best friend dragging me to raves in early high school.

community radio and all the ace music shows on the ABC (the factory, countdown revolution, and of course RAGE)

I heard a Leftfield track (it was Storm 3000) on a compilation advertised on TV when I was like 14 and subsequently (about six months later) bought Leftism.

From there I think it was a case of going to the cd shop and telling them I liked Leftfield and getting them to recommend me other stuff, which led me to the electronic side of things.

About six years on, the local alternative radio station (and my younger (!) brother playing my Come On Die Young) led me to guitar stuff.

i didn't have anyone like strongo's fellow students and friends with non-chart pop taste. i *was* those people to others.

The German music station Viva Zwei, which we managed to pick up when we installed Sky.

encouraged by the following people:

1. older step-sister who liked Prince, Tom Petty, Violent Femmes and Black Flag.
2. music teacher who liked Clash and Psychedelic Furs.
3. guy who worked at my mom's place of business who bought a stake in the local punk rock dive and told me about Rollins Band playing the first all-ages show there in ages, back in like June of 1988.

also, read a lot of stuff. Even the crappy local paper had the occasional blurb on Squirrel Bait or something.

outing myself as a huge geek: meeting up w/ a guy on IRC one night who was massively into the smiths as I mentioned that I was listening to my sisters best of.. v.1. In turn, he got me into tons of stuff like joy division/new order/electronic, dmode, the cure, bauhaus, etc.

in the past 5 years or so, AMG is pretty good if you mention a band like one of the above and read about bands in the 'related artists' category..

Sydney radio, especially midnight-to-dawn. Tuxedomoon, SPK, Nurse With Wound, Severed Heads, Throbbing Gristle, DAF... I was in heaven. Still am.

Public School and the public library did for me at 13 or so. At school there was music playing all day and you couldn't help but like some of it. At home I didn't know many people so I spent all day reading library books and gradually started borrowing tapes too. I'm pretty sure my intro to 'indie' was The Smiths, but I'd had a short classic rock phase before that and been exposed to stuff like Blue Oyster Cult and Zappa which was fairly obviously non-chart in 1986.

RAGE was my first exposure to SevHeads at the ripe age of 13. that song was.... "Canine" *swoon*

hey colin did you ever watch the Factory? if so do you remember when Andrew Daddo 'explained' what SPK stood for?

combination of listening to: John Peel/ Annie Nightingale (request Show on Radio 1 Sunday evenings)/ Tommy Vance Thursday and Friday rock shows/ some Janice Long evening show but more Dave Fanning RTE 2 8-10pm rock show [could pick up RTE across in West Wales], and buying my first copies of Sounds and Melody Maker: in Spring/ early Summer of 1985. Plus music TV shows as Whistle Test/ The Tube/ Max Headroom.

No I didn't Jim. But I was aware that, as well as Systems Planning Korporation, SePpuKu and Socialistisches Patienten Kollektiv, there was a rather naughty one. Did he mention that one?

that was the one! surgikal etc etc

Also Peter Anthony on Radio Luxembourg.

My brother tried to get me into rock at about age ten by playing me Rage Against The Machine, except I was in a Mood with him at the time and thus refused to listen to anything he recommended. Although I used to hang out with my friends' brothers and listen to Ugly Kid Joe (as the alternative to watching bad romcoms with the girls).

The Kinks-versus-Beatles framing of Oasis-versus-Blur was probably what got me into indie, as I'd loved sixties music since early childhood. And thence The Evening Session, and a long road to ruin.

Lived in London until I was 16 and used to listen to John Peel and hang out at the local weirdo record store in Hampstead (it's not there anymore, alas) and absorb stuff like the Soft Machine, This Heat, and Pere Ubu.

Since I played alto sax in the school band I went looking for records with alto players. Found Ornette's "Free Jazz" at the public library.

Moved to Houston and listened to Chuck Roast's "Funhouse" show on KPFT. He also opened up the marvellous Vinyl Edge record store in my neighborhood, so I could buy Zoviet France, Magma, Can, and Jandek records with my lawn-mowing money. In sum, I've led a charmed life.

Bill: I love AMG, but when I looked up The Ruts to see what was in print the "related artists" category listed Christopher Cross. I'm suspecting that humans might not always look over these inclusions.

(x-post: DJ Martian: ROCK ON TOMMY!)

The darkest depths of Memory-Mordor being wot they are - dark and deep, yessir - I'm not too eager to venture down its every single nook and cranny.

But must have had many a classmate, an older friend and university fellow -not to mention the weirdly inside-out radio programming round my neck of the woods - to do with my twisting into the geek I am.
And that reel-to-reel tape with Fragile & Close To The Edge, left behind at my friend's place by somebody circa '75...

I will keep this brief, since it's about the 20th time I've answered a variation on this, here: brother's friend's punk/new wave cover band when I was in 7th grade (or maybe even 6th). I had read about punk in TIME and was shocked when I realized this band was playing punk rock.

Between 7th and 8th grade we moved and I discovered U.of P.'s radio station WXPN (University of Pennsylvania) in either 1978 or 1979. It had a punk show, and a reggae show, and an avant-garde/modern classical show, and a free jazz show, and an international music show, and a show that combined electronic music, progressive, Krautrock, post-punk, industrial, free jazz, avant-garde, and experimental; all of which was new to me (even the punk really, since I'd only heard that cover band, who didn't even play it exclusively).

Pitchfork

120 minutes+ amp+ cmj cd samplers

To expand on that: I'd always known there was "not pop" music out there for consumption, starting before Nirvana, but really manifesting in that. I followed "alternative radio" throughout my youth, which mostly played Bush, Pearl Jam etc, but would occasionally drop a "Cut Your Hair" or, I don't know, Jonathon Fire Eater. Oblivious to context, I tracked down some of the indie artists that sneaked onto my radio, and when I discovered the internet I google onto Pitchfork several times. I started reading Pitchfork in 1997, at 13, and stopped believing most of what they said at 14 (How It Feels to be Something On was the LAST ONE!). Still, I've discovered a lot from reading Pitchfork, so I've got no hate.

CREEM magazine.

a. older sister
b. best friend's older sister
c. spin alternative record guide

Mix a Spin feature article on Sonth Youth (c. Daydream Nantion) with a friend recommending Screaming Tress, and I never looked back (and thank god, since I would have seen Dokken and Keith Green).

Sneaker Pimps introduced me to techno and indie.

- Brave New Waves on CBC radio in the 80's. 11:10 every night, great show, it exposed my sister and I to many things. It was first place I heard the Minutemen.
- a friend in grade 8 had DK's "fresh fruit for rotting vegetables"

Urp. Actually, both of those misspellings may actually be better band names. If I was in some ten member neo-prog rock band, at least.

Older sisters, late night radio, Record Mirror and the NME.

My big brother. Bite the Wax on Radio Scotland. The indie programme on my local radio station. Borrowing tapes off the bloke I fancied at school so that I would have something to talk to him about (this didn't work, and it meant that I know far more about Pink Floyd than is really necessary). And Annie Nightingale / Janice Long. Later on, the indie chart rundown on the Chart Show helped too. The Tube, Big World Cafe and various other "yoof" TV shows.

For some reason, when I was a 13 year old video gaming no mates oik, my Dad started buying me the NME, I think because I'd just bought 'Parklife' cos I'd heard 'Girls and Boys' on the radio and thought it was funny. Lo and behold, within months I was a 13 year old Evening Session listening no mates oik. Here was this incredible parallel world where being skinny, miserable and sarcastic was actually considered cool rather than a reason for derision and occasional beatings.
Wish I'd kept my Take That records though.

John Peel, punk in 76/77, NME, Melody Maker, living in Manchester in 1980.

i grew up in a small town in ky where the most cutting edge music is the racy Shania Twain! All that i would listen to in those days was the Boss and Dylan. I did have one cool camp counselor when i was 10 at horseback riding camp who let me listen to her sex pistols tape. it was unforgetable.So after i graduated hs, i went to a small liberal arts college in a larger town. Unfortunatley, this school was very greek and i was pretty lame. so i adhered to the mainstream until deep depression hurled me into experimentation in drugs and college radio, and luckily people who knew what they were doing.

i dropped out of the liberal arts school and worked at a dirty coffee shop for years. during which time i have gotten to meet many cool and creative people, most of whom have decent musical taste. so i picked up on things i like from them, and have been able to immerse myself somewhat into the loop on underground music as well. now they all work at the radio station or book bands at clubs, etc. i am finishing college and enjoying enlightenment.

"deep depression hurled me into experimentation in drugs and college radio"

best line evah!

Interviews with REM and a huge pile of SPINS left outside a neighbor's house when they moved.

i come from the suburbs. i was a teen in the 70's. are deep purple and led zep count?

if it must be 'pop' then it must be 2JJ. stiff.

I really liked NIN and I heard they were "industrial" so I went to this newsgroup called rec.music.industrial and from there everything else followed.

I suppose KLA at UCLA when I started working there? I guess? Not really sure, actually.

A fellow outsider at school (the things they say about being different in a small town are true) who was 3 years my senior lent me records all the time. He/we progressed from metal and prog rock to punk, The Cure, The Smiths and the VU, though I was already moving slowly in that direction myself (R.E.M., Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, & Ultravox after a lengthy affair with metal).

At about the same time, my Physics teacher introduced me to Joy Division/New Order, Billy Bragg, Marianne Faithfull, Violent Femmes, Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music...

Also helpful was CityLimits on MuchMusic circa 87-90 where I found Galaxie 500, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, etc.

I also discovered things via CBC Radio's Brave New Waves as someone mentioned already. We couldn't get CBC Stereo in my town, but when the local CBC TV affiliate would go off-air, CBC Radio would kick in and provide musical accompaniment to the test pattern. Sometimes - tragically - it would only stay on for a couple of minutes. I really looked forward to settling down in front of the telly to hear David Wisdom's Nightlines every weekend.

Magazine-wise, I started buying Spin in the nearest big town.....and Smash Hits because it was the only magazine I could get at the local drugstore which mentioned any of the British bands I liked.

Sorry to cross thread again, but this might be handy...

college radio, napster

The very first introduction for me was probably hanging out over at my 7th grade best friend's house and us discovering his older brother's copy of Never Mind the Bollocks. I was already into metal like Motley Crue, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden (this would be about '83) - those got played on the radio - so my ears were a bit desensitized to abrasive sounds. But that Sex Pistols record sounded ferocious, unlike anything I'd ever heard.

After that, tons of local radio like the Electrifying Mojo playing early rap and electro. Local college stations playing early country blues and jazz stuff. And chalk me up as another casualty of the CBC. Brave New Waves and the excellent Nightlines with David Wisdom had immeasurable impact on my taste growing up. I used to drive around the Michigan countryside (got the CBC in Windsor) in high school late nights, listening to Mr. Wisdom playing all manner of wonderful, exciting things.

I used to love when Brave New Waves did the artist profiles. I remember they did one on Public Enemy, in between Yo! Bum Rush the Show and Nation of Millions. First time I'd ever heard them and it floored me. Also basically discovered the whole Amerindie/SST/Homestead world through them. I loved when Wisdom was going through his 7" collection in alphabetical order. I remember it took him like a whole year to go through 2 letters! I still remember where I was and what I was doing one late night when he played John Cage's Indeterminacy; first time I'd ever heard of Cage and it blew my young mind.

FM Radio from the 70s. Creem, Rock Scene, Circus, Circus Raves, early 70s Rolling Stone. Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, In Concert, Midnight Special. My junior high school friend Andrew's brother who had every Bowie record up till that time, late '73/early '74 I think.

Does any one out there remember night flight? It used to come on late at night in the mid 80's on the USA network with Lisa Robinson. Tons of weirdo stuff Caberet Voltaire, the some bizzare show, a wide variety of weirdness.

My parents exposed me to Indian classical, trad/religious, and pop before I ever heard Western chart pop. After I got exposed to Western pop, I suppose MuchMusic in Gr 5. In '88/'89, they were still pretty edgy.

Rodney Bongenheimer, of course!

lol-wotta typo--Bingenheimer

australian summer 1976. i asked me mum to buy me a magazine about music. being born and bred in london she buys me the NME. uh-oh.

I'd have to say an innate curiosity with music form a young age coupled with various recreational drugs, supplemented by a swathe of downloaded mp3s.

Yes-- "Night Flight" on the USA Network and the SomeBizzare show, with the dummy host; WAER FM(Syracuse University radio, RIP)with Dele Fadele, a friend's older brother who was waist-deep in the "cassette
underground"; 'Warning' fanzine from Anchorage, Alaska, 'Unsound',
Modern Records, Desert Shore Records, etc.

It all started when I saw a copy of Wreckless Eric's first e.p. in a
record store at the age of 8 yrs.--
"Mom! Mom! LOOK at THIS!"

older brother, NME, general interest on my own part.

Getting out of not chart pop music was a bigger revelation.

john peel/nme (84-96). from him i learnt about cab voltaire. on-u sound. jesus+mary chain. and then that was it. immersed hook line + sinker. and now i cant bloody stop.
bastard.

saw a prog abt joy division and got a rec of theirs from the library then worked through some of that and then radio (XFM at night was v good back then). The got Beefheart and tastes changed quite drastically too to further non-chart music.

1. friends older brother
2. another friends parents record collection
3. john peel & peter easton

I remember asking cool friends in 10th grade how they got into the music they listened to. I was still buying CDs based on the "liked the single on the radio" method. Their advice was to read record reviews and just start taking chances.

So, I had a subscription to Rolling Stone and SPIN and I took a chance on bands like Soul Coughing and Blonde Redhead. Then I started subscribing to Option to find out about bands that weren't in the major magazines. I got the SPIN Alternative Record Guide for X-mas when I was 16 -- it opened my eyes to important older music (responsible for me buying Captain Beefheart, the first B-52's record, etc.)

I also borrowed music from aforementioned cool friends. One friend in high school had a hip older sister who lived in Portland. He used to make me mix tapes -- first time I heard Pavement, Built to Spill, Pixies, Blues Explosion, Fugazi, etc. Some goth-punk girls I met at a summer school for the arts played me Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey.

I loved being able to hear new music for free. In the days before file-sharing, this meant I checked out CDs and tapes from the library. The collection wasn't that great -- rock was mostly classic rock -- but I found a few treasures, like the first Dambuilders album. Thinking cheaply, I also bought a couple major-label compilations that sold for three bucks: DGC/Geffen had a decent one called Buy-Product with a bunch of songs by smaller, non-radio-friendly bands on their label. (These disparate sources led to some pretty interesting mix tapes my senior year of high school.)

Oh, also: radio. I didn't live close enough to Chicago to hear college stations, but I faithfully listened to WXRT's "Big Beat" show (one hour of indie rock, once a week), which is where I first heard Polvo and King Kong. And then of course, "Sound Opinions" with DeRogatis and (then) Bill Wyman, who played lots of interesting stuff.

wzbc 91.3 boston college radio (3oth anniv. this weekend!)
3am M.I.T. noise/improv shows

The Ramones. It all snowballed from there. I wanted to know what punk sounded like since I really liked that "Anarchy in the UK" song. And I thought they were Puertorican or something. I still think it's quite a hilarious name. I went from teenage metalhead/alt-rock fan (I'm a proud product of the grunge explosion) to teenage lobotomy!

Then after my first semester in college, I went back home, and I made a friend who was feverishly into the Pixies, which in turn turned me onto college rock, indie, and the like.

BTW, I really like that Caitlin is inspiring so many threads, and I'm glad she seems to be sticking around. :)

My ascension was a gradual process (and come to think of it, it never REALLY stops, does it?):

-- Went on vacation at 14 with family friends, one of whom was huge into Zappa.

-- Loved PE at 15; searched out oldest school hip-hop

-- Caught the grunge bug at 16; listened to those Vedder/Cobain interviews where they named dropped Who, Dead Boys, Vaselines, Meat Puppets, etc.

-- Met my best friend in college, who was obsessing over the Skynyrd boxed set and James Brown's Sex Machine record.

-- Got heavily into Neil Young; bought the Rolling Stone album guide at 19.

-- Fluked my way into a job with SonicNet/Addicted to Noise and really, really, really got the bug. Biggest influence on my life.

So I skipped over the Fugazi/Ministry/Bauhaus phase a lot of other kids my age went through and only became a true music head as an adult. So s'all good.

From the Indie Chart on ITV's Chart Show!

To name some of the artists I first discovered (and either liked or was extremely curious about) through WXPN: Brian Eno, Robert Fripp (who I got mixed up with Fred Frith at the time, who was also a new discovery--In fact I may have gotten all three mixed up--was Eno the guitarist or was Fripp? and was it Fripp or Frith?); the Fall (they were interviewed, if I remember); and Gong (another interview--or anyway feature of some sort).

When I was 8 or 9, I saw a 15 year old walking around the streets bearing a sandwich board that bore his own alternative top 10 upon on it. They do it with T-shirts now - how times have changed.

I've was surrounded by folk tradition and nursery rhymes since the ripe old age of 0, but I guess that doesn't count because: a) I wasn't a teenager and it scores no points for hipness in the individualistic, self-deterministic rankings; b) it has no chance of becoming 'mainstream'; and c) it didn't get me any attention.