How did you discover [famous band]?

If you just saw a video on MTV or whatever, boring. Did you hear a song on an unlabeled mix and go through the effort of solving the mystery or just happen across them opening for someone else at a club or see the name in a review as a contextual reference?

Tell us.

Mostly through ILX.

Public Enemy:
I saw an ad for Yo! Bum Rush the Show in an issue of Thrasher in 1987, right in the midst of stories about Christian Hosoi and ads for Independent trucks and thought Flava looked like an interesting cat. Went out and bought the album the following weekend.

Fields of the Nephilim:
A Britisher named Mick transferred into my high school during my sophomore year. He was mysterious and cool and alternated between two t-shirts most of the time. One was for The Mission, a band I knew I liked and the other was for Fields of the Nephilim. I figured if I liked The Mission, I would probably like Fields of the Nephilim as well. I mean, Mick wouldn't steer me wrong, right? Well, the jury's still out tbh.

The Cure:
It was in music class in 7th grade, and the teacher was feeling lazy or something that day so he let one of the kids pop a tape in the vcr to shut us up. It was Staring at the Sea: The Videos. We made it all the way from "Boys Don't Cry" to "Caterpillar" during class. That afternoon, I went home and asked my mom if she'd ever heard of The Cure, because I figured they were from the 60s. At 13, I hadn't really mastered the art of determining eras in pop music.