What person in your life has affected what music you like the most?

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For me, I'd have to say it was my friend Gwynn. Before I met her I mostly just listened to what was on the radio and classical music. My mom was always listening to it. My dad liked reggae and jazz, but I never got into those. I'd also begrudgingly have to say that my brother and his friends have probably influenced me too by me always hearing what they were playing on his stereo. How about you?

― Erin Caruthers (maneki neko), Saturday, 31 August 2002 19:57 (twenty-three years ago)

and I guess I would also add I Love Music! :)

― Erin Caruthers (maneki neko), Saturday, 31 August 2002 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Myself, mostly.

― paul cox, Saturday, 31 August 2002 23:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Dr. and Mrs. Internet

― Aaron A., Saturday, 31 August 2002 23:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Up until 18 or 19 years old I was wholly dependent on the written word for my music knowledge. It was hellish. Even though I stumbled on a great number of amazing records, I never had anyone to discuss them with. I was like one of those people walking down the street talking to himself.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Saturday, 31 August 2002 23:24 (twenty-three years ago)

playing things at random during my college radio show -- thus, myself -- supplemented by reading.

― jack cole (jackcole), Saturday, 31 August 2002 23:30 (twenty-three years ago)

No one person. I've been influenced by the tastes of dozens of rock critics, radio DJs, record-store clerks, musicians, boyfriends, friends, and various permutations of same. But mostly I blame myself, and the voices in my head.

― Jody Beth Rosen, Sunday, 1 September 2002 00:01 (twenty-three years ago)

tom! but indirectly.

― Josh (Josh), Sunday, 1 September 2002 00:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Douglas Wolk, because his Singles column in CMJ monthly circa '94-'97 or so opened my eyes to a lot of new places music could go, places I would never have otherwise noticed. I lived in a West Virginia town where to this day I haven't met anyone with tastes even similar to mine.

Also, WDCV (I think), in Carlisle PA, for opening eyes in similar ways when I went to camp in 1994.

playing things at random during my college radio show -- thus, myself

No way, Jack. You owe your music director big.

― charlie va, Sunday, 1 September 2002 01:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Maybe the music directors before I got there, but definitely not the ones who were there when I had a show. They wagged their tales for Sub Pop and Kiss. Most of the records provided were sent by labels are via Rockpile and stuff other promo companies.

― jack cole (jackcole), Sunday, 1 September 2002 03:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Jimmy the Mod and Tim, in various ways. JM for tempering the indie with classic rock and Tim for helping me "get" any number of things. Also a friend I had named Andrea who unapologetically liked supah-pop music without any muso-critical self-consciousness.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Sunday, 1 September 2002 03:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Weirdly enough, nobody. My parents were never into music, I've never obsessively followed a magazine/radio show/critic, and I don't think my friends have ever led to me listening to a band. Ah well.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 1 September 2002 05:26 (twenty-three years ago)

my girlfriend. psych and folk were completely unknown to me before i met her - i probably would've blundered across it eventually, but she sped my trip. also have to fall in love with a girl who sends you keiji haino's "amanogawa" and borbetomagus+shaking ray levis "coelacanth" as birthday presents...

― your null fame, Sunday, 1 September 2002 06:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been listening to John Peel regularly since before punk, so I guess it might be him, but I'm inclined to mention my friend Dave. We were at the same school from the age of 14, went to Cambridge together, and are still friends. He shaped my tastes a great deal in those days, albeit only in the rock area - he provided my first exposure to the Velvets, for instance. Actually, he was at least as much an influence in books (Dick, Burroughs), and he got me into comics again after I'd not read any in years, via Gerber's Howard The Duck.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 1 September 2002 09:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks Mark.

― rat, Sunday, 1 September 2002 10:42 (twenty-three years ago)

playing things at random during my college radio show -- thus, myself

No way, Jack. You owe your music director big.

I don't get why that is. I certainly owe nothing to music directors. When I did radio, the MDs put everything they recieved in the library, without comments or restrictions, and it was up for the individual DJ to comb the library to do the best show he or she could. The MD had nothing to do with anything I or anyone else at the station played (unless it was the MD's show, of course).

The person/people that has affected what music I like the most, besides myself, are the record store owners who tip me off to the good stuff that comes in that I would otherwise be oblivious to.

― Vic Funk, Sunday, 1 September 2002 12:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Up until the age of 13, the individual who probably had the most influence on my taste was my older brother (although I also listened the radio a lot independently). At that point a college radio station usurped his authority, so I can't point to any one individual. There wasn't any particular DJ who was uniquely important to me. After that, my friend G**** M****** D****, who I met in college, probably had the most influence, making me pay more attention to hip-hop (c.1989-1992 anyway) than I might have otherwise. Maybe more important was simply the way we would talk and talk about music: Neil Young guitar solos, Human League keyboard sounds, Psychic TV samples, Bryan Ferry vocal arabesques, Paul McCartney's bass playing on Beatles songs, etc. (Incidentally, I think I also had an influence on him, pushing him toward more "hard edged" type things related to punk (since he had actually been a very big YES fan, who had largely overlooked punk and so forth), even as I eventually backed away from a lot of them.) And after that it was probably an Arab grocery owner who gave me a great non-tehcnical orientation to Arabic music and through his sheer persistence inspired me to keep listening to some of the work I found most challenging.

I really like learning from individuals. I think your love, or whatever feelings you have for the other person, can inspire you to understand what they are trying to share.

― DeRayMi, Sunday, 1 September 2002 12:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Neil Young guitar solos, Human League keyboard sounds, Psychic TV samples, Bryan Ferry vocal arabesques, Paul McCartney's bass playing on Beatles songs

These are all real examples.

― DeRayMi, Sunday, 1 September 2002 12:22 (twenty-three years ago)

John Peel (transistor radio under the bed covers listening to Altered Images)
Various Melody Maker 87-92 crits espec Simon Reynolds + David Stubbs

― stevo (stevo), Sunday, 1 September 2002 12:49 (twenty-three years ago)

my mother. (subconsciously, for the last 24 years, until i realized that 40-50% of my listening diet consists of "mom stuff": funk, soul, rnb, disco, etc.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 1 September 2002 12:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Vic-- the music director is the one responsible for acquiring music for the station, by talking to new labels and that sort of thing. If your MD wasn't doing this, your station probably sucked.

― charlie va, Sunday, 1 September 2002 13:05 (twenty-three years ago)

It's a two-way tie between my Dad and Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson.

― Andy K (Andy K), Sunday, 1 September 2002 13:31 (twenty-three years ago)

My older bro. The old timers on ILM who made up ama. In my second year of doing the college dj thing, I tired of playing ten Wax Trax records every week and started copying album and band names straight out of alt.music.alternative to search them out in the stacks. My show became a hundred times more varied and fun.

― bnw (bnw), Sunday, 1 September 2002 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Chicago guitarist Joel Paterson got me into Hendrix, reggae (his stepdad was Jamaican), the blues, and underground/hardcore/punk when we were 10-14. That's more than enough for a lifetime.

― Pete Scholtes, Sunday, 1 September 2002 15:06 (twenty-three years ago)

As a youngster, it was my step-sister (who saw Black Flag, the Replacements and the Violent Femmes in the early/mid 1980s and told me all about 'em) and my music teacher (who was into the Clash and Psychedelic Furs, as well as y'know classical music and stuff).

High school was mostly a small group of friends into indie rock/punk, and various musician friends around Louisville.

By college it was probably professors such as Richard Teitelbaum (MEV), Kyle Gann (writes for the Village Voice), Thurman Barker (AACM) and Bob Bielecki (engineer for Laurie Anderson and La Monte Young) as well as many of my peers. Also booked bands, and a number of 'em turned me on to cool stuff (esp. Carter Brown of Labradford, who sent me Cluster and Faust records for my birthday once, and talked incessantly of Felt (ha)).

Now it's probably a few friends again, Josh Bearman, Cliff Allen, jack cole, Kevin Drumm, and a few select others. It's more about recordings 'cause I don't go to as many live shows anymore, unfortunately.

― hstencil, Sunday, 1 September 2002 15:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Over the course of my whole life it's probably Alex T, who I've known since we were 13 and who's acted as a musical sounding board, bullshit detector and pop supporter for most of that time. We've tended to get into things simultaneously though most recently he was the one who introduced me to ghetto tech and bass music.

Currently the person who affects my music taste the most is my girlfriend - not so much in terms of introducing me to things cause she doesn't, but in terms of encouraging my taste to wander down certain avenues. So for instance I bought a Bollywood compilation and liked it a lot, and she liked it a lot too so I heard it more often and liked it even more - that kind of 'influence'. Also even if I don't agree with her picks for what's good, she has a pretty good ear for pop turkeys.

― Tom (Groke), Sunday, 1 September 2002 15:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Oddly enough, the people who I know least about have affected my musical choices the most.

― JC (JC A.), Sunday, 1 September 2002 16:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Come to think of it.. it's not *that* odd.

― JC (JC A.), Sunday, 1 September 2002 16:26 (twenty-three years ago)

Most definitely my uncle Bob.He had 10,00 plus Lps and was the frist person to play me that Velvet Undergorund, Sun Ra, Swell Maps, The Fall and countless other groups that I still love today. In his will, he left me all of his records but his crazy dragon lady christian fundamentalist bitch of a wife burned them all in the back yard because they were tools of satan right after his funeral. She has been locked up ever since.

― brg30 (brg30), Sunday, 1 September 2002 16:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Sigh.Will I ever find that SO that can fill the void of my missing Xpressway Tapes and true love.....

― brg30 (brg30), Sunday, 1 September 2002 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

if were talking contemporary influences as opposed to a foundation influence, then in the past few years people I have to know through the PRL, including that scamp hstencil, and, of course, my significant other, as we've jointly gone digging in places different from our normal ruts.

― jack cole (jackcole), Sunday, 1 September 2002 18:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I will always be grateful to Franz Schöler, a German critic, who made me discover Nick Drake in the late seventies.
Andrew, a British friend from Luxembourg who bought me The Pixies Bossanova and The Blue Aeroplanes Swagger for my 28th birthday and introduced me to indie.
Bernard Lenoir, French equivalent to John Peel to whom I listened a lot in the early 90s.
For the last five years it's been the internet and in the last two years especially ILM.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Sunday, 1 September 2002 18:36 (twenty-three years ago)

On the "previous life" thread I said my dad and Laura had the most influence, and I guess to a great extent they still do - really sad when I get a new record and think, as I invariably do, "would Laura have liked this?" and she's not around to hear it :-(

Most important influence right now - definitely Nath. I wuv her enthusiasm, I just wuv her! :-)

― Marcello Carlin, Monday, 2 September 2002 08:32 (twenty-three years ago)

As cliche as it sounds, my older, next door neighbor. Before he moved into my neighborhood I listened to whatever was on the radio. He got me into punk, college-rock, indie, the usual. Music magazines helped a bit but soon you realize that a lot of that shit sucks. After that there was no turning back....

― Juan Marquez, Monday, 2 September 2002 18:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Jason Reynolds who ran the Summershine label. His radio show was ace and introduced me to all sorts of sonic treats. It snowballed from there.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 2 September 2002 20:50 (twenty-three years ago)

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