'important years' thread - 'how did you hear it?' biogs

*Early to mid 80s - songs you remember but you don't know where you heard them. radio, telly, in shops, dad's dire straits lps, etc. particularly remember "carrie doesn't live here anymore" by cliff from parent's record collection when a toddler. and the muppets album.
*1986 - first tapes (christmas pressies)- "actually" pet shop boys/ "bad" michael jackson. 'look in' magazine.
*1987 - "pump up the volume" in the car, the bassline grabbed me. 'smash hits' magazine.
*1987-1990 - 'jeff young's big beat'...detroit techno; chicago house; 808 state; public enemy; italian piano tunes; de la soul; richie rich; todd terry; etc.
*1990s - pete tong, various print mediums: 'muzik'; 'jockey slut'; 'nme' and 'select' and 'melody maker' sometimes.
*2002 - mainly the net, thank you god.

1993: TV (image of ian curtis on some TV show singing)
1996: TV+ radio (documentaries on ppl like beefheart and listening to music) + NME
1999: Wire (some rec reviews and ads for rec shops)
2002: ILM

haha everyone who says John Peel 1978-80 on this thread really means tommy vance! (oops i've just seen jon's put that)

I've done this before, but I enjoy going over it again and again, so why not?

70's: mostly listening to commercial radio and my brother's record collection. Introduced to punk/new wave in around 1978 by going to hearing a cover band practice. My brother knew someone in the band, though he was far less interested than I was. I also listened to a little jazz in 1977/78, mostly as something to chill out to, after my bath. There was a brief period when I was very into disco, shortly before becoming a college radio snob.

1979-1983 (and onward, but with less intensity after about 1983): listened to Unviersity of Pennsylvania's radio station WXPN (back when it was 88.9, and not "adult contemporary"). This had a huge impact. Before I discovered WXPN, I remember being consciously somewhat bored with rock radio in particular.

There were a couple individuals who had some influence of my musical taste during my college years, now that I think about it. One person I started corresponding with toward the end of high school left me feeling somewhat embarrassed about the hodgepodge of musical styles I listened to, particularly the more prog. end of things. His own taste seemed much more unified. I think that I started focusing somewhat more narrowly on rock in response to his influence. In my last year of college (1987) I became friends with someone who shared much of my musical taste, and who joined me on Psychic TV advntures and reinforced by interest in hip-hop. (The height of this lasted until about 1991.)

In 1993 or '94, I asked where to buy the Arabic music I was hearing in a restaurant where I was eating. This sent me off to a small middle eastern grocery whose proprietor gave me a very personal introduction to Arabic music, always nudging me toward the popular classics, notably Oum Kalthoum. (It wasn't until at least a few years later that I really got to enjoy much of that type of music, however.) Exposure to Israeli and Greek music laid the ground for my appreciation of Arabic music, but I never got the sort of in-depth introduction to those musics that I received for Arabic music.

In around 1997, I started taking salsa lessons, so naturally I bought a little bit of the music. I was lucky to buy a compilation that included: the Fania All Stars, Willie Colon with Ruben Blades, Celia Cruz, Hector Lavoe, Tito Puente with Tony Vega, La India, Oscar D'Leon, El Gran Combo, and others.

There have been no dramatic new discoveries since then, though the accumulated impact of the Evidence Sun Ra reissues deserves a mention.

Reading about music hasn't been particularly important to me compared to actually hearing things on the radio or having friends play me music and talk about it. The Wire and other publications, as well as the internet, have been useful as supplements to what I already knew about.

I love reading about music, I'm frequently too stupid to understand what artists (not just musicians) are trying to express without an idiot's guide. I really miss Melody Maker and Select from the early to mid 90s, why is there no room for an intelligent, witty, genre-straddling periodical nowadays?

In 1995 a friend introduced me to Bjork and Portishead, which were probably the first artists I liked that I hadn't heard heaps on the radio first => first time I became a pro-active music fan I guess.

1997: discovered The War Against Silence => first music critic I read whose persona became familiar to me => started thinking about my musical tastes and how they reflected upon me. I think my listening tastes changed as I tried consciously to absorb a broader variety of stuff and better articulate to myself what it meant to me.

1999: Discovered Simon Reynolds, alt.music.alternative and a piece Tom wrote about the history of UK alt. music => began to broaden my range enormously. Dived into dance and then hip hop quite dramatically. Began to think hard about pop music as well as merely enjoy it. Started writing about music frequently => began to analyse my reactions to music obsessively.

1970s - Mainly Radio 1, esp. John Peel. Also Radio Luxembourg (medium wave 208 mhz), Capital Radio (Nicky Horne). Sounds, MM, NME, Record Mirror.

Late '70s-mid '80s - Capital Radio (Greg Edwards), BBC Radio London (Robbie Vincent), pirates (Invicta, JFM, Horizon and poss. others who I've forgotten). Black Echoes, Blues & Soul, Record Mirror, Smash Hits, The Face

mid '80s-early '90s - Kiss FM, various pirates (Lightning, Centre Force plus the one that had Jazzy M, and others), Capital Radio (Tim Westwood and whoever played House music at that time), BBC Radio London (Dave Pearce). Touch magazine, Blues & Soul, Echoes, Record Mirror.

c. 1994-98 - Melody Maker, Select.

1998-now - ???...!!! Internet forums to an extent. I don't like listening to the radio anymore. Basically I am woefully under-informed compared to how I used to be.