I guess I was always too much of a proto-hipster (alternatively "old") to be turned on to "cool" bands by "lame" (alternatively "commercial") bands. The main exception is Metallica who are singlehandedly responsible for turning me onto Diamond Head (and other "obscure" NWOBHM), Budgie, Misfits *and* Killing Joke. Metallica was still a pretty "cool" band back then though hard at it is to imagine today... NOT sure they qualify.

No, it was mainly about discovering "cool" bands through other "cool" bands for me.:
Discovered Stooges and MC5 through local legends Union Carbide Productions
Discovered Chrome through either the Buttholes (back when they were "cool") or Jesus Lizard
Discovered Meat Puppets/Saccharine trust etc through the SST brand
Discovered Kraut rock, Velvets etc. through namedrops in reviews of "cool" bands as well as through the writings of Edwin Poncey/Savage Pencil, Simon Reynolds etc.

Ministry, Jane's Addiction, Fugazi and Nirvana were my big ones.

jfv wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 11:58 amR.E.M. x10

REM is interesting for me.
I was a massive fan from Chronic Town/Radio Free Europe 7" thru Reckoning.
Plenty from that era has had lasting impact, but REM didn't stick and didn't really lead to anything much.
I guess being into them pushed me to listen to the Byrds more intently. Probably Love and Big Star came from them, reading interviews.
I play a lot of 12-string now so there's that.

By the time they were onto Fables etc., I was awash in Husker Du/Replacements/Minutemen/Sonic Youth and had fully immersed in British postpunk and heard Can and Capt Beefheart and stuff.
So I wasn't interested anymore.
But boy I sure fell for the earliest stuff as a kid.
In recent years, some of the later stuff has sounded good to me. Nightswimming and that.

Vibracobra wrote: Achtung Baby. I've spent 33 years with that record and still love it.

Easily the best U2 album

First year of college my grade school friend let me borrow three records: VIVIsectVI, The Land of Rape and Honey, and Big Sexy Land. Months later a college friend dubbed a cassette with the first two Flaming Lips records and Psychic...Powerless...Another Man's Sac. It was quite the important year spearheaded by Skinny Puppy, Ministry, REVCO, and weekly trips to the Wax Trax! store.

Dave N. wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 10:39 am Mommy’s Little Monster by Social Distortion was a big one for me. I was 15 and really into speed metal, but my metal friends were turning into losers and my new punk friends were a blast to be around. Someone let me borrow their copy of Mommy’s Little Monster and the punk thing started to make sense to me. I still love that record to this day. SD at the VFW hall was my first real punk show, too.

Same friend who turned me on to Wax Trax! also turned me on to Social D and Mommy's Little Monster. SD was also my first punk show. They played at Cabaret Metro (which is just Metro now). There was a fight after the show wherein SHARP skins were lighting the fuck out of a racist skin. Peak Chicago.

Was always into hard rock/metal but wanted something more heterodox than all the hair bands that were big at the time, I first found it in thrash, then Faith No More & Primus, then the grunge bands and anything that would have been in a Lollapalooza lineup, only after that did I start digging into older & newer indie & punk. I was such a dork I was into Rollins Band BEFORE Black Flag.

Totally missed the Nirvana boat, so for me it was a 2000’s infatuation with classic rock (Beatles, Floyd, Zeppelin) and Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead that eventually lead to deeper dives into the Velvet Underground, Neil Young, The Fall, Sonic Youth, Shellac, My Bloody Valentine, Pavement (and Drag City Bands), Wilco (who specifically pointed me straight to Jim O’Rourke in high school) etc. that ultimately paid off a little more as far as music exposure goes.

A little Nirvana went a long way. Got Gluey Porch Treatments by Melvins when I was around 16, and honestly music has never been better than the first time I heard that album.

Beyond that, it was every band in Our Band Could Be Your Life. Besides Beat Happening. Fuck that band.

Until I was a senior in high school(1986), I was pretty much an AC/DC and Led Zep dude. Some time that year I heard The Replacements and Camper Van Beethoven. The next year I moved to Georgia and made friends with students from the big art school, SCAD. Through a roommate, I got swept up in the REM craze, and because of them, i found out about Pylon during their first reunion. I remember the crazy energy coming from the stage when I saw them at Night Flight, the best club in town. Later it became Congress Street Station. I was trying to teach myself to play guitar at the time, and Pylon was the band that made me think I might have a shot at starting a band.

Not long after that, I bought Sonic Youth's album Sister and another door opened in my head.

eephus wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 1:58 pm

jfv wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 11:58 amR.E.M. x10

REM is interesting for me.
I was a massive fan from Chronic Town/Radio Free Europe 7" thru Reckoning.
Plenty from that era has had lasting impact, but REM didn't stick and didn't really lead to anything much.
I guess being into them pushed me to listen to the Byrds more intently. Probably Love and Big Star came from them, reading interviews.
I play a lot of 12-string now so there's that.

By the time they were onto Fables etc., I was awash in Husker Du/Replacements/Minutemen/Sonic Youth and had fully immersed in British postpunk and heard Can and Capt Beefheart and stuff.
So I wasn't interested anymore.
But boy I sure fell for the earliest stuff as a kid.
In recent years, some of the later stuff has sounded good to me. Nightswimming and that.

Vibracobra wrote: Achtung Baby. I've spent 33 years with that record and still love it.

Easily the best U2 album

The unforgettable fire was their peak. I found a mint copy at half price a few years ago and I stand by this opinion.

I had a lot of gateway bands that you all have already mentioned, such as Metallica which, being honest, Garage Inc exposed me to a lot of bands such as Killing Joke and Faith No More (though FNM wasn't covered by them, the booklet has photos of James Hetfield wearing their T-shirt and that was enough to get my teenage self to get curious about them), which would lead me to a lot of others gateway bands.

But the ultimate gateway band to me is Whitehouse. Once I got into them, every band was no longer too inaccessible or too difficult. I got into Public Image Ltd, Fugazi, Circle X, Einstürzende Neubauten, and including Low and Bedhead and virtually every artist I enjoy to this day shortly afterward.

ROCK AND ROLL