gotdamn wrote: Wed Apr 23, 2025 3:55 am if we're doing outside media that had an influence on your musical taste, blogspots were the absolute king. You could go from reading a Clif Hanger comment lauding filesharing on a post about The Freeze to discovering Anatolian rock via a Selda Bağcan rec. The drummer from Ludicra/Hickey/etc ran one that turned me onto Rudimentary Peni, black metal, and unsung Blue Note jazz classics. Did any other medium touch on Yugoslavian new wave like that first Idoli mini-LP mere clicks away from a Nirvana liveshow with a hair-raising version of "Polly" in double time, or maybe some oddball noise rock like Terminal Cheesecake or Daisy Chainsaw or Morsel's Noise Floor?

for fucking free?

The internet used to be so goddamn cool.

I forgot about Aesop Dekker's blog. It was excellent.

Got turned onto the Budos Band a few years ago. In addition to being awesome, it made me want to give early Chicago a proper listen, and I'm glad I did because those first two albums kick ass. I know, everybody is hip to old Chicago but, in my defense, I was a child of the 80's when Peter Cetera was double-fisting the world with awful schmatz solo and with Chicago, so I gave everything to do with them a wide berth for decades.

Before Aquarius Records in SF closed, they had a great review section on their site with tons of great cross-references. I think you can still access a lot of it on the internet archive?

I wrote a long post about getting Beatles tapes as a kid, then Zeppelin and Velvets as the next phase, leading to U2 like others have mentioned, and I echo some of that, but one of the things that really took me on a tangent was Bauhaus and the BBC sessions cassette. I loved the idea of how they just recorded direct to tape without overdubs, the strangeloves cover, the Bowie cover....all led me down different paths, some took, some didn't. Joy Division, The Cure, Jesus and Mary Chain all followed from there.

Love and Rockets was a really big thing for me, I always really loved Daniel Ash's playing and I think I've noted elsewhere how underrated I think he is. I still go back to those records and think they hold up pretty well.

This all really made me a goth adjacent teen, and I was 16 by the time nevermind came out and I thought it was a boring re-hash of an otherwise interesting Pixies formula. Sonic youth was in there for sure....even a dalliance with Jane's addiction - probably also thru L&R.

The thing that I think is notable is that metal missed me entirely. I was in my 40's before that shit ever resonated with me, and even then it was a slow transition from things like Swans to Neurosis and branced out from there. It's now most of my consumption, like making up for lost time.

I still think black leather reeboks and black jeans is a bad look, all apologies to those I might offend lol.

The two huge ones for me were Public Enemy and The Cure, both of which remain favorites.

P.E. led me to all kinds of abrasive electronic music, and opened my eyes to the possibilities of sampling.

The Cure led me to all the post-punk/goth stuff that became my gospel.

I would be a vastly different person without those bands.

Sonic Youth --> Neu!

Jacques wrote: Thu Apr 24, 2025 5:38 pm P.E. led me to all kinds of abrasive electronic music, and opened my eyes to the possibilities of sampling.

*nods*

Frankie99 wrote: Sat Apr 19, 2025 9:44 pm

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.

Both those records feel indulgent in a personal way, as opposed to a lot of their other stuff which feels indulgent in the service of trying to make some kind of "statement." Some of Unforgettable Fire is quite beautiful.

Gramsci wrote: Mon Apr 21, 2025 8:02 am Anyone got a Dave Mathews Band story? I’d like to hear that one!

Alright, I'm in 2nd grade. My birthday is coming up. I desperately want Bush's album "Sixteen Stone." At that point, Machine Head had the greatest riff I had ever heard in my life. Glycerine damn near moved me to dears. Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow. Dave's on sale again. The art was mysterious, Gavin Rossdale was hot as fuck. Little metal bead necklace and lord that hair. My brother says he will buy me the CD for my birthday. Hell yeah.

Wrench: My Mom is (rightfully) freaked out by the lyrics. Why DOES a child need to hear "There's no sex in your violence" anyways. So she vetoes my brother and tells him to get me something more positive. He is a sophomore in college and newly hooked by the "jam" contingent--Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Rusted Root, whatever you got.

He buys me "Crash," the second album by Dave Matthews Band. I am gutted. It sounds so weak. I don't like Dave's voice or what anyone is doing. I try listening to it while playing Sonic 3 or whatever and it is a terrible soundtrack.

Fast forward to nearly 20 years later, and I'm putting my daughter to bed. I fall asleep in her room and when I wake I have "Ants Go Marching" in my head, clearly. I feel a warmth for this song, this strange little song that would never in a million years make it today.