Soundtrack of our lives.

For new sounds, old sounds and favourite sound discussion...

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Flathaddock
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Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Flathaddock »

I am sure we all have a definitive song or soundtrack for our lives but yesterday I found a song which sends shivers down my spine, others may think it is a shite song but I have listened to it 36 times today and I am in love. The song is "The messenger bird song" by Bright Eyes, I am stunned by the exquisite beauty of this song.

Anyway, my post Soundtrack of our lives was a not meant to be a homage to Bright eyes but a breakdown of each memebers musical history. I am sorry if this has been done to death but I will start and anyone who wants to join in please amend the decades as you need (age depending). I am making this list for the songs and or singers/bands which gripped me in certain decades that I was/am alive in.

1970's - I was just a nipper but my father gave me Simon and Garfunkle and the Beatles so I can't split them.
1980'S - Older and wiser now but I guess Madness were the defining soundtrack of the 80's for me and New Order towards the end of the decade (True Faith changed my life)
1990's - Spacemen 3 taught me how to shine, Spiritualized let that flame burn on and Massive Attack and The Happy Mondays identified my youth.
2000's - Sadly, well perhaps not sadly, Neil Young and Orbital have taken up most of my time these days. I know Neil Young met my ears in the 90's but I adore this man now.

Today - The Messenger bird song by Bright Eyese for me, tomorrow perhaps "this is the day" by The The or even Jeff Buckley " Hallelujah", who knows, who cares I love the simple sounds which greet me daily.

Albums based on those above

1. The only living boy in New York (may not be the 70's didn't check but I love this)
2. Madness - Absolutey
3. Spiritualized - Lazer guided melodies
4. Orbital by errm Orbital - Belfast still makes me shine.
As long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise.
runcible
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by runcible »

Nice theme here Mr H.

Mine?

Early 70's - big Gary Glitter fan (I know I know but when you're 9 or 10?), also Abba, Beatles and Wings.
Mid 70's - Someone at school had Led Zep 2 which had a huge impact on me. Then I saw the Sex Pistols on TV and everything changed. My cousin had lots of punk stuff including all The Damned's records plus lots of Led Zeppelin. I sold my entire record collection and bought Damned singles. I rebought Led Zep 2 which I idiotically sold in that spree.
Early 80's - lots of punk. Touch of indie rock - The Cult.
Mid 80's - Tentative drug experimentation and seeing Performance lead me to the Stones and psychedelic music in general.
Late 80's - Loop initially then the Spacemen. Bizarrely acid house hit me full blast too (I was a regular at Spectrum from June - August 1988) although I don't play much from that genre now. Loads of guitar noise. Happy Mondays also made an impact, as did grunge.
90's - Um... no real change. Nirvana. Stereolab when they droned. Flaming Lips. I heard Bardo Pond when I first walked into in spzretent's record store in Detroit. Took over a year to track down a copy of The Heads 2nd LP which I'd only read about. My course became fixed after that.
00's - Same as.

I'm generalising of course - many other artists featured too. I can't replace the music listed above with much that's genuinely modern. And I don't seem to be mellowing either which all my friends and family said was certain to happen about 10 years ago.

Albums based on the above for me are:
Beatles 62-66. Played it to death.
Led Zep 2. Later everything up to Physical Graffiti.
Damned's Machine Gun Etiquette, 1st Clash LP, Never Mind The Bollocks.
The Cult's Love LP.
Loop's The World In Your Eyes, Perfect Prescription. Happy Mondays - Bummed/Pills Thrills.
Rolling Stones - everything from 1968-72.
Flaming Lips J Donahue/Ronald Jones era - all albums.
Spiritualized - LGM.
Bardo Pond - Amanita. The Heads - Everybody Knows We Got Nowhere.

Can't cope with Wings or Gary Glitter. Still have a soft spot for Abba's Dancing Queen (but doesn't everyone?).
twentysixdollars
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by twentysixdollars »

Wonderful idea for a thread - though I was this close to an irate post since I interpreted the subject line as an invitation to discuss my least favorite contemporary bombast-rock act this side of Sigur Ros!

70s. Very young, only the faintest memories - I liked what my older brother played for me on the Dual. (I still use a Dual to this day, come to think of it.) Strangely enough I remember a cast recording of Hair being the defining album of my life at this point, even though I had no idea what "Sodomy" was and why mom and dad grimaced when I sang it out. The Fifth Dimension got played a lot. Beatles. The Who. Old episodes of Ed Sullivan - Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds being the performances/appearances I remember most vividly.

80s. In the early going, the Who - maybe the first rock band I was really serious about. Zep - I was a late comer. God help us, Yes. The Cure and other eighties adolescent stand-bys. I remember really liking Wendy Carlos! At this point I pick up a guitar and start learning songs. A couple of years into high school I collide in the biggest way with the Byrds, but also (very much at the same time) the VU, and some 'free-jazz' (mostly Coltrane - Ascension in particular. I also had Impressions at this point - I know, not really a free jazz record, but at the time I thought it was). I knew some college/underground rock - I had, for example (as I've told Runcible, much to his chagrin) the Rain Parade's "What She's Done to Your Mind", which I loved. I don't think I got into the Jesus and Mary Chain until college. Some hip-hop (called "rap" then) - maybe just to seem with-it, though I did and do like it.

90s. In the earliest part of this decade I'm in college and eventually reviewing music in smallish-circulation urban papers, and at the same time playing in bands, including at least one that had some success (though I wasn't really a significant part of that), also working with singers we knew as an accompanist. Abandoned this for full-time music writing, around the time Loveless came out. Lazer Guided Melodies and A Storm In Heaven were hugely influential then and at least the latter still is today. Working backwards through LGM to Spacemen 3 and from Spacemen 3 to MC5 and the Stooges (who I never liked as much). Red Krayola and Elevators. From there forward to the punk rock I had missed - especially New York and artier, since the UK material never moved me as much (I was at least 27 before I even owned a copy of Never Mind the Bollocks). At the same time taking baby steps towards an eventually deep interest in soul - first Marvin Gaye album in Autumn '93 (Let's Get It On). Mercifully brief flirtation with Radiohead (ca. '96). I always liked Oasis. Overcome by the Beach Boys in '97, around the same time as LAGWAFIS came out during a period of personal difficulty. Brian Wilson was probably my musical hero for six or seven years afterwards. Sabbatical from music writing - MA. By the late 90s, getting (through the Byrds) into folk music in a big way - Joan Baez, and if your definition is looser Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Country too, though less so. Brian Eno eventually, much less so now. Emotional trauma circa winter '97-'98 (and spring/summer '98) accompanied by Urban Hymns - unforgettable and nothing can diminish or exhaust that record for me, nothing. Montreal scene a disaster area - nasty people, worse music. Gets worse by 2000. Even worse today.

00s. Mostly out of music writing at this point and very much out of Canada. Huge rock/pop record collection, forcing me to look to other genres for new music, which is why I've been buying at least 50% jazz records for many years now, a very rewarding pursuit. Van Morrison is, for a while, a long while, a huge fixation, and I quickly accumulate almost all of his records. Working in NYC on 9/11 - waking up to Marvin Gaye's Here My Dear when the second plane hits. Coltrane taking his place in personal pantheon next to the Byrds as my favorite artist. PhD. Out of journalism in '05. Getting serious about Ornette Coleman and Sonny Rollins along with Herbie Hancock. Deeper into soul - Sam Cooke especially. New York Dolls briefly and intermittently (though intensely) every couple of years. Television and Richard Hell become fixtures. Interest in Verve only grows in their absence. Interest in Spacemen 3 finally supercedes that of Spiritualized. Interests consolidating rather than expanding now, I think. Iris DeMent an important new discovery. Still following old friends from Toronto who have made good to whatever extent.

And now here we are today. Happy at last.
Stuart X.Hunter
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Stuart X.Hunter »

70's ~ too young and so i'm sure nursery ryhmes were my only experience.
80's ~ the pre-teen years were filled with a barage of Now, Hits and SAW (Stock, AItken & Waterman)albums. Although one of the first singles I bought which was semi-credible Beastie Boys ~ No Sleep til Brooklyn (but in the same spree Tiffany was bought). My Dad used to play Phil Collins a lot and I like someone else remembered taking an interest in my Mum's collection of vinyl and especially Bridge over Troubled Waters. Co-incidentally I did invent/build a pretend radio station under my cabin bed (with loads of taken apart walkmens, turntables and anything else electonic looking. At the turn of the 80's I seem to remember hearing the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses but was still pretty driven by what was on LW Atlantic 252.
90's ~ Well this seems to be the decade that shaped my appetite for music. It started with the emergence of Baggy/Madchester (type) bands on (you guessed it) a Now compilation. The Roses, The Mondays, The Charlatans, James, The La's et al were the main points of interest at the time along with The Doors and to some lesser extent The Velvet Underground. Then I discovered the "Shoegaze" scene and for a while only really listened to Slowdive, Ride, The Telescopes and MBV. Prior to the mid 90's I discovered (after a brief foray into the arse-end of Rave) electronic/IDM/ambient music through the Warp label. Then the Verve came into play alongside Oasis in the mid 90's but i started getting into post-rock/drone with the Ponies/Mogwai and explored the little Scottish scene; Pastels, Fannies, Bandits etc. My discovery of SPZ is documented elsewhere and at the same time got into Galaxie500. Gave Grunge a wide-berth (although love Nirvana live/unplugged) as to me (at the time) it was incoherent and a faddy fuckin' scene (pot calling the kettle black). I had a bit of a philosophy that you make the best of what you got; meaning dress smart, think smart, look smart and be smart. Looking like the great unwashed, sounding a little morose and a general disillusioned demeanour was never on my agenda (at the time).
Later mid to late 90's was spent consuming very disposable dance music as well as the equally disposable pills of the time. 2000 was a huge fall-out.
00's ~ Christ, we've already had 8 years in this decade! Now i'm trying to reign in my broad (uninformed) tastes to something that is smaller (and informed). I'm re-visiting music that at the time wasn't to my taste. The main music I listen to is Lou Reed/Velvet Underground, SPZ, acousto-electronic (Tape, Pallin, Stephan Mathieu), Pop, Soul, Blues and always too much techno. Music speaks far more to me now than at anytime in my tender years. Age brings many pleasures; intelligence, experience, compassion and hopefully patience. With these things in tow I only believe that my experience of music will be nourished and grow.

Agree, nice wee thread
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by spzretent »

I can actually start a decade rearlier :oops:
60's- WKNR Detroit Am Radio. So I used to buy a single a month or so. Keep On Dancing- The Gentrys, Lightning Strikes- Lou Christie, My Whole World Ended- David Ruffin, Crimson & Clover- Tommy James + Shondells, Dizzy- Tommy Roe are a few I remember. Then the first two LPs I ever bought were CCR- Willie & The Poor Boys and Beatles Abbey Road.
70's- FM radio turned me on to all sorts of new things. The Stones(which later became an obsession), The Band, CSNY and later just Neil Young, Peter Frampton, Tom Petty & Heartbreakers. The mid 70's sucked musically. Until punk came and kicked it in the balls.
80's- A whole decade of great music. early to mid 80's The Clash, U2, Simple Minds, Echo, Cocteau Twins, Julian Cope/Teardrops, Lloyd Cole and I also was turned on to Reggae in the early 80's. Peter Tosh, Bob Marley, Toots. Mid to late 80's: Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., Mary Chain, c86 stuff, Spacemen, MBV, Pixies, Happy Mondays.
90's- Flaming Lips, Spiritualized, Verve, Primal Scream, Screaming Trees, Love Battery, Luna, Yo La Tengo, Ride, Lush, Swervedriver, Boo Radleys, Slowdive(you get the picture).
00's- Nick Cave(this took a while), Gram Parsons(ditto), TSOOL, Aliens/Beta's, BJM, Death In Vegas, Cat Power, Engineers, Lemon Jelly, Bloemfontein.
http://www.lilmoxie.com
Detroit, Music, Sports and Other Stuff(including Spiritualized, Spacemen 3)
sunray
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

FUCK!!!!!!!!!! Ive just written out my Soundtrack and it got deleted instead of posting. Can't be arsed to write it out again now so hopefully later in the week. AAARRRRRGHHHH!!!!!! :x
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
twentysixdollars
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by twentysixdollars »

Looking forward to it. This is a really fascinating thread (and not just for my contribution).
mkb
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by mkb »

I was born 1986, which pretty much rules out the 80's for me.
The earliest songs I can remember loving were The Beach Boys - Surfin' USA and The Who - Pictures of Lily, which my dad would play on cassette in the car. I actually thought that they were both the same band at the time. The first band I properly got into were Oasis, and when I was about 10 or 11 absolutely everybody loved them. I can't ever remember anyone at school saying that they disliked them, but we were impressionable youngsters and they were a national phenomenon at the time.

Oasis continued to be the only band I was really interested in (save for some mainstream pop/britpop singles) until I was about 16, when I heard XTRMNTR. I can't really put into words what this album done for me. It was like a nuclear bomb going off in my head, definitely there was a switch flicked somewhere in me. Aside from being a magnificent album itself, it got me into Primal Scream, which then led back to a million other bands, including Spiritualized (I was reading articles online and came across the 1997 NME interview with Jason and Bobby, which piqued my interest in Spiritualized). But loads of other bands came from this, which then led onto others and others again. Really, the majority of my music collection can be stemmed back indirectly to that purchase of XTRMNTR; The Stooges, MC5, The Clash, Two Lone Swordsmen, Big Star, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Love, The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, The 13th Floor Elevators, Spacemen 3, My Bloody Valentine and so many others.

I don't think I've heard an Oasis album in years.
sunray
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

Okay here goes at second time of asking:

70s: Odds & ends but too young to really take interest.

Early-Mid 80s: Adam &The Ants, Synth Pop(Depeche Mode especially) & 2-Tone are the main staples. See Julian Cope on TOTP & subconsciously lodge in my memory banks. Madness are my absolute faves until;

Mid-Late 80s: The Jesus & Mary Chain change my life forever, i am now dedicated to all things feedback & distorted.Also The Cult,Cure & Joy Division plus Dead Kennedys,Crass & Conflict. Playing with Fire mesmerises me. SNUB TV appears on BBC 2 & introduces me to pretty much every half decent indie band of 88-91/2, which brings us to;

Early-Mid 90s: Guitar noise,Madchester,Shoegazing & some grunge. Spiritualized are blowing me away. Stereolab are getting my head a nodding. Working back with VU,Stooges MC5 & psychedelia in general. My first Glastonbury in 92, Primal Scream plus excellent acid opens me up to dance music. Ambient/IDM at first;Orb,Orbital,Warp & Club Dog crew. Cope releases Jehovahkill,i remember my childhood experience & am hooked. Also Ozric Tentacles.

Mid-Late 90s: 3-Pronged attack of Leftfield, Underworld & Chemical Brothers. Mogwai, Echoboy, Clinic & Add N To X are doing it for me. Acid Techno rears its beautiful,ugly head & my dancing needs are expertly catered to! The Scream back on form with Death in Vegas following close behind. Trojan & Souljazz release reggae comps & re-ignite my love for Ska,reggae etc. Also getting into Funk(non slick variety).

00s: Pretty much the same, finally get my head round Drum N Bass at turn of century. Electrelane take over from Stereolab.Continue to search for new bands & genres to blow me away whilst also going back as well; Krautrock,Garage Rock,Blues etc. Still on Funk/Reggae trip. Still havent come across anyone to match JAMC,Spacemen 3 or early Spiritualized though i'll never stop searching.

Thats it, hope it wasn't too long for you. Excellent thread, i'm very surprised there hasn't been more contributions really.
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
a beautiful shonn
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by a beautiful shonn »

hmm, great topid, let's see,

during the depression i was listening to alot of skip james and robert johnson, it was easier for me to deal with the great depression if i was listening to people that had it harder than i did. also alot of gospel to help keep me focused and believing.

next up came rockNroll, little richard and jerry lee banging away, what a revelation that was, you kids would have loved it. ahhhh elvis, he changed/ruined everything didn't he.

well let's see around this time i was getting into the tin pan alley sound, karen dalton, and this kid named bob dylan, couldn't sing nor play the guitar very well, but boy did he have alot to say.

i'll spare you the 1970's, is was filled with excess.

as for anything from the 1980's to current, well who cares nobody's gonna remember these bands in a 50 years anyways.

me.
runcible
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by runcible »

Great to read other people's pieces here.

I can't believe I didn't mention reggae which became a crucial part of my listening from about 1990 onwards. Still is.

And Crass - not a name I can ever remember coming across on this forum. Quite a tough listen but I was well into them for a while. They've been getting a bit of press recently too.

Anyone else? Best thread for ages.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by MODLAB »

ok... here it goes.

Born 70

1974: Remembering Listening a mix of stones, yes ( my brother ) Disco really early stuff from larry levan etc. ( my sister ).
parents listening to Perry Como, Dean Martin (That easy lounge stuff).

1978: Began my trip into music. My brother bought me Pink Floyds Darkside of the Moon. (LOVED IT). Wanted to Listen to it
constantly when i arrived home from school.

1981: Rush/Pink Floyd/Led Zep/The Police/Van Halen/Miles Davis/Eric Clapton and so on and so on.

1984: Began My stroll down New wave and Punk loved it: Depeche Mode/The Cure etc. and Dead Milkmen/Sex Pistols etc.
and classical.

1988: Started to listen to Jazz and Blue Note stuff Sonny Rollins and would buy tons of compilations. classical also.

1990: I kinda went soft during these years (met a girl). Started listening to U2 and more POP crap ugh ( eventhough i do like some of the stuff!)

1992: begins the journey into Just finding different music: Funkadelic/World Music/Spacemen 3/Spiritualized( even though I had a single from them but never knew and loved it)

1993: begins my world of Brit Stuff.............................................................................................. (I think that speaks for itself from Slowdive to the BOO Radleys)
1994: Electronica FUSE/Plastikman/COIL ...
1995: Shoegaze and experimental music is what listened to the most and sill do today.



2000-today: Still into space music/rock/alternative/jazz/classical and some electronica.... etc.
Design.
Duffy
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Duffy »

Great topic!

Mid 70's early 80's: easy listening stations in my mom's car, Abba, Neil Diamond, Anne Murray.etc dad was a big Beach Boys and Eagles and Crosby Stills & Nash fan though he was just as likely to be listening to sports. When I got a little older I remember listening to Casey Casem's top 40 countdown in my bedroom on Sunday mornings. Michael Jackson's Thriller was a huge album, had it on vinyl and listened to it repeatedly. Cyndi Lauper from the Goonies.

Mid to late 80's: somehow became a big weird al yankovich fan...musical drifting from everything to Def Lepard to Guns n Roses to Aha and Oingo Boingo. I still listened to good ol' Casey, But I was pretty disenchanted, I wanted something different but didn't know what.

Late 80's Early 90's: probably around 87 in middle school my life got some musical direction, discovered the Cure, the Smiths, Morrisey, Sex Pistols, Ministry, Primus, Bauhaus, Revolting Cocks, Toad the Wet Sprocket, the Sundays, . Found out about 89X, the local Detroit "alternative " station that offered something a little different from the ret of everything else. Casey and his show became a distant memory. Also found out about this shogazer stuff. Ride and Lush and My Bloody Valentine. i remember going to see Ride and Lush in Detroit, it was my first concert and I had a blast...

Early to Mid 90's: I remember driving to school as a senior and 89x was playing " Smells like teen spirit" and thinking, this'll be big. More bands were discovered : Ween, Aphex Twin, Stone Roses, Pixies, Sebadoh, Negativeland , but looking back on it now, it seems like I had settled into a bit of a rut with my favorite bands.

Mid 90's: Got into the Detroit Rave or Party, scene. Plasticman, John Aquaviva, DJ Twonz, Prototype 909. Got to learn all about the differences between house and jungle and trance and whatnot. Highlight was the New Years Eve Party Richie Hawtin through in 94/95/96 ? Memoriy is a little fuzzy from this time...Low point quickly followed high point. I remember being thouroughly fed up with the word "alternative" at this time

Late 90's to present: Heard about LAGWFIS from a friend, checked it out and fell in love. Went on to SPacemen 3, Low, Yo La Tengo, and others. Started to broaden my horizons some, checking out a wider variety of music from jazz to classical to world music. Also started to check out older bands that had influenced the bands I liked. Looking for guitar tabs for spiritualized I found that one fan website, can't remmeber what it was called, and from there was lead to the old official Spiritualized website and stuck with it when this one replaced it. By far this is my favorite place to come and find out about old/new music...
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by twentysixdollars »

Duffy wrote:Looking for guitar tabs for spiritualized I found that one fan website, can't remmeber what it was called, and from there was lead to the old official Spiritualized website and stuck with it when this one replaced it.
Probably it was Chris Barrus's (fan site I mean). It's certainly missed, though this forum and the website around it has sort of replaced it.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

runcible wrote:
And Crass - not a name I can ever remember coming across on this forum. Quite a tough listen but I was well into them for a while. They've been getting a bit of press recently too.

Anyone else? Best thread for ages.
Hey Runcible i recommend you check out Jeffrey Lewis "12 Crass Songs" i think you'd appreciate it. Released in the autumn, it makes Crass accessible to the general public and actually gives the lyrics a bit more power as the songs are done in an acoustic kinda style & gives them a warmth that was missing before. Well worth getting.
Agree,this is the best thread in ages(along with Thinlines Live show uploads of course) and would like to thank our ocean dwelling friend FlatHaddock for coming up with it.
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
runcible
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by runcible »

sunray wrote:
Hey Runcible i recommend you check out Jeffrey Lewis "12 Crass Songs" i think you'd appreciate it. Released in the autumn, it makes Crass accessible to the general public and actually gives the lyrics a bit more power as the songs are done in an acoustic kinda style & gives them a warmth that was missing before. Well worth getting.
I read about that actually and was intrigued. I also saw Steve Ignorant and friends played 'The Feeding of the 5000' live recently which I'd like to have seen. I never saw Crass live which is a major regret - the image and furiously lo-fi sound of recordings made them sound scary and dangerous to the impressionable teenager I was at the time.
angelsighs
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by angelsighs »

sunray wrote: Excellent thread, i'm very surprised there hasn't been more contributions really.
Well mine would barely cover a decade so..

good reading so far though.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunny »

sunray wrote:FUCK!!!!!!!!!! Ive just written out my Soundtrack and it got deleted instead of posting. Can't be arsed to write it out again now so hopefully later in the week. AAARRRRRGHHHH!!!!!! :x
Yep- that just happened to me also!!!!!!!!! How totally fucking annoying!
'Come and rock and roll me over, Let's get this damn job over.'
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by a beautiful shonn »

alright nobody appreciated my humor, so i'll give you the straight shot, here goes:


as a child growing up in the 70's my mom had an awesome collection of soul and r&b, it helps that she grew up in Detroit in it's golden era of music. besides the usual she was also a massive fan of elvis and the beatles. i distinctly remember on Sunday afternoons my mom would be in the living room singing away to the supremes with a glass of wine in her hand and my dad on the couch keeping time!

the late 70's early 80's i had older brothers and sisters to show me the light, i'm sorta lucky in that respect. they gave me the buzzcocks, the jam, joy division, siouxsie, the damned, velvet underground, the cramps that sorta thing.

but it wasn't until the i heard the smiths that my life was totally altered. i was infatuated with this band. the melodies, the words, the music, it was like nothing i had ever heard. from there the big brit pop wave was taking form, maybe this predates it but i remember the stone roses really making an impression.

of course then comes bands like the verve and my bloody valentine and primal scream and spiritualized, they all sorta took me by storm, there was so much music that i literally didn't have enough hours in the day for everything i was buying. tower records import section was my home everytime i had a few dollars on me. lunch money, paper routes, everything was saved to go to blow on the import section.

during college it was more of the velvet underground, delta blues, loads of gospel and other bands like sparklehorse, belle and sebastian, elliott smith amongst others.

well thats my story.
Stuart X.Hunter
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Stuart X.Hunter »

sunny wrote:
sunray wrote:FUCK!!!!!!!!!! Ive just written out my Soundtrack and it got deleted instead of posting. Can't be arsed to write it out again now so hopefully later in the week. AAARRRRRGHHHH!!!!!! :x
Yep- that just happened to me also!!!!!!!!! How totally fucking annoying!
Did it take you longer than 1Hr to do...http://ideensynthese.de/spiritualized/v ... f=3&t=6603
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SpacemanRob
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by SpacemanRob »

Start - First gig i ever went to was Frankie Goes To Hollywood at Wembley Arena(supported by Berlin)!!!! Adored briefly Welcome To The Pleasuredome. Quickly followed up by the Pyschedelic Furs - probably the effect of The Breakfast Club!! Had the huge benefit of my dad having a great record collection of The Stones, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and many different blues records. Coupled with this the NME/Melody Maker & Sounds quickly became my bibles and older friends offered compilations all the time. The benefit of a 1 hour bus ride to school meant i could absorb all these great new records and i taped each night John Peel to expand my ear further.
Next - As per an old thread somewhere one of the compliations included SP3's Come Down Easy and i was lucky enough to see them just the once at the Notre Dame Hall in London. Still want this bootleg more than anything else especially as they were supported by Chapterhouse that night. Quickly my music obession grew and at the time in some many different ways. Flirted with Goth and enjoyed the last Sisters gig, The Cure, Ghost Dance and The Mission. Flirted with grebo and really enjoyed Gaye Bykers On Acid, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Wonder Stuff, Neds Atomic Dustbin etc(now horribly dated!!!!). Adored Julian Cope and as previous threads a love that stays strong to this day. Brief flirtation with twee(?!) - loved The Pooh Sticks, The Flatmates and many other C86 bands(briefly joined The Mighty Lemon Drops fanclub!!!!). Saw, really enjoyed and still listen to The Wedding Present and That Petrol Emotion - 2 great live groups and at least 2 seriously great albums. Even briefly went to see Napalm Death, Extreme Noise Terror & The Stupids - still don't understand what John Peel saw in these groups and looking back nothing more than the adrenalin of the gigs was worth remembering. Saw some brilliant early Primal Scream gigs - especially an early gig at Camden Dingwalls that saw Bobby G fall off the stage!!!! Pyschocandy also played a huge part in my love for music and still remains a great love! Saw MBV and adored them(maybe already regretting tickets for next years reunion!!)
Middle - Used to be a great radio show on Radio London which ran competitions each week(Cowboy & Indies!!!!). Lucky enough to win tickets for The Pixies/Throwing Muses at the Mean Fiddler - blew my mind!!!! Then when SP3 imploded saw Sonic early at ULU etc and Spz on first tours. All brilliant and the passion remains to this day!!!! Seen Sonic continually in London when solo, as Ear and as Spectrum. Saw him at the Highbury Garage supported by Mogwai to continue the love of new bands. Another great band. Saw Primal Scream on most tours, JAMC, Julian Cope, The Telescopes and Stereolab. Not sure if i am out of sequence but adored The Stone Roses(Just for the first album!), saw them at Spike Island, saw Oasis on early tours and Knebworth(which ended the love affair) and quickly fell out of love with Britpop. The Verve were definately great live early and definately shite this year(was at The Roundhouse and watched one of my favourite groups through it all away!!!!). Radiohead for me have got better through their career and still adore Kid A and Amenisiac more than any early albums. New album best of 2007 bar none(tickets for Victoria Park are bought and still excited!!!!).
Recent - Seen each Spz, Julian Cope, Sonic, Mogwai and Primal Scream tours. Got into Flying Saucer Attack, The Pram, The Warlocks, Sunn O))), Stylus, Wolf Parade, Sunburned Hand Of The Man and recently really enjoying The Burial + lots i forget!! Still struggling to recapture the massive enjoyment of discovering someone new that can offer the same love as above. Tickets booked for this year to date are Radiohead, MBV and JAMC so it seems maybe i am going backwards!!!!! Subscribed to The Wire and Mojo - still going backwards!!!!

Sure i missed many groups out.

Enjoyed the thread and feel a bit old now!!!!!
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by stegraham »

Here goes:

Before 1980: Elvis - I must have only been 6/7 when he died, but the xmas after he died they showed lots of his films on TV and I was hooked. I must have bought about 30 Presley albums over the next few years.

Early 80s - heard Enola Gay and fell in love with OMD, also started getting into Tears for Fears, Art of Noise, Propaganda etc. Liked the "electronic" sound.

Mid 80s - heard She Sells Sanctuary in 1985, and started getting into more alternative and rock music. The Cult, Zodiac Mindwarp, Gaye Bykers, ACDC, Metallica, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Led Zep, Hendrix etc

Late 80 - started boozing and going to Pubs, met loads of punk rockers and started to enjoy the Anarcho-Punk sounds - Crass, Conflict, Discharge, Subhumans, Oi Polloi, Flux of Pink Indians etc etc - top stuff!

Early 90s - Mellowed out abit and discovered "shoegazing" - Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Pale Saints, Telescopes, Ultra Vivid Scene, Lush, Ride etc. Also started to like more indie bands, like Cud, Moonflowers, Primal Scream etc

Mid 90s - stumbled across a tent at the Phoenix Festival playing "Happy Hardcore" Wow! Never really liked dance music before, and I'd never heard anything like this. fast, bouncy - lovely! DJs such as Brisk, Seduction, Slipmatt etc

Over the 10+ years I listened to all the above (still love most of it) and more - Dandy Warhols, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Sing-Sing, Sennen, Engineers, Ulrich Schnauss, Beta Band etc etc. I still listen and buy lots of hardcore rave stuff - people like Robbie Long, Arkitech. There's no one genre I'm into at the moment , it's just one big mush of stuff.

Re: Crass - love Crass and they have been one of the biggest influences in my life. "Christ - the Album" is one of my favourite records of all time. The booklet that comes with it, "A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums" is a great read. Last year there were two really good books published - one specifically about Crass (Crass: the Biography by George Berger), and the other about the Anarcho-punk bands (The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980 to 1984 by Ian Glasper). If you used to be into this stuff I'd recommend these.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by runcible »

stegraham wrote:
Re: Crass - love Crass and they have been one of the biggest influences in my life. "Christ - the Album" is one of my favourite records of all time. The booklet that comes with it, "A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums" is a great read. Last year there were two really good books published - one specifically about Crass (Crass: the Biography by George Berger), and the other about the Anarcho-punk bands (The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980 to 1984 by Ian Glasper). If you used to be into this stuff I'd recommend these.
I'm back into them now too. Just got a CD of Stations as my old double vinyl is a little tricky to play in the car. The Berger book is out of print but is coming out in paperback in July I believe. A must buy for me.

I agree about the Christ - The Album booklet - the Wally Hope story is really fascinating as well as tragic.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

runcible wrote:
stegraham wrote:
Re: Crass - love Crass and they have been one of the biggest influences in my life. "Christ - the Album" is one of my favourite records of all time. The booklet that comes with it, "A Series Of Shock Slogans and Mindless Token Tantrums" is a great read. Last year there were two really good books published - one specifically about Crass (Crass: the Biography by George Berger), and the other about the Anarcho-punk bands (The Day the Country Died: A History of Anarcho Punk 1980 to 1984 by Ian Glasper). If you used to be into this stuff I'd recommend these.
I'm back into them now too. Just got a CD of Stations as my old double vinyl is a little tricky to play in the car. The Berger book is out of print but is coming out in paperback in July I believe. A must buy for me.

I agree about the Christ - The Album booklet - the Wally Hope story is really fascinating as well as tragic.
"Spiritualized fans are Anarcho-Punks!" Shocker. Who'da thunk it? :lol:
Try Penny Rimbaud's autobiography "Shibboleth:My Revolting Life" too. The "Shock Slogans..." booklet forms the basis of it.

Now, anymore Soundtracks anyone?
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
warmgun.
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by warmgun. »

Musical fixations through my life to date:

70's - I owned the following records: Sesame Street Fever, The Chipmunks Christmas, Father Abraham and The Smurfs, Boris Karloff: Prokofieff's Peter and the Wolf, while my Mom was a big ABBA fan so we listened to a lot of that in the car - good times! Don't remember much else, but I always loved looking at the pictures on my Dad's record collection - especially The Moody Blues - Days Of Future Past and A Question of Balance. Oh, and I distinctly remember hearing Queen on the radio and loving it a lot - We Will Rock You definitely appealed to my 4 year old ears. Of course, T.V. show themes were just as important as the latest hits on the radio, so you can throw them in there as well... W.K.R.P., Three's Company, Happy Days, The Dukes Of Hazard, Tom & Jerry, Flintstones, Scooby Doo, and whatever else was going... as long as it wasn't Dr. Who!

80's - Persoanl highlights from my Dad's record and tape collection in the early part of that decade included The Who - Meaty, Beaty, Big & Bouncy, Genesis - Duke, Fleetwood Mac - Rumours, Phil Collins - Face Value, Sade, and a number of Police albums, plus my mom had the Grease SDTK and always had the 50's/60's station on in the background. To this day I swear I recognise more than a few obscure Nuggets tracks from my childhood!

My own modest record and tape collection grew to include the Ghostbuster's SDTK, a compilation called Star Trax (Taco, Thomas Dolby, The Police, Eddie Grant, etc.), Beverly Hills Cop SDTK (The Pointer Sisters!), Back To The Future SDTK (Huey Lewis!), Give My Regards To Broadstreet SDTK (bizarre!) Thriller (of course!) another comp called Rock '84 (Big Country, Duran Duran, Madness, Kajagoogoo, Culture Club, etc.) and like a good Canadian kid at the time, I of course had various Bryan Adams tapes - Reckless and Cuts Like A Knife - neither of which I listened to very much. Most of these were mainly gifts, but I always grew to like them and thought they were cool for the most part! Around the same time, I bought my first record with my own money - Let's Dance by David Bowie - off my uncle at a garage sale. I must have liked the cover or something... Meanwhile, I was still digging my Dad's tastes, so Dire Straits, Kate Bush and Simple Minds were what I listened to whenever I went to visit him... This paved the way for more purchases of my own which included Synchronicity and eventually a big obsession with Tears For Fears and Crowded House ) who were quite big in Canada at the time...) R.E.M. was also on my radar by the end of the decade, thanks to Stand!

90's - Obviously a lot of ground to cover here... while still listening to those last couple of discoveries from the late 80's, my mid-teens would see me obsessing over the Pogues and R.E.M. big time - delving backwards into their respective catalogues when I had spare cash to burn. Eventually, through a new friend at a new school I discovered The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cure, New Order, Electronic, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, Joy Division, James, etc., which was a real revelation. CFNY - an alternative radio station broadcasting from nearby Toronto was also a real education, and Much Music to a lesser extent - although the program City Limits and later The Wedge opened up lots of musical doors... mainly to what was now being dubbed alternative music... the Inspiral Carpets, James, and to a lesser extent JAMC, Siouxsie, Ministry, The Pixies, Jane's Addiction, N.I.N. etc... and on a Canadian front the likes of Sloan, Spirit of the West and 54-50.

However, it was mainly the stuff from across the pond that grabbed me more often than not - Lush, Ride, Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Elastica, Supergrass, Radiohead, Bjork, Suede, Underworld, The Stone Roses, etc. which initially lead backwards to the The Beatles/David Bowie (again), but eventually it did lead to what I consider to be the real paydirt - The Boo Radleys, The Verve, Spiritualized/Spacemen 3, Stereolab, Super Furry Animals, Primal Scream, etc... These bands eventually led me to explore the bands they named as influences including the likes of The Velvet Underground. From that point onward, it's been a constant intake of new and old, with some obsessions lasting whole careers and other just for an album or two... With many less noteworthy omissions, a rough chronological order over the past 10 years goes something like this: Leonard Cohen, Tindersticks, Wilco, Beck, Teenage Fanclub, Massive Attack, Belle And Sebastian, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, Elliott Smith, Cat Power, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, The Byrds, Beach Boys, The Who, The Band, Big Star, Nick Drake, Galaxie 500, Luna, Neil Young, The Delgados, Mogwai, Broadcast, Grandaddy, The Beta Band, Led Zeppelin, Love, George Harrison, Sigur Ros, David Holmes, Talk Talk, B.R.M.C, White Stripes, The Strokes, Broken Social Scene, Feist, Sun Kil Moon, Sufjan Stevens, T.V. On The Radio, The Polyphonic Spree, Manitoba (Caribou), The Fiery Furnaces, Joanna Newsom, The Kinks, The Zombies, Spoon, Iron and Wine, Midlake, Decemberists, Okervill River, The National, Blonde Redhead and the list goes on....

Finally, over the years, thanks in large part to comments from J Spaceman, this message board and countless Mojo compilations, I've also developed a by no means comprehensive appreciation of other non-rock forms of music including Soul, R&B, Jazz, Folk, and Krautrock - literally scraping the surface with supposed key albums from the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sly & The Family Stone, Herbie Hancock, Marvin Gaye, Booker T. & The Mg's, Fairport Convention, Bert Jansch, Can, Neu!, etc.... these are directions I want to explore even more when money and time permit!

In the meantime, I still feel like I have more albums than I know what to do with... not to mention ticket stubs!
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunny »

eleKtroniK:musiK wrote: Did it take you longer than 1Hr to do...http://ideensynthese.de/spiritualized/v ... f=3&t=6603
Erm...not sure anymore. My memory and sense of time are pretty 'willful'.
Thanks for that info though!
I think it was my own fault this time and that I possibly pressed delete by mistake. I tend to stay permanently logged in and have never had problems before. I'll re-write it if I have the time. Work got in the way of getting back to it.
Also, I can't seem to find a way of making it a reasonably short post and however I word it, it ends up sounding like some weirdly pretentious Oscar speech, haha. :lol:
I do think it's a great thread though and I've liked reading about everyone else's 'musical history'.
'Come and rock and roll me over, Let's get this damn job over.'
Shaun
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Shaun »

sunny wrote:
Also, I can't seem to find a way of making it a reasonably short post and however I word it, it ends up sounding like some weirdly pretentious Oscar speech, haha. :lol:
How true that is, so i ended up doing exactly that.... :lol:

Here's goes and with huge gaps missing.

Sixties. Nothing to report, i was only 10 months old by the end of that decade.

Seventies. Hmmm lets see as that is where it starts. What registered first would probably be soundtracks from movies i most likely really enjoyed and usually watched at Christmas time. I loved films like The Wizard Of Oz with Judy singing about rainbows to me and The Sound Of Music with Julie telling me about a few of her favourite things and everything else and then there was Mary Poppins and also The Jungle Book which was amazing back then with all those wonderful singing animals and it still is amazing. And then there was Goldfinger with Shirley belting out that classic song along with that classic James Bond theme, and Diamonds Are Forever as well. Elvis films would also be on too but they didn't properly click to a 4/5/6 year old. To go with the films were TV shows like (i think) Happy Days, The Monkees, Onedin Line for some curious reason, the sig tune to Van Der Valk, Doctor Who and loads more (i could just go on,on,on,on and forget about everything else).

By the end of that decade i'd got to imagine what music could do and groups like Abba, The 3 Degrees, Beatles, (some) Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder, Boney M, The Carpenters, Led Zep, Diana Ross, Dr Hook Supertramp, John and Yoko, Pink Floyd, ELO (Mr Blue Sky is like a near perfect pop song to me), Queen........But the 70's ended with Madness ringing out and 2 Tone sounded pretty damn good. I didn't realise then that the foundations of liking so many genre's of music had been set. I also did not know that special feeling, that buzz you get from going to a concert, and how all that would be changed in a big way 10 years on.

Eighties, start to mid. I think 2 Tone was kicked into touch quite early on in this superb decade and to start it i'd still listen to everything else i enjoyed from the Seventies with Queen being prominent. Also various sounds from the Sixties had now firmly established themselves with me. I had now heard AC/DC and i felt their canons going off in my head. I had also decided to buy Floyd's Wall that somehow attached itself to me rather that the other way around. But with no defining sound to cling onto i was bouncing off sounds. Michael's Thriller is a classic album (i adore Billie Jean), Helen Terry's wonderful vocals on the humorously titled Church Of The Poison Mind, that fantastic video to Two Tribes and loved Frankie's other hits too, plus loads and loads more and i could just go on,on,on,on and on. Must not forget to mention one of my favourite songs to come out of the Eighties.....I didn't know what to think when i first set eyes on this incredible looking lady with orange hair, but who was i to disagree with those sweet dreams.

Eighties, mid to end. 1985 and it's Live Aid. I remember sitting at home all day glued to the TV to watch that music marathon and i loved it and wished i'd been there in that crowd. Also hated watching the scenes of all that heavy and wanton police brutality at the Beanfield so loved the Levellers when they shouted out. Then in 1986 we go to see Queen in concert for the first time, second time and last time. Going to gigs was here at last and a couple of years later Floyd for the first time, Robert Plant at a local shopping centre, Jackson's Bad Tour around about the same time and again, Floyd before the decade was over. U2's Joshua Tree was also, for me, a big album at the time. G n' R Lies was and remains fantastic, Matt's Mind Bomb to accompany his 2 previous releases, and i could go on,on,on,on and on even more. Hawkwind was about too. And add a rattle and a hum to the list and i never realised years later i'd touch down at JFK in December with snow melting on the ground, or that later still i'd share a coffee with an angel in Harlem.

Nineties, start to end as it's a decade i forget a lot of. Gigs, festivals and raves. The The in 1993 at Brixton's Academy followed concerts by G n' R, U2 (or they might have been a couple of months later), Stones, REM (i think or could be late 80's, same with The Cult). Hitch-hiked to London for Matt's one-off-gig-of-a-lifetime and was blown away by that special performance. To me Matt Johnson/The The has always delivered some of the most powerful lyrics i've listened to. Two different styles and directions, but J Spaceman falls short against Matt's lyrical content. I love both to be honest, but i honestly believe Matt's more political outlook out-weighs Jason's view of getting fucked up inside, now that i don't. Anyway not to digress. 1993 also was the year of my first Glastonbury Festival. That became one of two places that made so much more new sounds accessible like never before. I think i might have heard J going on about anyway you wanted him before 1993 but didn't know what spiritualized was or meant or was meant to be until that festival. The rest of the Nineties....Would have included Inner City, Massive Attack, Portishead, Levellers, The The, Oasis, Shakespears Sister although i guess they were early 90's, Floyd, Bernard Butler and i could carry on,on,on,on and on.

Naughties, start to now. Need to wrap this up so quickly to rip through this decade. Everything that had gone before, mentioned or not, is still prevalent. Although this is the decade where i was introduced to the second of those places where music became so easily accessible, The Internet. So with thanks to that as a whole and also to this forum the soundtrack of life could now go anywhere, like some lads from Liverpool once said, on a magical mystery tour. And last year it sort of partly went full circle when i got to see and hear Dame Shirley sing Goldfinger at Glastonbury. The first 10 days of 2008 was dominated by a piece of music that is at the end of a film titled Babel. Nothing on Jan 1st, next nine days that was the only thing i was able to listen too.
What more can the heart of a man desire?
Stuart X.Hunter
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by Stuart X.Hunter »

The Jig wrote:
How true that is, so i ended up doing exactly that.... :lol:
Respect
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scratch
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by scratch »

70:s
old music: beatles
contemporary: bob marley, peter tosh

early 80:s uh oh.. elton john, billy joel, peter gabriel, deep purple, paul mccartney/wings, rod stewart :oops: but I also bought records with depeche mode and kraftwerk and rolling stones before my 10th birthday

mid 80:s sold my ten (yes I had them all! :twisted: )Joel albums and bought all of Bowie´s instead..
contemporary: iron maiden, iggy pop, u2, springsteen, police/sting, talking heads.

then around 1986-87 something happened: I almost stopped listening to new music (except for beastie boys, tom waits and musicians that already had infiltrated the record collection) and spent about 3 years buying hundreds of albums made before my lifetime; usual suspects like cream, pinkfloyd, doors, hendrix, ledzep, dylan, johnmayall. It would be a long and somewhat boring list.

In the late 80:s I realised there was something lacking.. and it was not hip hop or american punk (or billy joel :wink: ) ..but more british post-punk (cure,sistersofmercy,bauhaus, souxsie, smiths, JAMC) and after that came the stone roses (what the fuck? - new music that actually is good.. how bizarre!) and the madchester and shoegazing or whatever.. mbv -> ride -> verve and spiritualized

but for the last 15 years I´ve listened to anything with an interesting melody, rhythm or feel except for that musical style where they only play covers and aren´t allowed to bring any personal touch to their versions.. karaoke without lyrics? No wait, it´s called classical music and I hear it´s great for plants and flowers according to some study from the 60:s
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

Given how Ben's thread was going time to bump this one. :wink:
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
sunray
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

BUMP! Anyone want to hop on board here?

No denying it, i'm a big fan of this thread :lol:
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
ro
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by ro »

it it is a beautiful thread. so many floods of music flowed through, so tricky to winnow it down.. but i guess the idea is sticking with what really stuck with you? okay..

1970s
simon & garfunkel
early lute music
mahalia jackson
joan baez
soul, funk, and disco via am & fm radio

anything sesame street (i didn’t know it then, but joe raposo, the pointer sisters) and every single melody ever made in that decade of sesame. c is for cookie, then later rainbow connection, everything

https://youtu.be/B3KGpIoE5CY
the line, “there’s people out there turning music into gold” haunted me like a fairy tale.. all those maidens stuck in towers spinning their hair into gold... i thought, “that happens to music, too?” and indeed it does

1980s
‘81 was my first ever gig: the police. U2, duran duran, the clash, bob marley... the big guns. then i discovered college radio <3

so, mid-eighties was anything “underground” for starters, the velvet underground. everything from... well, any non-mainstream 80s thing at all. i’d just turn on the radio and let it play. this resulted in hearing tons of fabulous music without always learning who did what. but i still have those songs deep in my brain. and hours of cassette tapes with stuff i still don’t know who it is. but i remember swans. psychic tv. bad brains. gun club. big star. jamc. the cramps. this list is endless... thanks to all those college kids out there who had a radio show! you changed my life. i felt such a misfit, but then i found home.

late eighties
fell deep in love with hank williams, patsy cline, johnny cash, roy orbison, nat king cole, ella & louis, nina simone, dinah washington, sarah vaughn, frank sinatra, cole porter soundtracks, cleoma falcon, the balfa brothers, the hackberry ramblers, muddy waters, robert johnson.. at the same time, we listened steadily to motörhead, ac/dc, alice cooper, and a bunch of hardcore stuff i never learned the names of. that was a pretty interesting time :D
oh, then back in the city: DJ red alert!

90s
fell back on my mid-eighties cache: nick cave, vu, all my tapes of radio shows. wasn’t into hearing new music. but then the screaming trees happened, and that acetone record, of which i only remember ‘don’t cry’, which i played on repeat for hours. later, my bf was in a ska band, so lots of trojan, studio one. wonderful stuff!

okay, 95 i saw spiritualized. electric mainline live brought me somewhere i’d never been, and i’m so glad to still be there in my heart. thank you.

still, tho, didn’t listen to much new music. went to tons of gigs, but didn’t acquire stuff. what truly stuck with me? spiritualized, low, lots of medieval stuff, flamenco, northern african stuff, romani stuff, bulgarian women’s choir, L cohen, more big star..

99-2000
oh, just remembered this was when i met my friend who was heavily into worldwide psych, gamelan, skip james, alice coltrane, john fahey, bert jansch.. this was the first time i’d truly appreciated ‘liege and leaf’.. and the first time i truly, deeply, madly appreciated what i guess is still called ‘free jazz’. wow, i’m so glad for that.

mid 2000s
ooh, boy. this is when things really started picking up again. i was into everything, and ecstatically. i devoured everything. more amazing college radio in a different city. somewhere in there i discovered you guys, and doors opened, opened, opened...

after thirty years of being someone who didn’t dance, i danced. at clubs, dive bars, the bus stop. i danced down the street listening to the bee gees, singing along out loud into a banana. i was manic at the time, but i think the bee gees call for that sort of behavior anyway

what helped the most?
x, spacemen, blondie, stooges, syd barrett, kinks. leaned heavily on radio shows that played moroccan, puerto rican, middle eastern, south asian, aegean, eastern european (big silly generalizations here, sorry.. lots of stuff i just listened all day but never learned names). and lee perry, beach boys, carter family, spiritualized, drone, animal collective, lightning bolt, mariachi. deep, deep, deep into bowie. mamas & papas, shangri-las. bettye swann & candi staton, thanks to this place (and my brother)

i miss duppy and all his brilliant recommendations. and underscore. and that 1st comps exchange we did, boy, so much of that material wove its way into my life.

also revisited old radio stuff like styx, rush, argent.. and this meant a lot to me. everything’s amplified when yr manic.

2010s
ugh. not a musically enlightening time for me. well, heavy into neil young, jimi, earlier pink floyd. comforting 70s classic rock. so that was good. and those three are everlasting gems.

and weekends dancing at my local soul, funk, r&b, with a few ramones or cramps or modern lovers thrown in. build me up buttercup, the name game, tell him right now, the dixie cups, marvin, curtis mayfield, james brown, sly &, i can’t begin to even try to list, feeling dizzy just thinking about it. and that was good too, that was such good medicine

but then it stopped. i got sick, and i had lots of grief from that & other reasons, and haven’t been able to listen to much of anything at all for about four years.

only recently began again. it’s been almost exclusively ’ghosteen’, with a little of ANH, and of course the oldies station.

and then, with the pandemic, it began again. and in the past month i’ve listened to more music than in the past half-decade. all repeats of stuff already mentioned, plus the d-nice dj sets. i still can’t dance for more than a few minutes, and hearing certain things still makes me burst into tears, but it’s a start. and i’m so glad.

jeebus, this is long! sorry 😐

and naturally, so much is left out. but realizing that reminds me how very lucky we are, to have our lives shaped by these sounds. and how the lists would never really ever end if we tried to list it all. what a wonderful gift.
Last edited by ro on Mon Apr 20, 2020 8:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ro
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by ro »

a beautiful shonn wrote: Mon Jan 07, 2008 5:25 pm hmm, great topid, let's see,

during the depression i was listening to alot of skip james and robert johnson, it was easier for me to deal with the great depression if i :D was listening to people that had it harder than i did. also alot of gospel to help keep me focused and believing.

next up came rockNroll, little richard and jerry lee banging away, what a revelation that was, you kids would have loved it. ahhhh elvis, he changed/ruined everything didn't he.

well let's see around this time i was getting into the tin pan alley sound, karen dalton, and this kid named bob dylan, couldn't sing nor play the guitar very well, but boy did he have alot to say.

i'll spare you the 1970's, is was filled with excess.

as for anything from the 1980's to current, well who cares nobody's gonna remember these bands in a 50 years anyways.

me.
:D
hahah!

i keep wanting to come back and add things, but i wouldn’t be able to stop. it’s whole eras & genres & oeuvres and god knows what. what would i do without the experiences i had with funkadelic, brain donor, galaxie 500, hot gospel, and all my friends’ bands... agh.. okay.

really just wanted to highlight shonn’s funny grandad post.
niamhm
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by niamhm »

Great post ro, really enjoyed reading that :) :) :)
stegraham
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by stegraham »

I was going to reply to this but when reading through the thread I noticed that I already had - way back in 2008!! Yikes! What's changed in my music tastes since them - over 12 years, I'd like to think they've grown, but I'm not so sure! I'm still listening to all the same old stuff, the same genres. Has there been any new movements over the last decade - like Punk, like Rave? Not sure there as, but maybe I'm too old to know! I wonder if any albums released over the last 12 years have made it into my top 50 albums? I'll have think about that- maybe a handful.

Alot of music I buy nowadays is music from the past - not only from the 60s (been enjoying the Jon savage, Grapefruit, Croyden Municipal etc compilations) but 40s/50s too - great american songbook stuff, and singers such as Nat King Cole, Frank, Julie London, Doris Day etc. My 18 year old glue-sniffing, cider drinking, punk rocking self would be embarassed by my 49 year old self admitting to such tastes!! Ah well - it's all good! :-)

Ste
olan
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by olan »

No idea why I didn't respond to this thread the first time around.

1970s.
Music really didn't exist in Ireland before about 1976 really :lol: . There was no legal FM radio and all the pirate stations played horrible MOR rubbish I couldn't listen to. I was given a pocket transistor radio in 1977 for my birthday. It was FM only so was useless during the day. At night you could pick up BBC Radio 1 so I really grew up listening to Kid Jensen, Janice Long and particularly John Peel. I've never really watched TV. We only had a suitcase style dansette record player at first so I didn't bother buying anything until I bought a second hand Ferguson all-in-one music centre in January 1979. Punk wasn't really for me but I was transfixed by the New Wave. The earliest bands I bought records by were Durutti Column, The Cure, Kraftwerk, Squeeze, The Stranglers, Joy Division etc. because that was what I heard on Peel.

1980's
Mainly alternative music continuing on from the late 1970s records listed above. I also developed a weakness for some early commercial electronic music like OMD, Yazoo, Blancmange, Human League. As the 1980s developed most of the music I listened to was either on Factory (Durutti Column, ACR, New Order, Section 25), 4ad (Colourbox, Cocteau Twins, Dif Juz, Birthday Party) or Rough Trade (The Smiths, Easterhouse) with heavy doses of The Banshees, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, The Fall and Kraftwerk. I first became really aware of Spacemen 3 after a Jazz Butcher gig at the Powerhaus in Islington in late of 1987. I don't think they played but I can't remember anything much of the gig due to being smashed and blitzed. The bloke whose flat we crashed in after the gig had the first Wedding Present LP, one of the earlier Jazz butcher LPs and Sound of Confusion. I played George Best and SoC to death for months. and started to really listen up when Peel played similar things.

1990's
I maintain the connections with many of things originally from the 1980s but now Primal Scream, The Orb, Julian Cope, Spiritualized and electronic dance music was becoming important. Shoegaze was really important for me so I saw lots of Ride, Slowdive, MBV etc. I also developed a huge interest in Stereolab.

I knuckled down and got my PhD and we moved to Australia. I spent 1995 onwards being deeply focused on my work and so didn't buy much music at all, and any that I did buy was on CD. I did make a point of trying to see Durutti Column every year if I could which made for some hectic arrangements of work travel for strange conferences and seminars :roll: .

2000's

Started buying records again in 2003 as I was spending a lot of time working at home and taking care of babies.I think The Doves were the first new band to make an impression on me in the new century. It wasn't until 2006/7 that I really started to find time to get back into music. I recall listening to a lot of Grateful Dead and Dylan records in the late 2000's

2010's

I guess the likes of Electric Moon (who I absolutely *love*), Hills, White Hills, Cave, The Aliens (I was late), Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo were the focus of my new listening. This new psyche scene lost a lot of steam in later years of the decade, say from 2017 onwards. I got very ill in 2017 and during my first recuperation I started trying to learn something about jazz so Davis, Coleman, Parker etc became staple.

2020's

Melt Yourself Down, Idris Acamoor, Ill Considered, Comet Is Coming, Kamasi Washington, Matt Halsall basically all the New British Jazz scene. In a typical week here I will play anything from Charlie Parker through to The Orb passing through VU, Led Zepplin, Kraftwerk, Spiritualized/Spacemen/Spectrum/Sonic Boom to Fuck buttons.

I like almost everything. We still operate under a strictly no flutes policy (except for SP3/Spz and Jazz) and I cannot abide heavy metal or stadium rock (the likes of Kiss or Brian Adams). Anything else goes.

Where to from here?

More of the same probably. I still listen most of the bands I liked in 1979. I've been very ill again so I intend to learn something about classical music. I am pretty sure this is motivated by Jason's descriptions of where the strings came from on ANH (my favourite record of the decade so far) and my daughter's increasing capacity to play the viola to a decent standard. TIDAL is a wonderful resource for this. A bonus is that classical records are relatively cheap and are easy to find.
Last edited by olan on Fri Apr 24, 2020 10:25 am, edited 2 times in total.
sunray
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by sunray »

Revelatory Olan! Had no idea you had any interest in Primal Scream or dance music :shock:
No mention of The Heads :shock: :shock: :shock:

Ro, you are so right about not being able to list everything, but it's nice to get an overview of where folks have come from and where they're heading, if anywhere (Jazz seems to be the go to for many). Great post too!
Nineteen...Nineteen...Six Five
olan
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by olan »

sunray wrote: Thu Apr 23, 2020 10:22 pm Revelatory Olan! Had no idea you had any interest in Primal Scream or dance music :shock:
I first saw Primal Scream when the supported New Order at Wembley Arena on 10th December 1987 and remember thinking that they were simultaneously interesting and rubbish. I had seen Gillespie previously as a bass player in The Wake (also supporting New Order) and in JAMC but didn't know this then. I was really impressed by Screamadelica and the associated singles and saw a couple of the all-nighters The Orb and Primal Scream did with Weatherall at the Students Union at Reading and in London.

My friends and I did a lot of work lighting raves and house shows from 1989-1992. Some of that lighting team are still working professionally now.
sunray wrote: Thu Apr 23, 2020 10:22 pm :shock: No mention of The Heads :shock: :shock: :shock:
That is a symptom of advanced decrepitude :lol: . I simply forgot. I don't think I mentioned VU or Galaxie 500 much either... :shock:
angelsighs
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Re: Soundtrack of our lives.

Post by angelsighs »

yup very interesting to read this thread.. it's good to look back isn't it, and see how your music tastes evolved, what bands lead to other bands etc. if I can muster the energy I will write my version, although I will undoubtedly leave some bands out by mistake :)
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