:)

age 12 listening to red hot chili peppers
age 13 listening to john frusciante
age 14 listening to radiohead and aphex twin
age 15 listening to at the drive in
age 16 listening to elliott smith and daniel johnston
age 17 listening to the smiths, tom waits and nick cave

there were many more artists involved but i cant remember

1) Watching Hope of The States on Jools aged 11, and buying a guitar a few days later in the hope of playing Black Dollar Bills
2) Buying You Forgot it in People by Broken Social, on the whim that i though the artwork was alright
3) Getting destroyed the first time i saw gallows. One band everyone needs to see.
4) Hearing the 5th embrace album. Dear god i never want to sell out quite like that.
5) Corrinne Day. Sums up all that is good about album artwork. Moby's Play, Nuff Said.

1. Hearing Jean Michel Jarre Oxygen as little kid is my earlyest music memmory I thought it was brilliant and pretended I was flying around on a massive cusion.

2. Getting a tape, which was a Jimi Hendrix best of and falling in love with it, playing it over and over from the age of about 10 maybe younger, I even did a Hendrix tape swap with a mate in primary school. That tape is still in my car and working a treat. I blame Jimi for my love of music :)

3. Listening to John Peel, Lamaque and Marry Anne Hobbs on headphones while in my early teens until lae into the night everynight. And hearing strange music I had never dreamt of before.

4. Geting into dance music by hearing it on those radio shows and getting mix tapes from my step bro. Then finaly getting my own cep pair of decks and starting a record collectin with some rejects from my step bros collecion and far to much big beat :-S.... eventualy learning to mix and finding alsorts from techno to house to electro to breakbeat.

5. Falling for guitar music again after falling out with it in the brit pop years and neglecting it for bance music as it was more inovative and interesting to me at the time. Probibly by listening to Jimi Hendrix again no doubt.

1. Aged 12, Hearing Sigur Ros' Hoppipolla on late night radio. The only music I'd listened to up until that point was the 70's rock my dad listened to. Needless to say, it blew my fucking mind.

2. Aged 14, Spending a day discovering new music, in the midst of a year of bullying I stumbled across two songs. The first was 'Windowlicker' by Aphex Twin, the second was 'I'm Not Okay' by My Chemical Romance. It felt like my life had only just started.

3. Aged 15, Just breaking up with the same girl for the second time in two months, big emotional fallout, went home and stumbled upon Regina Spektor's 'Us'. Once again music had provided a landmark for my life as a whole.

1.listening to the record '20 Town & Country Greats', which included Ring Of Fire by Johnny Cash, as well as songs like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Big John and North To Alaska on my grandparent's recod player, at around the age of 6, and eventually my grandparents giving me that record, I liked it that much. i still have it.

2.kurt cobain dying and everyone in my year at school (we were 12) listening to unplugged in new york in the classroom on a wet lunchtime.

3.discovering automatic for the people on a tape while on holiday with my friend and his parents in france, and realising that r.e.m. had a track on the x-files soundtrack that featured someone called william s burroughs, and looking into who he might be.

4.kid a and arriving at university and independence and being able to listen to music well into the early hours for the first time.

5.the dirty three atp (my first atp).

age 7: bryan adams
age 10: Korn
age 11: Slipknot
age 13: modest mouse
age 14: sufjan/ okkervil

the end

approx aged about 9 or 10. being given Pat Benatars - Heartbreaker on 7'' played it constantly on headphones while singing all the way thru'. this is when i learnt that singing with headphones on isn't a good idea... and that i would never be a singer!

aged 11 - having already amassed a massive amount of 10 or 12 cassettes! - i got Black Sabbaths - Never Say Die for my birthday. this was the start of 'the collection' the need to buy more and more!

sugarcubes - birthday. had already stretched out of rock by now. had quite a bit of pop and indie-jangle (smiths mainly) but this was something quite quite special.

1987-1989 very intense and important period. roughly goes like this. Dinosaur Jr, living all over me. reestablished my interest in rock(guitar solos etc) - Sonic Youth Daydream Nation, completely wiped me out! Rapeman - 2 Nuns and of course The Pixies Surfer Rosa plus Loop and MBV
also got into Reich, branca, riley - went to art school to study art. decided now was the time learn to play guitar

hardly had a chance to catch my breath sooo many brilliant records.

finally -- had i thought that SY - DN was jawdroppingly brilliant i hadn't quite believed what albini had written about the next record in the press that week. still it was albini and he is a knob twiddling god, so off i nipped to the record shop. upon return with Slint - Spiderland myself and the rest of the band all sat in the studio to have a gander... never had we ever not spoken thru anything before even getting up to turn it over we were all just mesmerized....mouths open! ''5 fucking stars'' indeed mr albini!

i few records have got somewhere close to this recently.... volcano! deerhoof. the chap. mia. but that really was something special.

1. Seeing Green Day at Milton Keynes Bowl at the age of 12. It was the first gig I'd ever been to and Green Day were my favourite band at the time - maybe even the only band I liked. People may laugh but I still love that band, and they're such great showmen on stage.

2. Arctic Monkeys topping the charts. It sounds silly but that was the first introduction I had to this strange genre called indie music.

3. Muse at Wembley Arena, 2006. My mum had really got me into Muse at that point, so we travelled up on the train to London knowing full well that we wouldn't be able to get back that night, and had to stay up all night in the 24 hour cafe opposite Liverpool Street Station. The gig was amazing, though I had a poor seat I could see it all - Matt's stage moves, the satellite dish drum riser, all of it.

4. Hearing the Velvet Underground for the first time. We had gone on a school trip to London and there was an HMV! This is always a luxury for me, as there is none in my town and my parents are always cautious of buying on the net. I bought loads of cds - The Cribs, Gossip, Sonic Youth etc etc but the one that stood out for me was & Nico, and it went on to become the greatest album of all time.

1. 8-9, learning how to use my brothers record player - singing along to Sam Cooke, Japan, Motown hits, Michael Jackson, etc. etc.

2. 16, discovering The Smiths. Everything in my life changed at that point.

3. 21, being in a nightclub when the most amazing song I had ever heard began to play - after it being played 2 weeks on the trot, I asked the DJ what it was - he had to write it down for me. I went the next day to buy a 7", and then ended up going to see them 20-30 times - the song was "Merched Yn Neud Gwallt Eu Gilydd" by Gorkys Zygotic Mynci

4. 28, losing my way, bored with music, health problems, single for the first time in an age - I stumbled upon The Unicorns. I haven't listened to them in a year or more, but due to them I met up with other people, and it reignited my love for music.

5. 31, John Maus. Just says everything to me.

Age 10 - Sat in a classroom in my final year of primary school, last day of term, listening to a mix tape of the first two Oasis albums, also that year being amazed by 'whats the story mornign glory' and listening to it repeatedly in my room (no indie points there then!)

Age 11/12 - Going to secondary school and beeing introduced to Nirvana and Greenday, again sitign in my room with a copy of Dookie, learning every word, that tape stayed with me for a long time.

Age 16 - Bit of a gap really, listening to whatever american pop punk was aboout, until the Strokes, Vines, libertines etc came around and i spent evenings in my room learning to play crap versions of their songs on guitar. Went to see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, my first REAL gig and they are still one of my top 3 bands.

Age 18 - Hope of the states happened. I still say this band are my most important musical discovery. Got dragged along to a gig and was instantly hooked.

Age 20 - Introduced by a bandmate to shoegaze, lent copies of MBV - Loveless and Slowdives - Slouvaki. This got me into all sorts of post rock and shoegaze as well as massively altering the way i play music. It also sent me on a neverending quest for guitar pedals....

1) Age 9, listening to Jive Bunny - The Album, and hearing the odd 20-second clip of Buddy Holly singing Rave On and Everyday, and realising my dad wasn't always wrong.
2) Age 15, bored on holiday in Belgium and watching MTV in the weeks surrounding Country House vs. Roll With It. Common People, Girl From Mars and Alright were also on constant rotation. If this hadn't been the case, I'd probably never have been that bothered about music.
3) Age 17, V97 at Chelmsford. Who'd have thought standing around in a field watching Longpigs, Gene and the Bluetones(in a row) in the rain could be such a great way to spend the summer holidays?
4) Age 21, buying the Strokes Is This It? and losing faith in the NME there and then.
5) Last week, moving to Germany and realising I'm stuck with Linkin Park and Scooter for the foreseeable future. Help!

road trip to legoland in denmark where the only two tapes in the car were Jethro Tull best ofs

school trip to germany and hearing nirvana for the first time

seeing panteras this love video on beavis & butthead

discovering deftones adrenaline

leeds 99 my first festival and exposure to rock/indie/music culture

1. discovering the fantomas at around 16 and realising not everything had to sound like bon jovi or something.

2. animal collective! everything about them ever.

3. seeing lightning bolt live

4. becoming fascinated with noise/avant-garde and its importance to the constitution of what defines music

5. deerhunter - cryptograms/flourescent grey ep (maybe?) or liars - drum's not dead

1. aged (approx.) 11 and buying "hybrid theory" by linkin park instead of eminem's album at the time (out of fear of the parental advisory warning on the cover) and listening to it a million times and loving the heart of it and from there i kind of stewed in nu-metal for a while, lead me to great bands like Deftones....

2. about 14 i saw a video for "breaking the back" by million dead and then i got "a song to ruin" and they pretty much defined my teenage years from then on in. they also introduced me to live music, and they were probably the best live band i've ever seen. lead me to cursive, yourcodenameis:milo, biffy clyro, small brown bike, mineral and basically post-hardcore.

3. about 16 my brother came into my room and put on "those who tell the truth..." and said that i NEEDED to listen to it. we played pro evo and listened to it and it changed my thoughts about music entirely, up until that point i hadn't even really considered songs without a structure or vocals. and it completely shook me...lead me to mono (the band. ha.), godspeed, silver mt., pelican, isis yadda yadda.

4. it was around the same time that my internet friend Nick Oakden sent me a mix CD full of stuff i had never ever heard of before, and i fell in love with all 20 songs on it. i know it's not exactly an album, but that mix CD spearheaded me towards a lot of stuff i love now. and it also paved my way towards something i'd never really liked before, as it scared me: screaming. it opened a whole new world for me. granted, i'd heard quite loud music/shouting but i mean this sent me towards screamo and bands like saetia, jeromes dream, joshua fit for battle, ampere, botch, city of caterpillar and other amazing bands.

5. those also had their influences in driving me towards my, probably current musical stage, and that's math. whatever math is, but whatever. and it lead me to my favourite album of all time..."variations on swing" by meet me in st. louis. it had everything that i loved from all my previous musical movements...heart, maddeningly good music, even somewhat catchy parts. it just compeltely shook me, and from there i've kind of realised that, though i'll never be competent enough on guitar to be antyhing but derivitave, there is so much more you can do with music than either post-hardcore, noise or slow build ups and crescendos. this all lead me to bands like battles, maps and atlases, american football (bit of a stretch i know) and everything good about the world.

sorry if this is too long winded, and i haven't mentioned a lot of other important stuff, but still. yeah.

1. listening to Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) by The Outhere Bros about 10 times in a row

2. age 14-ish, my friend lending me The Doors, LA Woman, Trout Mask Replica and the best of Jimi Hendrix in one go. Me realising that music existed before The Outhere Bros

3. becoming a despicable drughead and listening to loads of fucked up music. Corresponded with getting Sky and watching loads of M2 and building up a library of downloaded Napster music on dial-up at about 1 song per day (thems were the days)

4. Going to uni, meeting a guy with about a thousand CDs and learning that music which wasn't fucked up and impressionistic was pretty kewl as well. Having very dissimiliar tastes to my friends i resorted to listening to Sketches of Spain and The Best of Toots and the Maytals (our common links) about 1000 times each

5. Finishing uni, i quit drugs and spent all the saved money on lots of CDs. I bought a decent pair of headphones and became interested in sound to reclaim the drugged out buzz i got from music beforehand. I also developed some emotions after being a cold robotic badass interested in visceral and clever music for most of my teenage life.

Et voila, the musical godhead you see today

1. Picking up the courage to go and buy my first Blink album.
2. Seeing the video for Understanding In A Car Crash by Thursday and realising just how serious and moving music can be.
3. Seeing Biffy/Thursday live. Like a religious experience.
4. Taking back my copy of Damien Rice's O for a copy of Jane Doe. Best decision ever. Then hearing Jacob Bannon's screams at the beginning of Concubine.
5. Probably when Yellow House by Grizzly Bear clicked for me, or The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. Realising that songs can have a more non-linear structure. Developing musical patience.

1. Age 7 - Hearing Suede's "Animal Nitrate" and seeing Brett perform at the Brits... To an impressionable seven year old, he was frightening, dangerous and strangely beautiful!

2. Age 11 - Hearing "When Doves Cry" booming from my dad's stereo... this became "my song" that non of my other school mates would know about!

3. Also Age 11 - The Spice Girl's debut. At that time, manafactured pop dominated my life.

4. Age 12 - Eminem, his early years. Possibly the greatest music icon of the past decade. Suddenly, music was worth so much more. The Spice Girl's debut went right in the bin!

5. Age 15 - At this age, my brother turned me on to Oasis, the Kinks, the Beatles, the Stone Roses, Bowie etc... a milestone in my life.

Age 5/6 - Began raiding my Dad's album collection. At the time, nothing really jumped out at me apart from one album - The Police's "Zenyatta Mondata". The weird guitar lines, instrumentals, layered vocals....it was the most exciting thing to my ears. Nearly twenty years on, I'd still say that they are my all-time favourite band.

Age 14 - Around the same time that I got my first part-time job at Tesco, I saw a news report on the BBC saying that The Smiths had been voted more influential than The Beatles in some unimportant poll. I thought to myself that I'd give them a chance, so went down to HMV on a lunch-break and got their Best Of. It became the soundtrack to that period of my life - I thought the line "I was looking for a job and then I found a job..." in "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" was speaking directly to me and it perfectly reflected the chore of having to go to that horrible supermarket and do the same boring job. Needless to say, I sold the "Best Of" and got their individual albums instead.

Age 17 - Two albums pretty much came out of nowhere and completely changed my musical perspective in completely different ways. I remember getting Thursday's "Full Collapse" simply because I had heard clips on Amazon and it had good reviews. That was it. I knew nothing about the band, the whole emo/Victory/hardcore scene. None of my friends knew who they were. I just fancied something new. To my relatively tender ears, the album sounded like musical bliss; I loved the guitar lines, the Morrissey-esque vocals and the sense of urgency and discomfort. Listening back to it, some of it is INCREDIBLY cheesy and has no doubt inspired a lot of the turgid emo shite that Victory and countless other labels seem hellbent on churning out every other week. But I'll always have a soft sport for that album, as it essentially opened up the gates to post-hardcore for me, and in turn led me to...

...Glassjaw's "Worship and Tribute". I remember seeing the Cosmopolitan Bloodloss video on TV and trying to detect a song underneath what sounded like scratchy discordant noise. I remember seeing the album newly released in HMV and thinking "this is going to be one hell of a struggle to like this album", but nevertheless accepted the challenge and listened to very little else for the next two months. Hands down, this is the best post-hardcore album in existence. It's challenging, unpredictable, angular....it's perfect.

Age 17/18 - Just arrived at Uni and Million Dead's "A Song To Ruin" had just been released. I'd heard the previous two singles and was planning to go see them on their tour with Funeral For A Friend (what was I thinking...?). I was starting to hate my law course and was growing increasingly envious of my flatmate's politics course - after listening to "A Song To Ruin" for the best part of first year, I found myself immersed in politics, asking questions, going to debates and generally becoming a lot more switched on with current affairs. Plus it's the most quotable album I own :)

Age 18/19 - the Summer inbetween first and second year of Uni was amazing. My two best mates and I all met up after experiencing Uni in different places of the country. My mate Adam had gone to Oxford and his flatmates had introduced him to Captain Beefheart's "Trout Mask Replica", which is, as everyone knows, a mindfuck of an album. I remember him picking me up one day, saying "listen to this" and putting on Pena, with its 'fast and bulbous' intro and the indecipherable squealing about sitting on waffle irons. This was what I imagined The Coral's album would've been like after hearing "Skeleton Key"; in fact, I thought The Coral were incredibly original after that song...turns out the missing link was "Trout Mask Replica". Ever since hearing that album, it's been dragged out frequently and can honestly maintain that I do actually, genuinely and without pretense, LOVE this album in every way; musically, sonically, lyrically - the whole thing.

7/8- shine albums
10- paul simons
12- thursday
13- bright eyes and modest mouse
14- xiu xiu, bss, múm

ive been really lucky to have had older friends!

bought it on reccomendation from a friend, and even though i dont listen to/like them anymore, they totally opened the doors to "alternative" music for me.

1. Being 12 years old and hearing "this is my truth tell me yours" although it's not the manic street preachers finest moment by a long shot it was one of the first rock records I could actually identify with, and since then i've always had soft spot for their music.

2. Buying XTMTR on a wim in year 8 after reading a review and, after initally being scared off by the stomping industial beats and serrated guitar lines I realised that this record had so much more to say than a lot of the pop music I'd been listening to previously.

3. Being introduced to Korn in year 9 by one of the first "grungers" (his words not mine) I'd ever met which lead me down the murky road of nu-metal but also lead to me discovering bands like the deftones.

4. Watching the video to "High Noon" b Dj shadow which has come to be on of my favourite tracks of all time as it proved at the time that electronic music could convey emotion just as well as rock music. His sampled based approach to music making also inspired me to make my own music.

5. Watching Million Dead at my local rock venue and falling for guitar music all over again.

1. Age 8, my parents playing Simon and Garfunkel in the car on the way to France and me insisting they play The Boxer again and again.
2. Age 12 my dad waking us up for school by playing either old German marching music OR Boney M on full volume (yes he was/is mad).
3. Age 17 overhearing some boys in my tutor group talking about Biffy Clyro and then me going to buy Infinity Land.
4. Age 18: The Smiths/Pulp
5. Age 19 lying on my bed on a beautiful sunny day listening to The Velvet Underground's - All Tomorrows Parties, it was a perfect moment.

i can't really remember. i spent a good few years pretty much only listening to radiohead/pixies/the smiths/sonic youth, and then from 16 onwards i discovered all my favourite bands.
hearing the glow, pt. 2 for the first time when i was about 17 and wandering round some big deer park with huge trees in at night when i was feeling really upset is probably the only really awesomely significant thing i can think of.

1. Hearing I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor on a Channel 4 Fashion Rocks advert. It started my love for music.

2. Repeatedly listening to I Know It's Over when I broke up with my then girlfriend when I was 15. Got me into The Smiths which is probably my most important discovery personally.

3.Listening to Love's Forever Changes for the 1st time. It was magical has I hadn't been to sleep for 36 hours.

Can't really think of anymore but I'm sure going to Reading this year will factor in there.

Aged 11 - getting into Muse, Ash, Feeder, and Linkin Park.

After this, it was:

- Led Zeppelin

- Bright Eyes

- Radiohead

- The Shins

- At The Drive-In

^all very important bands for me.

Went
Nirvana
to
Funeral for a friend
to
At the drive in
to
A bunch of indie music I only half-liked
to
Animal collective
to
Everything else

BLAM

if 5 is the number:

The Beatles: Before the British Invasion I had been listening to The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean and whatever was on AM radio in Billings, Montana. The Beatles gave me identity with music and the artist. I grew my bangs out and wore Beatle Boots.

The Doors: The Doors illistrated unconventional emotions and subject matter; Anger, Fear and Lust, murder, vice and poetry - this had a major impact on my perception of music and the whole world. For the first time music actually spoke to reality and music became a viable sanctuary for my fragile teenage pshche.

Frank Zappa: I wanderd into a poster shop (a big space plastered with hippie posters) one saturday afternoon when I was about 15 and there on the wall was a poster of Frank Zappa sitting on a toilet. I was told that he was a musician and he had a band called "The Mothers". I made up my mind that I was going to find some of his records posthaste- at all cost. The first one I found was "Lumpy Gravy" which is more of a Igor Stravinsky meets the Smothers Brothers type affair rather than the far out guitar music I was expecting. That suprise made me wonder "could violyn music be cool?" ah, eeeyess! Lumpy Gravy showed me that hip could be square and obtuse and totally unconventional. The next Zappa I got was Absolutely Free and the song "Call Any Vegetable" changed my life. That song illustrated music as a powerful satirical vehicle- hey, this guy is totally making fun of America and that is refreshing. Suddenly music could be a guidepost in the labyrinth we call the social fabric of American Society.

The Residents: I studied The Residents for many years before I actually heard their music. It wasn't until they started putting out re-issues on East Side Digital in the mid ninties that I finally got exposure to their music. What I find so facinating about The Residents is that they obviously lack musical talent but they make up for it with uncomprimising innovation and thematic brilliance. The Residents gave me hope that I could one day make music myself. The Residents finally turned me to the dark side- the studio.

Drowned In Sound: This Forum is easily the best thing that has ever happened in my whole music experience. As I have tendencies to love music that most people HATE; FINALLY I have people to share my music with- what a relief.

There's the big 5.

Obviously a music addict of my age has had some other big moments in music. Diversions, if you will, such as Alt-Country and Jazz in the seventies and my two and a half year tenure as a club DJ and classical music in the eighties but those would be for the "Big 8 thread".

1. Learning all the lyrics to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band and being obsessed with space, astronauts and video games. Also, older, 'cooler' kids introducing me to jungle compilations, bad rap, even 'badder' euro dance and The Outhere Brothers. Somehow had the Killer Instinct soundtrack on cd, 16-bit jungle crazy.

2. During the last years of high school developing a successfully swift if morally dubious shop-lifting campaign at a large city centre chain music retailer that was more Adrian Mole than criminal mastermind. Had the fortune to lift Deltron 3030, BS 2000 and u-ziq cds amongst others that let my imagination run wild and caused me to buy lots of Beastie Boys! The Avalanches! Public Enemy! lots of turn of the century electronica and old wonderful weird albums like Piper at the Gates of Dawn and the Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators...

3. Finding the Unicorns. Finding theunicorns.net forum. Helping destroy that by falling for tricks. Becoming a post ghost. DJing and tending to the Medical Marquee. Panda Bear (above) pushing me into Holy Fuck right at the start. Lots and lots of great discoveries there...

4. Lightning Bolt live, at the front, noise as a drug.

1.Being Brought up on The Beatles (and the later to hate) Oasis

2. About sixish whent to Beirut and go a taste for arabian pop

3.Made freands with an indie kid which brought me off my linkin Park ways (thank god)

4. Recived a hole lot of music from my dad mainly clasic rock.

5. Got into a bunch of music fads (psychedellia and folk included) and most notably listend to my first ever bob dylan alubum thought it was shit but couldent stop listening to it now i think bob dylan is the best artist to have ever been born!

theres many stages ive missed out and they link in ways which i cant be botherd to explain im only 16 so i recon theres much more important stuff to come

1) my mum playing a Phil Spektor compilation in the car ALL THE TIME when i was really little, especially songs by The Crystals and The Ronettes.

1) Aged 13/14, discovering the libertines and all the rest and really feeling strongly about music for the first time.

2) Aged 15/16 coming to the conclusion that playing guitar was in fact more profitable than masturbation.

3) Aged 16, constantly listening to the smiths/of montreal and realising the importance of decent lyrics.

4) Aged 16, Discovering dubstep/electro and a whole load of other electronic music and finally understanding that vocals arent as important as i previously thought.

5) Couple of months ago (aged 17), seeing battles live and realising just how much i wanted to play music.

My fourteenth birthday, receiving R.E.M.'s greatest hits and realising that music could be wonderful.

Everything I have ever learned or experienced about music, all the music I love now, has come from this, pretty much.

it's interesting to read what bands shaped everyone's music tastes! so here i go...

1) age 5 - my older sisters played nirvana's "nevermind" for me. freaked me out at the time but by the time i was 11, nirvana was one of my favorite bands.

2) age 11 - discovered oasis (stop laughing!). as all of my friends were listening to nsync and britney spears, oasis was new and exciting for me. my parents bought me my first guitar for my 12th birthday, i learned as many oasis songs as possible, and the rest is history!

3) age 13 - garage rock revival: strokes, BRMC, the vines, the hives, white stripes, kings of leon etc. -- this whole scene made high school incredibly exciting and provided the soundtrack to those years. also, my friends and i roadtripped from nashville to atlanta *a lot* to see all of those bands perform!

4) age 16 - discovered shoegaze. while the garage rock scene died down, i went off to college with the smiths and joy division at my side.

5) age 19 - discovered indie dance music. while the strokes defined high school, cut copy/ MGMT/ the knife/ etc. have defined my weekends in college.

i'm off to write my musical memoirs! ;)

1996 - Listening to What's The Story almsot ALL the time (shared a room with brother)

1997 - Hearing The Beatles for the first time. Anthology 1 - She Loves You. And becoming obsessed.

2000 - Buying S Club 7's record = my first musical investment that didn't have my brother's seal of approval.

2002/3 - After a long time of listening to shit music (basically just Feeder), suddenly realising that modern music was actually amazing. Sitting on middle brother's floor whilst he played on the old Pro Evos with his mates, listening to Is This It, Highly Evolved, White Blood Cells, BRMC. By 04 I was a silly fully fledged iNdiE BoY pretty much, and got obsessed with Joy Division, Franz Ferdinand etc.

2007 - Realising that modern indie rock n roll had run its course. Realising that the 'impact' (or something) of bands like Sonic Youth and Joy Division didn't give me the euphoria melodies did. Rediscovering The Beatles. Obsessing over soul, r&b and eventually psychedelia and here I am today.

walk through:
getting the internet
1)2002? how soon is now...searching up band names...listening to bad goth rock like jack off jill, the gathering, the cardigans...
franz ferdinand take me out. It would be years till I heard gang of four, my comparison at the time is how exactly they sounded like the monochrome set.
2) 2003-4 using livejournal mixtapes website:
found x ray specs- the day the world turned day glo
neutral milk hotel - holland, 1945
the byrds- eight miles high
xiu xiu- suha, night flight by david bowie, talking heads - the lady don't mind, sleater kinney -one more hour, the walkmen - everyone who pretended to like me is gone, ted leo- me and mia, metric- grow up and blow away, julie ruin- stay monkey and so on. American bias from an american website. Probably should have been using pitchfork for similar results, but it was easier to work on a song- by song basis in those times of 56k.
3)jan 2005 according to wikipedia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCvRdeHSNJk
xfm feeding me up with constant indie
downloading songs
headland- molly's disco
586- we got bored
rank deluxe- style
dears- death of all the romance
started going to see bands
4)jay reatards album streamed off a foreign website and hearing the urinals
american hardcore history of punk rock ... hardcore being good, flipper, female crass
got better internet
drownedinsound giving me perspective, giving more subtle music a chance
hypem, getting songs from there

1. age 5/6 - In bed listening to the radio on my tiny white cracklebox, singing along to Eternal Flame by The Bangles, and feeling it, man.

2. around the same time - Wearing my mum's biker jacket (with zips), putting sellotape over the record function hole on my Michael Jackson BAD tape, and recording my own vocals to it. Only to find that it just recorded over the actual album. Wasn't too bright.

3. age 13 - with birthday money, going to Woolies and buying my first album on my own. Motorhead - All the Aces, on tape, because it had a mean looking skull based thing on the cover. £10.49 it was, blimey.

4. age 14 - getting In Utero from the library, next thing i knew, i was wearing cardigans and not washing my hair. Still am.

5. age 21 - Feeling lost for a long time, buying Ben Kweller's EP Phone Home and realising that all those crappy little pop songs with daft words i'd always been writing secretly, it was OK to do so. And it was GOING TO BE OK.

1) Age 11 (1998- ish), my sister's ex-boyfriend who i really liked died. His favourite bands were the Manics and Ash. This lead me to investigate "guitar music", and a lifetime infatuation begins. To this day i have a massive soft-spot for the Manics and Ash's 1977.

2) Age 14. (2000-ish) I witnessed the now legendary ATD-I Jools Holland performance after returning home late from youth club. Was amazed/excited/scared and bought the album with my christmas money.

3) Age 15 (2002-ish) Discovered the delights of cannabis, and the delights of QOTSA's Rated R. Furthermore i discovered the delights of lying on my bed, caked out of my face whilst using my Playstation to play Rated R. Weed opened up my ears to all kinds of music and went from being a guitar snob to seeking and devouring as much reggae and hip hop as i could lay my hands on.

4)Age 15 (still 2002-ish) make friends with a lad a few years older who introduces me to amongst others Black Flag, Big Black, Stooges and Jesus Lizard. By far the most important musical initiation as it not only shaped my musical tastes but my personality aswell.

5) Age 18 (2005) Pass my driving test buy a CD player that can play Data CDs. Form as strange alternate society with my friends by which we sit in a little old VW Polo every night for 2 years, have inexplainable adventures and experiences stoned off our gourds, listening to Beastie Boys, Iron Maiden, Faith No More, old Hardcore and gabba mixes, junglist mash-ups and Mike and the Mechanics. Strange but halcyon days.