Music and the memories

Originally Posted by TiMSport

Whenever I hear anything off of Michael Jackson's Thriller album I...

Looking at your userpic I assumed that you're into electronic music

[TiMSport]

Originally Posted by TylerJohnson

Looking at your userpic I assumed that you're into electronic music

And you are correct, sir.

It's the only type of music I personally can tinker with. Personally I like all kinds of music. I know you're pulling my leg but when I was a kid and hearing MJ on a new format (CD), there was something special about that.

From what I can tell by your user pic, you're in Australia? If so, there are some electronic music producers/artists down there that I really like a lot.

[Buug959]

Originally Posted by TiMSport

Haha, me too! I can't sing for shit but when overseas you suddenly look like Tom Cruise and have a set of pipes like Steve Perry (or vocalist of choice)

I've got a lot of memories from drinking too much sake that's for sure. Damn COVID! I've been needing to go abroad but haven't been on a plane for a year. Wait, this might belong in the other thread (first world problems)

I feel ya, TiMSport. I'm sitting on tickets to Wacken Open Air that I bought in Aug '19 for the 2020 festival. We all know how that went. The tickets carried over to 2021 though so that's all good. Now it's looking like this year may be cancelled as well. I can't wait for the world to open for business again.

[Buug959]

I've been sitting here looking at a blank box trying to figure out how to start this post and what story I want to share first. It's so hard to pick one thing as music is such a huge part of my life. I am not involved with the industry in any way other than I have to have music playing most all the time.
I guess I'll start at the beginning. The first album I bought was Eagles Greatest Hits, their first one with the skull on the blue cover. I'll never forget the first time I heard it. I was visiting my uncle who lived in another province. He and my parents were chatting and I was bored. I saw the album sitting on the top of a stack of albums on the floor beside the stereo. I asked my uncle if I could play it and he reluctantly said ok. He had a pretty hi-end stereo and was understandably protective of it. He showed me exactly how to handle the album and the turntable and watched closely as I put it on. I loved it! I couldn't get enough. I played it over and over until my father had had enough and told me to pick something else to play. I did but I couldn't tell you what it was that I picked. I do remember that it was less than a week after we got home that I owned my own copy of that album. That was the start of my love affair with music. It has never faded.

[TiMSport]

Cool. This is a nice first post by the way. I can relate in a way since my very first music purchase was the Eagles Hotel California record and I played the hell out of that. I'm really reaching into the memory banks but I think my second record was Aerosmith's Draw The Line. Ah yes it was the track "Kings and Queens" that I liked and no idea why. Lol.

Note:
I just listened to Kings and Queens and remembered why I liked this track. From 3:10 into the track begins a cool riff of a bass and then kicks into a nice guitar solo I really dug and I'm pretty sure I was using a tennis racket to air guitar to it.

[happyjack]

i guess everyone has a 9/11 story and mine ended up very tied to music -- specifically one divisive album.

TLDR: neutral milk hotel's 'in the aeroplane over the sea' is my 9/11 album

for a variety of circumstances, i ended up as the lone business traveler of my team who flew out of DC on 9/8 and landed in london on 9/9. the rest of the team was supposed to join later in the week...as was my wife, who was planning to join me for my second week in london and some vacation time.

needless to say, no one else joined me in london as planned after the events on 9/11 since all air travel was completely shut down for over a week. the clients i had only just started working with shut down their office for the week...although i really didnt have close relationships with any of them...or anyone else in london for that matter. so, i was alone in london during the single most horrific event of my lifetime with far fewer means of communicating with my family and friends than we have today. phones lines were jammed for days...so i could only email my family.

what i did have with me was a sony discman and about a dozen CDs, including a new one that i had not yet heard. the new-to-me-at-the-time album -- 'in the aeroplane over the sea' -- was given to me with a strong recommendation on how much i would love it by a friend who's life actually is music: he's been in multiple bands, founded a sound studio, worked as a sound engineer, and toured internationally with the likes of sting and herbie hancock. he knew that i was a long-time fan of 70s/80s punk and was really just starting to get into the emerging "indie" sound of the late 90s.

so, alone in london, i began walking all over the city with my discman and CDs just to stay out of my hotel room where i felt the loneliest that i'd every felt in my life. if you know the album, then you likely immediately understand why i connected with it so deeply given it's range of emotion and subject matter.

a lyric:

And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore

and, a video for the song 'holland, 1945' if you've never heard the album (warning: it's sort of high-concept punk...not exactly a top 40 / popular sound):

[Buug959]

Time for another Music Memory. This one's going back a ways. It was mid-seventies (my god, am I that old?) in Toronto. Some friends and I were out on the town on a bit of a pub crawl. We had been to a few different bars when someone suggested we drop in to the El Mocambo. I'd never been there before and of course was up to trying a new place. Well we turn the corner and there is a bit of a line to get in, maybe 20 people. Apparently there was something special going on that wasn't advertised and we decided to wait it out and see if we could get in. We made it, along with probably another 40-50 people that joined the line behind us. We head up the stairs and directly to the bar for a drink.The place was packed. It's then that we see what's going on. April Wine is playing and they're recording the show for an album, April Wine Live at the El Mocambo. Well, the night turned into quite a party as you can imagine. The beer started landing on the table by the pitcher and April Wine was on fire! I don't know how long they played but everyone, and I mean everyone, was absolutely hammered but the time they finished.
So if you ever have the opportunity to listen to Live at the El Mocambo and you listen real hard you just may be able to hear me in the background. Nah, probably not but it's fun to know that I was a part of that night.

[TiMSport]

Not that anyone is particularly interested but here goes....

So it’s a bit unusual in my case because growing up in the 80s and being a young (and irresponsible) adult in college and graduating and being in the Seattle scene as I mentioned at the beginning where there were almost competing spheres of music in my life. On one hand the grunge scene erupted in the early 90s so I was very much into all the popular bands and sometimes dressed accordingly complete with flannel shirts, worn jeans, black boots (Dr. Martens which were versatile), old t-shirts, etc. Frequented the numerous bars and live houses, accordingly. At the same time there were a ton of underground alternative bands out of the UK that I really enjoyed which was quite different from my local scene. I even got into a number of what were called “shoe gazing” bands (Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse, Swervedriver, Lush, etc.). Fortunately I had a couple of friends that were also into that stuff.

On the extreme opposite end of the spectrum was the emergence or popularity of rave music (where I lived) and all the variants of this wide ranging scene like techno, acid house, electronica, etc.. I have some very good memories (and a few lost ones) of the rave days and thoroughly enjoyed the underground warehouse parties that were sometimes limited to people with connections who were deeply entrenched in this bizarre world of eclectic and esoteric fantasy worlds of deep thumping bass you could feel in your bones, 808 drum beats, piano stabs, heavily modulated voices, shaking the foundation while scantily clothed women danced like they were possessed inside of cages of various sizes and heights (elevated). The lasers, video loops, fog, and overall vibe of these places made you feel like you were in another universe. There was one event I attended that had DJs soaring probably 50-75 feet or so above the main atrium space inside of a warehouse on a hydraulic lift spinning records/CDs. One vivid memory of these parties was the popularity of…. wait for it…. Dr. Seuss style hats. People would be literally trippin’ and wearing these crazy long Dr. Seuss looking caps. “E” was a very popular ahem supplement in this scene needless to say. Not sure when it became “Molly”.

So being immersed in so many types of music in those days kept me occupied. Too many hangovers and black outs.

These are some of the tracks that remind me of the rave scene back in the day.

The Shamen
“Ebeneezer Good” (a very clear reference to “E” or ecstasy at the time in which the song was reportedly banned from the air in the UK).
“Phorever People”

L.A. Style “James Brown is Dead”
The Prodigy “Wind it Up” “Out of Space”
808 State “Cubik”
Moby “Go” (before he became more mainstream)
Messiah "Temple of Dreams"