How did you get in to your favorite bands?

[nightprowler10]

I've always found it pretty interesting how people tend to have stories about how they were introduced to their favorite bands, would like to know CWebbers'. Here are mine:

AC/DC: Gave a coworker a ride home once when I was working at Wal-Mart back in late 2000. He noticed I had absolutely no music he liked in my car. At the time I really wasn't into any type of Western music whatsoever. Anyway, he ranted and raved about how great his favorites, Boston, were. Once we got to his house he ran inside to get me a Boston album, but once inside he apparently couldn't find it. So grabbed what he thought to be the next best thing, AC/DC Live, and asked me to listen to it for a few days and see what I think. The rest, as they say, is history.

Led Zeppelin: I went to Best Buy on a Thanksgiving Day sale to look for some cheap electronics and picked their Early Days and Latter Days greatest hits double album. For some reason I wasn't entirely impressed and gave it to my sister. My girl found out that I had a fleeting interest in the band so went out and bought me a box-set that included all of their studio albums for christmas. Being home alone one day, I played all of the albums one by one in my DVD player and that moment on I was hooked.

Junoon: Worst story yet, but here goes. Junoon were still only just trying to make it and their first album had been a big flop. Basically they were only ever on the scene due to the guitarist's popularity with his previous band and because they were pretty unique in Pakistan at the time. Following their second album's release, their distributor's devised a cheesy marketing strategy where you could get a half album with six of their songs on it with a purchase of Colgate toothpaste. This is how I came to get their album and I knew I wanted everything they ever made from then on in, and I did.

 

[Athlai]

Temazepam.

 

[Craig]

Word of mouth from other people or looking through music stores and saw something and thought I should have a look at further.

 

[Athlai]

Will have to plead whoosh on that.

Date rape drug. (I googled a few for this thread.)

 

[nightprowler10]

Date rape drug. (I googled a few for this thread.)

Haha, deleted my post just now after googling it myself.

Anyway, I suppose this thread would be more apt for people who didn't go out looking for music rather the music went out looking for them, and hit them like an eighteen wheeler.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Parkway Drive: Was in Byron when I was 17 on a family roadtrip and they played for free at the local youth centre. I went in and was blown away.

Ruiner: Random downloading spree on Soulseek, massive stroke of luck.

 

[BoyBrumby]

The Smiths: Through Morrissey's less-praised solo stuff actually. Was a bit too young to fully appreciate yer Smiths genius when they were going, but picked up Viva Hate cheap & thought, wow this is one of the greats. As he didn't have any other solo stuff then I got into his previous band's stuff (first two Smiths' LPs I bought were Meat is Murder & Rank on the same day because they were the only two Woolies had in), grew a quiff and became the fully-formed insufferable smart arse I am today.

American Music Club: Melody Maker recommedation. Everett True described their uber-genius frontman Mark Eitzel as what Moz would be like if he were American, straight (he isn't, as it happens) & weened on WIlliam Faulkner rather than Oscar Wilde. Purchased Mercury & was blown away completely. That a band of their obvious quality still has to scramble around at the margins of the music business isn't, as with most undervalued great bands, merely a pity; it's a ****ing disgrace.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: After seeing them live at Reading. A real wake up moment. Like a blues maelstrom.

Nick Drake: Mark Eitzel recommendation. Not personally, but in the liner notes of his solo effort Songs of Love: Live wherein he freely acknowledges he ripped his song Western Sky off from Drake's Northern Sky, as I'd purchased everything AMC had released at that point I bought Five Leaves Left as a sort of proxy-Eitzel album and was immediately hooked.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Rise Against: When my laptop crashed and I lost all my music while over in France and away from all my CDs, I copied loads of music onto my external hard drive from my friend's computer. She recommended me a load of bands and gave me their music - some good, some bad, but Rise Against stood out among the crowd.

Bloc Party: Heard their first single on the radio back when I used to listen to more indie than I do now. Also heard the buzz about them when they were first around, bought Silent Alarm, and loved it.

Rage Against The Machine: Downloaded a couple of tracks off iTunes during my "try out loads of different genres" phase a few years ago. Thought they were okay, left them alone for a while, then returned to them a year or so later once my tastes changed a little, and never looked back.

 

[luffy]

The radio mostly.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

The radio mostly.

 

[GotSpin]

I always laugh at that picture

 

[GIMH]

Guns N Roses - Was a big Nirvanahead in my mid-teens, the term round here is 'mosher'. Was flicking through the music channels one day at my Dad's, and there was some geezer with longer hair than I had at the time, bandana & leather pants, swaying about. Flicked past it, and my Dad goes, "eh dickhead, that's Guns N Roses" and tried to convince me they were better than Nirvana, I was having none of it. About two weeks later, I was on break at school talking music with a mate, and offhand he said that Appetite for Destruction was probably one of the best albums he'd ever heard. We had similar taste in music, I was staying at my old man's that night. So when everyone else went to bed, I used to stay up and listen to my Dad's CDs on the headphones, well I decided to give AFD a whirl after all. Looked at the back, track 9 Sweet Child O' Mine sounded like one I'd heard of, so I stuck it on. It took me about seven minutes to actually hear a vocal I was so encapsulated by that riff.

I took AFD home with me the next day, borrowed UYI 2 the week after, they were the only ones my Dad had at the time. I had all their stuff, albums, boots, videos within months. I had fallen in love.

Motley Crue - As a huge GNR fan I used to post on a forum called 2000 Intentions which was a belter of a GNR board, the only forum I've ever posted with anywhere near the same regularity on as I do here.

Well with GNR fans, you get a few different types of music taste. Some come from the heavier end of the spectrum and GNR will be the softest they go, a lot are quite the opposite. Similarly, though, the view on 80's glam amongst GNR fans varies. About the only thing GNR fans agree on on this front is that they were under no circumstances a hair band/cock rock. Anyway, there was quite a split on the forum with regards to Motley Crue, but as a young impressionable Axlite I heard he hated Vince & the band and never gave them a shot.

But then, the posters I didn't like where turning out to be the ones who hated Crue, the ones I would speak to off the forum would say "you need to listen to Crue, it's right up your street." Then Chris Jericho, the wrestler, released an album of covers with his band Fozzy and there was a song on it called Live Wire - I loved the intro to that, found out it was Crue, and started thinking, hmmmmmmmm, but was still too lazy to do anything about it.

But then one day I got home from school, switched Planet Rock on and the end of Shout at the Devil was on, I only heard like 30 seconds of it but it blew me away like nothing else really. I went online and said in the general music board of the forum, "Juan, kenaz, you guys win, so where do I start," and as with GNR had all their stuff within months.

Sorry for boring you with those, I talk too much

 

[Barney Rubble]

FAO GIMH: I saw a Chinese Democracy advert on TV last night! Also, my mate said he heard that Axl said ages ago that if the album ever got released, he'd buy every single person in the world a Dr. Pepper. Random.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah, there is a big poster at the train station whenj I get off for work "CHINESE DEMOCRACY - THEY SAID IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!"

The Dr Pepepr thing, I don't think it's quite that, as Axl has always maintained it would definitely be released one day, but I have heard something along similar grounds!

It's out a week on Monday, I can't wait

 

[Barney Rubble]

Yeah, there is a big poster at the train station whenj I get off for work "CHINESE DEMOCRACY - THEY SAID IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!"

The Dr Pepepr thing, I don't think it's quite that, as Axl has always maintained it would definitely be released one day, but I have heard something along similar grounds!

It's out a week on Monday, I can't wait

Yeah, dead excited myself. I don't care if it's supposedly awful, I'm buying it anyway.

 

[GIMH]

Well the songs I've already heard are bloody good. I know that it won't be worth the wait but still expect it to be absolutely awesome. I have been waiting for this day since the aforementioned "me getting into GNR" day.

 

[Barney Rubble]

Well the songs I've already heard are bloody good. I know that it won't be worth the wait but still expect it to be absolutely awesome. I have been waiting for this day since the aforementioned "me getting into GNR" day.

Ah, good to know someone who's a fan has heard and likes the tracks. Others I've heard opinions from are mostly indifferent people whose attitude is "it'll never be as good as they used to be". Makes me a little more optimistic. Still refusing to get my hopes up though, that way with any luck I'll be pleasantly surprised, and not disappointed.

 

[sledger]

Generally I just experiment, I came across Explosions in the Sky due to PommieMG posting about them a lot on here, then from there I explored music from similar genres....

I got into Radiohead because I used to listen to a lot of Muse, then wished to move onto something a bit more.....good.

I got into all my trippy electronica because....I dunno, just picked up a Sneaker Pimps album one day and one thing led to another.

 

[cpr]

The Dr Pepper thing for GnR was actually done by Dr Pepper themselves, around March they said if Axl releases the album this year they'd give everyone in America a free Dr Pepper (bar Slash and Buckethead). Axl kindly said Buckethead can share his, because he contributed to the album!

 

[cpr]

So here goes

Alot of my favourite bands i'd sorta been listening to on and off since i was about 10-11, my best mate used to share a bedroom with his older brother, who was about 5 years older than us, but was still really cool and was never bothered about us being around, listening to his CD's, messing about with his guitars etc. First place I really heard Guns N Roses, Metallica, Green Day, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Manic Street Preachers etc. Lot of bands I listened to because it was on in the background, then properly discovered them a few years later when i really started to get into music and the tunes were familiar

GnR
Really fell in love with them probably when i was about 14. Sisters ex was a massive fan, growing up in that era, got into them through car journeys with him. Ended up buying all the albums (bar Greatest Hits, which tbh only offers Sympathy For The Devil, majestic cover it is, not worth a tenner). Live Era is possibly one of 2 Live albums I've ever bothered with.

Pearl Jam
The year they were playing Leeds, they'd been rumoured for about 10 months before hand, bought a copy of Ten for cheap. Now my way of relaxing/stress relief is to get into the car about midnight, stick on a good album and go for a drive around the country lanes. That night i'd got as far south as Joddrell Ban and back (a round journey of at least 80 miles through winding country roads) just listening to this album over and over again. Absolutely fell in love with them.