The Song Fight Bulletin Board

QotD: Which friend or acquaintance most influenced your taste in music?

I'd say my first musically influential friend was Davia Moore in 7th grade. We had crushes on this group of guys. Her locker was next to one of theirs and he had posters and stickers inside his locker. They were for bands like the Cure and the Smiths.

Davia had money, so she bought the Cure 'Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me' and the Smiths 'Strangeways Here We Come'. (as you might have guessed, this was 1987) She made me copies and we listened to them religiously. We started listening to KROQ and she bought all of the big albums of the year, and all the other stuff we heard on the radio. We started dressing in black and stuff.

The guys never noticed us, but we found a bunch of great music.

My high school boyfriend, Dave, was another who influenced me musically. He liked stuff like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. He also like the Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephlym and the Mission. Strangely enough, he also liked stuff like Social Distortion and stuff like that. Being his girlfriend for 3 years, I absorbed a lot of his tastes in music.

Then there is Phil. I've been with him for 11 years. In that time I've learned a lot about music from him. He showed me a wide variety of stuff like Clutch and QotSA and Combustible Edison and Rev. Horton Heat and the Supersuckers and Southern Culture on the Skids and Pizzicato Five and Verbena and Soul Coughing and Mark Mallman and the Butthole Surfers and the Misfits and Henry Rollins and so many more. We discovered a lot of music together over the years too. I showed Phil a lot of what I liked going into the relationship and now he can quote Smiths and Nick Cave lines to me. It's great.

There were a lot of bands that he's wanted me to like over the years, but they never stuck, like Kiss and Frank Zappa and Ween and the Melvins.

My day so far: The kids woke me up at 7:30 this morning. I'm tired and kind of grumpy. They seem tired too and kind of whiny. It's only 10, but I'm ready to put them down for a nap and me too. Phil's still sleeping.

this question made me think.

when i was a kid, i had a friend named russell who really influenced my taste in music, for bands like neil young, springsteen.

as an adult, i've probably been most influenced by e-money. we share a similar taste in music, and he turned me on to many bands that would later influence my own music (guided by voices, ween, beck)


so headed up the the city today. there's a ton of shit going on this weekend in San Francisco (fluffy take note). today is the annual LoveFest, tomorrow the always entertaining Folsom Street Fair.

and next weekend is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

Good question. In high school (1980-84) Rob Zombies' little brother, Mike, got me to appreciate the Police and Minor Threat alongside my hard/classic rock immersion. In the army as a young man, I had an older buddy named Smitty who turned me on to less mainstream classic rock like Tom Waits and The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Two guys my age but much more urban, Vee and Red, played me stuff like Pere Ubu and Fishbone. This was 1985-86 for perspective and vinyl was starting to fade away, no internet. All those people basically taught me to explore and aside from suggestions and whatnots from friends over the years, they were the most influential.

One of the guys I've been jamming with said he bought a race car (!) and come spring will be spending his time doing that. I'm a little more bummed than I thought I would be as although he's far from the best drummer I've played with, no disrespect intended, he's a natural fit for the Greek Thunder and I. One more winter of caveman rock then kaputski.

Crap! I just realized, 3 weeks later, that I left Allison's Bob the Builder DVD in the portable DVD player that we rented at the airport on the way to Nebraska!

I've been to the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport website and I found out the name of the rental place, but I can't find their phone #. I guess I need to keep searching. I haven't told her yet that it's missing... I'm sure it would be cheap to replace if she ever asked to watch that one...

Edit: found the phone #. I'm gonna call then to see if they possibly found it and can send it to me.

Edit again: Well, I called them and they didn't find it. oh well

I'll be leaving on vacation tomorrow for five days, woo hoo! 8th annual Blues and Brews festival all week and Styx on the 4th. On the water by day, and casinos and rocking by night. I love Laughlin Nevada, it's a boaters paradise.

QOTD:
My friend Billy Anderson (God rest his soul) introduced me to Kiss. We'd both been playing guitar for a couple years and at school he was telling about these wanna be Alice Coopers, lol. So right after school, we went out and stole Dressed To Kill, I think, (because we didn't have limewire back then) and that was it, we were hooked. We went and saw them live at Anaheim Stadium and it was amazing. One other great thing happened at that concert, the opening band was Montrose. I was blown away. No fancy stage show, but straight up bad ass rock. Ronnie Montrose and Sammy Hagar rocked.
Later we realized that every time we tried to rock like our favorite bands, we sounded nothing like them. It was aggravating to both of us because we couldn't afford all the fancy equipment. Our lyrics were more about being pissed off all the time instead of about rocking all night and partying all day. Shorty after that we found out about the Sex Pistols and we loved them. Then came Black Flag, etc. Our style was created between our love for folk, hard rock and American punk.

Here.

Three answers:

1) My dad - I was raised in a classical music household -but not that most relaxing CD ever kind of household. My dad preferred the adventurous stuff. Beethoven, Stravinsky, Ives, etc...

2) My older siblings (including Steve)- especially because there seemed to be a lot of Beatles music in the house while I was growing up.

3) Bill Coffey - Before him I pretty much only listened to classical and beatles, and was very close-minded and snobby about other music. AT a St. Patrick's Day party near the end of my Freshman year, he made me shut up, sit down, and listen to Bohemian Rhapsody - it opened up a whole world of music I had been shutting out. Sounds cliche, I know, but it's true.

Good question!

Multiple people, starting with: my parents' vinyl collection, which I always raided, but never really listened to until... the early '80s, when my dad got a cassette player in his car, and handed me a list of albums he wanted taped and a box of blank tapes. Spent a summer watching the levels on my boom box (weird that it had rca ins & outs and an led meter, for the day) and actively hearing all this music. Almost participating in it (riding the faders and paying close attention to the music and such).

Enter now-long-lost friend, Chris Thomas. And Oingo Boingo. And San Francisco's KQAK radio station. And late nights listening to KPFA out of Berkeley.

Enter college, and Albatross, into this story. Frank Zappa, 'Weird' Al and the Dr. Demento pantheon. And too many other bands to list.

What was the question again? Well, those are the three eye-openers for me. Currently, Mrs. Rabid's got me on a buffet of classic soul, and dishes of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, and local punk bands, old and new. Y'know, mushy music

Heather. Redmon. wrote:QotD: Which friend or acquaintance most influenced your taste in music?

We ought to be better friends, Heather. I'm a big Tom Waits and Nick Cave kind of dude. Do you spend any time with my radio show? I did all B-sides on my show yesterday night and played Combustible Edison's "Satan Says," the flip to "Cry Me a River" from the Sub Pop Singles Club. I was actually really reminded of Octothorpe's "Happy Machine Ankle." The first answer I thought to the QOTD was my friend and ex-girlfriend, Natasha. The two of us turned each other on to a lot of great music. I gave her DJ Shadow, she gave me The Smiths. I gave her Pixies, she gave me Decemberists. Beyond that it's mostly self-discovered, though, I think. I'm the cool guy who introduces people to music. Or at least I like to think of myself as such. Hmm. No-one else comes to mind as having gotten me into much I hadn't been into already.

Kiss is terrible. Here's a short list of bands I can't stand and think are meritless: DMB, Kiss, LCD Soundsystem, Iron and Wine. Why does anyone like any of these bands? It is a mystery.

i was made for loving you baby. you were made for loving me.

kiss. first concert i ever saw. still one of the best. destroyer tour.

and that gene simmons reality show sucks. truly dreadful. at least ace kept his dignity.

jack wrote:i was made for loving you baby. you were made for loving me.

kiss. first concert i ever saw. still one of the best. destroyer tour.

and that gene simmons reality show sucks. truly dreadful. at least ace kept his dignity.

I agree with all of the above.

Full day with the kids and thoroughly unstructured, which is so rare. Monica left mid day to join a friend at the NY Film Festival where she saw Bono and the Edge at Julian Schnabel’s Diving Bell. We went to DUMBO for the open art studios and a sad elephant doing sad tricks.

Some new neighbors are very vocal during their amorous acts. It's been like 5 nights in a row! Their window is 15 feet from ours. Oh, happy city living.

QofD:
Mom for listening to Beethoven, Stravinsky and Bach.

My siblings for the Beatles, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Moody Blues, Simon and Garfunkel, Cat Stevens, Frank Zappa.

My brother's friend Mark for King Crimson.

Walter Schneider, high school music teacher, for Debussy, Balinese gamelan, Indian raga, Hungarian folk music, and all the early electronic pieces (Edgard Varèse, Stockhausen).

It's been all downhill from there.

Well maybe Kiss is terrible, but they sure were fun. How 'bout a little coffee with your Ace? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl2ZzDpSrKw

jack wrote: and that gene simmons reality show sucks. truly dreadful.

Do you mean the Rockschool one - where he was in the English school with the little kids? I thought that was great. Or is there another one?

Brian Wilson

Heather. Redmon. wrote:QotD: Which friend or acquaintance most influenced your taste in music?

The Cure and the Smiths. ..

'Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me' and the Smiths 'Strangeways Here We Come'. Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen. Social Distortion and stuff like that. Clutch and Rev. Horton Heat and the Misfits and so many more. We discovered a lot of music together over the years too.

I have both of those albums and I've seen The Cure..had tickets to see Morrisey but he cancelled.

I have albums by each of the others I've quoted you on and have seen The Rev.

Don't know why I thought it was important enough to mention but I thought I would anyways.

Yesterday I worked on putting an internet video together for The Funeral Dazies... then accidentally deleted it! LUCKILY for some reason I had saved a copy somewhere when I was nearly done. I'm not even sure why I had done that. I think it was because Premier crashed and when I went to 'save' the project after reopening it, it made me 'save as'. (because it knew it was working with a recovered version) So I just saved it under a different file name because I wasn't sure where I was in production of the original. It saved the day.

I would say the friend that most influenced my taste in music would be either Sam Pauley, who I was in JJ&tGTB with, or Paul Daly. Both had wild tastes in music, from Joy Division, to Devo, TISM, The Police, Custard, and a whole bunch more that I still listen to today.

Spud wrote:Brian Wilson

From the Beach Boys? I have been to his house in Yorba Linda on pool related matters.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Spud wrote:Brian Wilson

From the Beach Boys? I have been to his house in Yorba Linda on pool related matters.

Spud is a Beach Boys fan, you should seek out Octothorp's Beach Boys' cover.

Hoblit wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:

Spud wrote:Brian Wilson

From the Beach Boys? I have been to his house in Yorba Linda on pool related matters.

Spud is a Beach Boys fan, you should seek out Octothorp's Beach Boys' cover.

Oh cool, so am I, and I will. Thanks Hobz