Musical soundtrack of your life

The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses.

Came out when I was in my teens and coincided with going to college, moving out of the family home, getting a girlfriend etc...

Now I listen to anything, but must confess that thanks to my daughter I know a lot of Taylor Swift and My Chemical Romance.

James.

For the highs, lows, loves and losses in life - Tim Booth has been in the background of it all.

......

I would have gone Stone Roses as being the soundtrack to my late teens/uni, but I think it was the introduction to early rave and acid house music thanks to a bootleg tape in the car of a mate that used to drive me to school that really shaped my life. Even now, many years later I think I prefer EDM to almost any genre, from Orbital to Sven Väth, Trip Hop to Hard House. 

It's not that I do not like other music either. I'll happily veg on the sofa to Stoner Rock or Northern Soul and listen to jazz or Hip-Hop at work, but I just get on best with EDM.

Hmm... 80s pop - Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Spandau leading to U2, Simple Minds via my older sister and then got heavily into Depeche Mode from about 1987 onwards. Then rock/metal/blues at uni which has stayed more or less up to date as new artists appear.

In my mind something like... 

In reality, probably more like 

https://youtu.be/2AxiATxLofk?si=XbRVV7w_GZnn6qjm

Or

https://youtu.be/s7MZ1iUwyTc?si=39GY85uatAwThU1a

^^^I give in. That's the Monty Python theme and the Benny Hill chase music to save you clicking 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFkzRNyygfk

In my early teens, I loved rock (my first interests were bands like ELO and Hawkwind from the age of about 10) and heavy metal, but it was Iron Maiden's 'Number of the Beast' that was the first album that really blew me away – I went to my first gig at 14 on the back of hearing 'Run to the Hills' on the Friday Rock show. I did also enjoy other stuff like Howard Jones, The Cure, Adam and the Ants, Nick Kershaw, Dire Straits, Madness, Talking Heads etc. Then, weirdly, I kinda tuned out of music in my early to mid twenties and stopped gigging as much as I used to (I'd go to gigs at an almost weekly basis at one point) but Britpop got me back into it (Damon Albarn has always been my mancrush LOL) and it rekindled my love of everything I had liked before too. Fast forward to today, and I still like all the stuff I have listened to over the years, but the band of the moment for me right now is Fontaines D.C. 

Bob Mould is the constant seam of music from my teenage years to now.

First heard him through Sugar then explored his previous solo work and then fell in love with Hüsker Dü.

Since then he has released album after album of music that just works for me. It’s all been good.

The Charlatans are the only other constant and their more recent offerings haven’t hit the spot as well as the 90s stuff but those 90s albums will always work for me.

There’s always a place in my heart for Transvision Vamp as well!

Completely ignored the suggested format from tj. Sorry!

I'd be here all night but my latest discovery is this 

First record I remember buying would be Oliver's Army - I was too young to understand lyrics and implications but I liked the tune and sound. 

Musical awakening happened around that time, the coolest kids at school were wearing monkey boots and listening to Madness, I liked The Specials more. 

Secondary school in 1980, and an intro from the older kids (often via the medium of what was written on their webbing bags) into the echelons of goth and new wave, when I first heard Joy Division albeit after his death, so I can't claim to really have been into them at the time. From there a short jump to Cure, Siouxsie, experiments with eyeliner, and then in 1983 The Smiths. Neil, the coolest kid in the year put me onto the Peel show and that then was my gateway - if Peel played it I listened to it, so everything from experimental german electronic noise at the wrong speed to the Bhundu Boys. I had 'eclectic tastes', and a fistful of recorded shows and sessions on cassette.

So it was via Peel that I first heard a Leeds band, The Wedding Present (I think - may have been the C86 cassette given away on NME's front cover) - and that was then me hooked and still for me the band that has soundtracked my life - not least because they're still going, albeit in a Mark E Smith style 'if it's David Gedge and they're playing WP songs, it's TWP'. My first weeks at Uni coincided with the release of 'George Best' and it was played to death after nights in the bar or at the Thurs night Indie disco at the SU.

Subsequent - still guitar based noise bands really. Pixies, were very important to me for a period. Of course Stone Roses and then into Britpop, although I never really got into the Blur vs Oasis stuff - by then I'd found Pulp who gave me the best live experience of my life, one Saturday night in a field near Pilton, and myriad girl fronted guitar bands (Sleeper, Echobelly, Lush being the ones I remember mainly)  Lush led me to shoegaze and Ride and MBV. 

I don't really know what happened after. I love music, and I'd mainly characterise as post-punk, guitar based indie bands but nothing after those great days of the 90's has really stuck since. Of course TWP still release new stuff and there are loads of bands and artists I've seen or listened to since but none have me fanboying in the same way. My daughter has similar tastes and has pushed a few my way too, including Fontaines DC and Wunderhorse currently on fairly heavy rotation. 

More than anything, nowadays I just love live music and I don't really want to pay big prices, I'd rather see in the words of Frank Turner "bands that have to work for their keep, drove a thousand miles and played a gig with no sleep, sleeping on the floor of a stranger's place, hungry just to do it all again the next day" (I saw him for the first time last week at gig 3025). So a small indie venue, taking a punt on an unknown for less than £20 and often way less. There's a few 'I saw them before they were famous' on my list by doing that and a lot more 'nothing ever came of them'

But you should see the Bug Club, they're ace. 

Well I started with liking Vanilla Ice and it went downhill from there

The Pogues would probably be a constant in my life, followed by New Order

(I think - may have been the C86 cassette given away on NME's front cover)

I think I may still have that, have to look when i get home. Some great stuff on it; HMHB and The Shop Assistants in particular.

Impossible to even start. My earliest musical memory is ‘Freight Train’, by Nancy Whiskey, and I would have been 3 when it was released. In 1957. To try to assemble a soundtrack, as music has been the most consistent part of my life, along with books, would require hours of just researching everything from the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s,… and my tastes continue to change and evolve, I’m discovering new stuff that’s being released now, and stuff that I overlooked through the previous decades. My Apple Music library has roughly 40,000 tracks in it.

An example - I heard Ministry’s ‘Jesus Built My Hot Rod’ on 6Music the other day, so I checked to make sure I had it, which I did, but only that track. A check through their albums made me realise what I’d been missing, so added a couple of their earlier albums. 
The new Uncut Magazine has just come out, so there’s going to be things to discover in there.

I’m not, and never have been the sort of person that gets mentioned in certain types of magazine, like GQ, that states that most people get to their late twenties, and stop listening to new music, and dress like their dad. Stuff that! 

Posted by: theotherjonv

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Sleeper, Echobelly, Lush being the ones I remember mainly)  Lush led me to shoegaze and Ride and MBV.

Good man! Have you heard Miki’s albums with Piroshka and the Miki Berenyi 3? Check them out, she’s touring the latest one now. 

Moose, Miki’s husband, Miki, and Olli

👌🏻

Countzero

What i posted was very simplified and just the stuff that made an impact at the time.

Like you music is a fundamental part of my life

The only stuff I really dont get on with is rap, folk and country and even then there are exceptions 

As for getting stuck musically in your 20s.  Stuff that indeed.   Ive find new stuff all the time.  Both new new and new to me.

Tbe only constants are classic soul and roots reggae.  I go down a path of something else but always return to them.

Good man! Have you heard Miki’s albums with Piroshka and the Miki Berenyi 3? Check them out, she’s touring the latest one now.

I have, I've seen them twice in recent times, first as support for TWP, who I may have mentioned, and then as headliners at the Boileroom in Guildford, my local grassroots and one of the reasons I'm always banging on about small venues. I spoke to her on the merch stall at both and she is just charming. I've also spoken to Louise Wener at a small gig, and Tracy Tracey from the Primitives - something 20 year old me would never have believed.....

Which leads to another long post and round of stories. It feels a bit self indulgent but I love music books, mags, reading other's posts, so I hope others enjoy reading mine. It'll seem like some unrelated facts that all come together....

Music and gig going for me really started at Uni, there were some great bands and small venues in Newcastle, and gigs I'll always remember. There were a few of us went to them but Ian was to become a lifelong friend. He lives in Oxford which has a vibrant musical scene and since partial retirement has a sideline in gig photography so he sees several hundred bands each year. Since Peel died he's taken on that role - a musical Danny from Withnail and I, always texting me with 'here's a new band I saw, you must check them out' and getting me hooked on random stuff. 

https://www.instagram.com/ianhanhamphotos/

Bit of a side story there - he was in finance, then worked for charities, and gave me an excited call one day....you'll never guess who's in the next room auditing my charity accounts! Turns out, Amelia Fletcher who was in Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Sarah records, etc. (now in Catenary Wires, check them out) and who was backing vocalist on TWP George Best, which is mega fandom level 1 for me. She's also an economics Prof and a CBE and on the boards of stuff like CMA, FCA, etc., hence why doing charity audits......

So - I saw MB3 were playing at GFBR and decided to go - and I usually go early to see the support, because they deserve it and sometimes you see a gem. One of the supports for MB3 that night was randomly another half Japanese lady, Erika, who is via 'friend of a friend' someone my wife knows relatively well. She writes and records her own music, but also has done all kinds of other stuff - backing bands for some major artists, she stood in for a Senser tour when Senser's singer (Kerstin) was on mat leave, but her 'big job' now is keyboards and second vocals for Skunk Anansie, because her husband is Mark their drummer (also Feeder) - and so with the friends of friends we've been round theirs in the past for a barbecue including one time when their dog jumped out of a first floor window into a bush, which livened things up.

https://www.icmp.ac.uk/about-icmp/tutors/erika-footman

And so back in a big roundabout way, to just about the one and only time when Ian texted me trying to push another musical drug to me, saying 'I assume you're going to see Lush but go early, there's this lady supporting them who I did some photos for recently at a gig in the shed sort of thing and she's amazing and also so lovely' and i was able to go 'Meh, she also makes a good cup of tea and home made cake'  

The secret lives of the rock and roll stars!!

House music. It's a spiritual thing. A body thing. A soul thing. A soul thing.

Grew up with parents playing loads of Irish music of all types which was good. But then they regressed to country and western. Yuk. My sisters went for ABBA and I sloped towards The Clash and The Jam. New Order, etc. Depeche Mode. Later Faithless.

My mates were big Scar fans but I preferred The Cure. 

90s Stone Roses, Ibiza rave etc. I still love Cafe del Mar etc. It's my ambient music at home.

Nowadays I love discovering stuff I missed or new music.

Seen The Pogues, Cure, New Order, Faithless at least half a dozen times. 

My musical taste has exploded since I was in my early twenties. There's so much different music and in my mid sixties I have limited time left, so many genre's and styles. I'll try them all greek blues anyone? Louisiana Red and stellios Vamvakaris