Can you remember when you first heard your favourite band or composer?

In my mam’s belly, a womb with a view if you like.
Apparently, whenever The Beatles music played I kicked like a constipated mule, true story.

I take it you kicked because you like the Beatles music.

So the story goes.

I don’t really remember when I first heard Bach. I liked it right away and it has continued to grow on me.

“Favorite” doesn’t really apply well to me if I can only pick one when it comes to bands. But I can remember clearly the first listen I got to Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” (at school, during lunch, borrowed from a friend and telling the group of friends around me how badly they needed to listen to this as the friend I borrowed it from smiled knowingly), Slayer’s “Hell Awaits” (at home, on a sunny afternoon, also borrowed, while doing math homework and thinking the equivalent of WTF!!!), Iron Maiden’s “Powerslave” (recommendation from a used music store clerk, listening to it in my parents car on the way home and thinking about how my next purchase would be “Number of the Beast”), and Queensryche’s “The Warning” (sleep-over with a friend who said their older brother liked Queensryche so I got it from the same used music store to surprise him, then promptly began having my mind blown once we hit play – En Force-Deliverance-No Sanctuary are still QR favorites’s of mine).

I pretty much was into all of them from the first listen, a lot of music I really enjoy over time is like that, and I’m always surprised when I look back at something I’ve forgotten, give it a new spin and say “Why am I not listening to this!?”.

The list goes on and crosses many genre’s. I always enjoy how when thinking back to things like that the memories are so clear and well associated with the music.

I must have been 8 or 9 years old. My parents took us to a concert down at the university. The stage was outdoors on a gentle summer evening. It was setup in a courtyard between the dorms. I remember crawling underneath the risers on which the band was playing, and hearing the music through the floor.

Afterwards, my parents bought the record or two and we went over to their friends’ house. They played the record over and over and I remember falling asleep on the floor listening to the music and the sound of my parents’ conversation.

Later on, I used to listen to the band over and over in college. It was great for getting high to, although I only think I did that once. Even friends of mine would listen to it over and over. It was what we now call world music. There were great gongs and african drums and a cello and sax and oboe. David Darling and Paul McCandless and Paul Winter among others. When I finally decided to buy some MP3s, their original album is the first thing I bought (the rest of my music is from other CDs I already own).

I only have one other memory that is as clear as the one I have of the first time I heard the Winter Consort and that is of the first time I heard Frank Zappa. But that was because that was the first rock concert I ever went to, not because I liked Zappa.

Let’s see. What else. I remember the first time I heard Max Roach (wonderful) and the first time I heard Wynton Marsalis (very disappointed). I remember Louis Armstrong very faintly—we were way up in the nosebleed seats, and that’s all I remember. I don’t remember the music. We could barely see the stage. Did I ever see Dizzy? I think so, but no clear memory. Maynard Ferguson blew me away, but I have no active memory of the concert.

Laurie Anderson uptown in NYC. Way cool. I remember going there, but not the concert. That’s all that comes to mind now.

I clearly remember walking into my friend’s house 42 years ago and being struck by the LP he was listening to. Without even sitting down I asked him what music he was playing. What I had heard was the repeating eleven note introduction to “Willie the Pimp” by Frank Zappa. “Do you want to buy it?” he asked “I’ll sell it to you for 10 shillings”. I bought it there and then and have never looked back. Frank Zappa has been my favourite composer ever since.

I only feel asleep at night as an infant when the Beatles played, or so I’m am told. Funny that this is similar to what you were told, @ucme .

My friend gave me a CD with a few of her songs on it for Christmas. On it, I had one song by my now favorite band. I have that entire album now.

@babybadger Yeah, whenever their music stopped playing i’d Twist & Shout!
Okay, maybe I just made that up, any excuse for a gag ;¬}

I was a very little girl, maybe 2 or 3, and my mother played Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the piano. I loved it and have loved Beethoven ever since. Although I can’t claim that Beethoven is my ONLY favorite.

I was 13, and in a truck with Steve (the boyfriend of my mother at the time). As we went to get some food from Wendy’s, he held up a CD, laughed and said, “You’re gonna like this.” He then popped in the CD, turned up the stereo, and engraved Iron Maiden into my skull. They have been my favorite metal band ever since.

lol @ucme, all of the jellies should Come Together and sing it.

Yes. I hated them.

I remember when I first heard Janis sing Bobby McGee. I was 12 and I was in my dad’s car in the driveway pretending to drive and listening to the radio. It was shortly after she died. I’ve been hooked on her sound ever since.

I remember listening to the radio feed of Woodstock and I heard a replay of Jimi’s Star Spangled Banner. I’ve been hooked ever since.

I remember working in a restaurant as a server when I was 16 and someone bought Patti Smith’s Horses album on cassette. I went to my car to listen to it on break and never went back to work that night. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Well….There was this one time.

I went to see Alice In Chains a few years ago. They were a favorite of mine for much of highschool and college, but Staley was dead and gone. And then the rest of the guys got back together to tour and I saw them at the Roxy goddamn I love the Roxy. Anyways they had a new singer for Layne’s parts obviously, but they had had guest vocalists for two songs. The first was Billy Corgan. He murdered Down in a Hole. I like Smashing Pumpkins as much as the next girl in a mustache, but Corgan’s voice just doesn’t fit with Alice. Especially not that song. And then he appeared.

Honestly I had no effing clue who he was. He just slipped on stage, no explanation, no introduction and belted out the most soulful version of “Rooster” I have ever heard. You know it had to be amazing because I’m not even a fan of that song. He’s about as far from being a front man as anyone could be. There’s no theatrics with him, hell, there’s no interaction at all. Watching him up there you get the impression that he’s so focused on the song that there is nothing else in the world to him. And then he steals off just as silently as he came. It’s quite staggering.

So after the show I managed to figure out who he was. And lo and behold it was vocal slut Mark Lanegan. You may know him from the Screaming Trees, Soulsavers, Queens of the Stoneage, Gutter Twins, his solo albums or his collaborations with Isobel Campbell. Or maybe you know him from something else. He is a vocal slut.

I haven’t seen him live since my first time. Which is a shame, his voice is sex.

@babybadger I was thinking about this only Yesterday
It would Help if we met up maybe Eight Days A Week

I don’t remember the exact incident, but I most likely heard the music of Tchaikovsky through the Nutcracker. I remember seeing the Nutcracker at a very young age.