On That Note: Origin Story

[MuskieCy]

My dad was very involved with the IVMA, eventually became president. Mom and dad were always in DM for meetings/stuff.

Mom would go to the downtown flagship Younkers. She started asking the clerks in the music department what the "kids" were listening to and would buy albums for us.

I was 9. I didn't know what it was about, but I knew something was happening.



The hits kept rolling.

 

[AlaCyclone]

 

[Althetuna]

My family was a Rock & Roll family. I remember these songs specifically

When I was young I remember AC/DC 8-tracks of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheep and Kiss' Rock and Roll Over

Big Balls (This song means something completely different when your 5 years old than when your 25.)



Calling Dr Love


I also remember listening to Snow White sound Track Heigh Ho repeatedly mostly likely annoying the hell out off everyone.


The first album I binged was a cassette I borrowed from my brother's collection, The Who's Hooligans

 

[madguy30]

Not much of one other than occasionally friends having stuff around that wasn't on the radio.

We had 50s/60s stations on when I was young (80s) and that has stuck with me all the time. I tend to lean in a bit when I hear a modern song that has that kind of sound.

All sorts of examples I guess but I'll pause when Everly Bros. pop up.

 

[CYdTracked]

I have a broad spectrum for the kind of music I like and kind of went through "phases" throughout my life on when I liked certain music more than others. Grew up in the 80's and 90's in rural Iowa so I remember listening to a lot of country music from that era and still do today. Probably around teenage years started to get into classic rock and pop/r&b music and probably around the time I got my driver's license I got into rap for a bit there as seemed like the "cool thing" was something with bass and vulgar lyrics if you were a HS boy in the late 90's. College probably was back into more of listening to 90's/early 2000 pop/r&B type music again then after college started getting back into more country music more again. I don't know if the class still exists at ISU anymore, but I really enjoyed Music 104 which was the History of Rock and roll. You had to take Music 102 first which most students when I went usually took to fill diversity elective credits.

I'm not a big fan of today's pop music. My kids are into it and maybe some songs here and there I might wind up liking. Also am hit or miss with some of today's country music. I like stuff that you can sing to and has some good lyrics and some of the stuff coming out these days just doesn't do it for me.

I'd say for artists that have stood the test of time for me I go back to older eras so for country music it's always been the 4 part harmony of the Oak Ridge Boys (probably wore out some vinyl records we had of them), Alabama, George Strait, etc. and newer artists like Eric Church, Dierks Bentley, and Jason Aldean are ones I listen to a lot. Steve Miller Band, AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Eagles are some of the older classic rock, 90's pop don't have a ton of favorites that come to mind right away as more into certain songs than the artists but Hootie and The Blowfish probably my favorite from that era.

One last story I'll share for my video contribution. I am from the generation that grew up trying to record songs off the radio with a cassette tape player. Anyone that grew up during the 80's and 90's knows what I am talking about. You'd listen to the radio with a finger on the record button hoping the next song being played was one you wanted to record and listen to. I recall there was a time my Dad was obsessed with this Ray Steven's song when it first came out. It was 1984 so I was 5 years old so I'm surprised I still remember this, but I knew in the mornings we'd have the radio during breakfast and someone had to be nearby to hit record if it came on as seemed like it usually was played pretty regularly around that time when it came out.

 

[MeanDean]

Summer of 1980 I stayed in Ames. I was supposed to have graduated that Spring, but a couple drops and some scheduling snafus meant I needed to go another quarter. I had joined a couple buddies from Wilkinson House to rent an apartment on Knapp Street. Since we had a full year lease I decided to spend the summer there and take a class each of the summer sessions, leaving me a fairly light load for my last quarter that fall.

Somehow I got up the nerve to start going to yard and garage sales. Initially it seemed like I was trespassing and/or snooping into peoples private lives to be rifling through their wares. But I quickly overcame that when I realized they wanted people to buy that stuff.

I came across a box of LPs and even picked out 3. The Turtles' first album, Walk Away Renee by the Left Bank and Nancy Sinatra's Boots album. That opened the flood gates. I became a yard sale hound! I soon learned to ask, "Do you have any old records?" That actually worked often enough; nothing like being FIRST to pick through the box. Such a rush to see what I might find. Some would decline by saying, "I want to keep some, I need to go through them." I would say, "I will just pick out the ones I want and if you want to keep any of those, that's fine."

Then it occurred to me to ask the ones with LPs if they had any 45s. Again, It was a magical question. Boxes would appear from attics, basements and bedroom closets and I was in heaven.

I got my first Beatles Picture sleeves that summer at a yard sale south of 30. I Want To Hold Your Hand and If I Fell. Twenty five cents a piece. Both still prominent in my collection today.

 

[MeanDean]

One of the albums I bought for a dollar on a "take a chance" whim in summer 1980 was a promo-stamped copy of this. I knew him from seeing him on SNL the night the Sex Pistols were supposed to be on and cancelled. Also as a subscriber to Rolling Stone magazine I knew the critics loved this album.

There was literally no way to hear this music on radio in Iowa at the time with the possible exception of a college station.

I put the head phones on and listened. After about the end of the second time through I began to "get it."

I remember my room-mate saying. "You don't really like that do you?" I confessed that I did. Pretty soon he was a fan too.

 

[drlove]

First, thank you for doing this series every week. It might be my favorite thing on this site.

As the youngest of 4 boys, i was influenced by my older brothers on most things in my life. My love for music was influenced by my oldest brother that is 10 years my senior. He started me listening to Rolling Stones, The Who, David Bowie, and DireStraits in about 1980. He also started my vinyl collection (which I still have) with The Pretenders (Learning to Crawl has held up really well) and The Doors.
He also introduced me to my two favorite bands REM, and Wilco. We still go to shows when we can.

 

[cyclones500]

Moving to more recent period. I’ve been introduced to numerous songs/artists via On That Note and other CF music threads.

I can’t possibly post (or recall) all examples. One album standout, a nod to @MeanDean, “Godfather of OTN.”

“Odessey and Oracle,” by The Zombies. Here’s my favorite track from the LP (I could post nearly any song from the album).

 

[pourcyne]

My mom had a modest collection of 78 rpm records from her youth that I could play on a little mono record player that looked like a mini suitcase. It played 45's (with an adapter), 33 1/3's, and the thick 78's.

My favorites that I learned by playing them time after time after time when I was nine or ten (brought back by the Miracle of YouTube):

 

[pourcyne]

When my older brother went off to college, he came back with a collection of 45's, and I got to play them still on the same little suitcase record player...oh, man, it's was the mid-60's and I was so cool...

 

[pourcyne]

And then about '73 or so, brother II presented me with "Superstars of the 70's". Still have that three-LP set (that was six sides, mind you) and had graduated to a different record player, only now it was called a portable turn table. It still folded up like a suitcase, but you could stack a whole bunch of records on it and they would drop down one-by-one...

Turns out you can buy it used for under 5 bucks online. Probably all scratched up from dropping too many times one on top of the other. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

Best of the best (there are no bad ones on this, except maybe the B*ach Boys, on this compilation, IMHO...aaaand...more proof that I was still so cool...

 

[MeanDean]

Moving to more recent period. I’ve been introduced to numerous songs/artists via On That Note and other CF music threads.

I can’t possibly post (or recall) all examples. One album standout, a nod to @MeanDean, “Godfather of OTN.”

“Odessey and Oracle,” by The Zombies. Here’s my favorite track from the LP (I could post nearly any song from the album).

That is my favorite Zombies track of all time.

And the title of the bio-pic about their career. It's available on Prime and Apple+ (rental, not included free to subscribers ).

I cannot recommend it highly enough. So many missed opportunities to be huge that were oh-so-close. And just all around nice guys. Content with their lives, loving being appreciated after-the-fact. Several funny moments and some tear-jerker moments.

 

[MeanDean]

This was in response to Rulzzz's suggestion of music from a genre you would never expect to like.

In 1973 I went to see American Graffiti.
Prior to that I liked maybe 3 pre-1964 songs.

Purchased the sound-track on 8-track. Initially I would click through the different tracks to find a 'good' song. After a while and forgetting to do that sometimes I grew to enjoy the whole thing.

Sometime in the mid-80s my interest in then-current music waned. I took a deep deep dive into Doo-Wop music. Mostly Black vocal groups, but a few of the Italian ones as well.

Some of my favorite discoveries:







Gonna throw in a Blues Shouter:



And an obscure Rockabilly tune that I think would be appropriate to start off ANY party



There are specific MeanDean life stories for each of these. But I'm going overboard already.

 

[1TwistedCyclone]

I got Back in Black for Christmas in 8th grade, 1999. Haven't stopped rocking since.

 

[cyclones500]

Excuse my tl/dr lengthiness. Didn't intend that, but ...

Wish I knew the person to "credit" for the influence.

When I was a (high school) freshman. Someone on my school bus had a boom box and played cassettes, and one he/she played was “Candy-o” by The Cars. This might’ve been first day of academic year, or close to it. (Album was released in June of that year).

I recall hearing the intro track vividly, even if I’ve long forgotten “who” had the player & tape.

I’ve grown to like this album even more as I age. I’m sure nostalgia is a factor, but actually I’ve come to appreciate it as an enduring work of that era. It doesn’t sound dated to me.

Although I liked plenty of Cars songs in the next few years (plus hits from the debut LP, of course). I had acquired the album sometime during that period, but already had "Forgot about the band," in a way.

In late ‘80s/early ‘90s, I randomly re-listened. For the first time, I noticed the quality of production and the unity of the LP. I thought, “Y’know, I might have taken this for granted.”

 

[Buster28]

When I was very young (probably kindergarten), I learned how to operate my mom's record player so I could listen to the 45 she owned of Olivia Newton-John's "Have You Never Been Mellow". I could not get enough of that song for some reason. Don't know if it was her voice or the music, but it absolutely captivated my mind. Loved it! I was very fortunate to see her in residency in Vegas several years before she passed away. Such a good time.



A few years after that, I kept hearing a song played on AM radio in the car when we'd be going from wherever to wherever. It played ALL THE TIME. I kept asking my mom, "What's that lady's name?" "Barbara Mandrell." "Oh, ok. I really like that song." It was "Sleeping Single in a Double Bed", which remains my all-time favorite song to this day, 47 years after its release.



The Grease soundtrack was the first album I bought with my own money (I still have it). "Hot Stuff" by Donna Summer was the first 45 rpm I bought with my own money - lol. I discovered American Country Countdown one Sunday morning in my dad's machine shop in 1982 and became a regular listener, keeping track of how all my favorite songs were doing. In 1983, I started listening to American Top 40 with Kasey Kasem and that was the beginning of getting to know pop and rock music better on my own (other than listening to what mom had on).

My favorite sub-genre that I discovered on my own is freestyle from the mid 80s to the early 90s. A sample of what I love from that: Company B's "Fascinated".



My favorite sub-genre that I discovered AFTERwards by going back and investigating things I'd missed the first time around is new wave. So much good stuff that came from that. It was like punk went pop. Massive synthesizers/guitars/beats just sounded so great. I didn't get to hear much of it during that time, but developed a great appreciation for it after I got older. Berlin's "Pictures of You" is an all-time favorite of mine.

 

[cyclones500]

My dad was very involved with the IVMA, eventually became president. Mom and dad were always in DM for meetings/stuff.

Mom would go to the downtown flagship Younkers. She started asking the clerks in the music department what the "kids" were listening to and would buy albums for us.

I was 9. I didn't know what it was about, but I knew something was happening.



The hits kept rolling.

Cool Mom + Younkers = Gold!

 

[cyclones500]

Gotta give cred to @CycloneRulzzz for this week's topic.

The stories are fascinating/cool.

Even if I'm not "into" some of the tracks/styles, it takes a back seat to learning the experience and discovery of music from other people's perspective.

 

[BoxsterCy]

Missed this thread till just now. Dug around and found an old picture of my first record player taken when we cleaned out my mother's house. LOL. And explains why my first two albums, The Beach Boys Today and The Kinks Greatest Hits!, were mono and not even stereo. This was obviously mostly used for spinning 45s.



Early music to me was listening on my little 8-transister radio to nighttime radio in my dark room when I was supposed to be sleeping. Literally had the radio under the covers. Would tune in to KAAY Little Rock Arkansas. 10,000 watt clear channel AM you could receive in Iowa at night.