Music

[Droopy]

I've loved music ever since I was a little guy. When I was about 4 I lived with my grandparents and grandpa had this weather band radio that he would crank up to 10 because he was mostly deaf. I remember thinking that was a real drag, and why didn't he throw on some music every once in a while. Always just the damned weather.

I liked pop music until I was about 14 and discovered that AC/DC went along really well with my newly developed testosterone levels. "Who Made Who" was the first really heavy song that I liked and it still rocks my socks to this day. Then the first Guns N Roses album came along and I discovered Metallica at about the same time and I've been hooked on heavy music ever since. When I was 18, and giving my dad a hard time about his love of country music, he told me that I'd like his music some day, too. Still ain't happened, dad! I'm 36 and I still love heavy music. And new music as well. There are a lot of classic metal and hard rock songs that I like, but I only listen to that stuff when Liquid Metal and Octane on Sirius/XM are playing something I don't like. At home, I don't listen to the radio at all. My recent music purchases include Opeth, All That Remains, Dimmu Borgir, Trivium, and Gojira.

But even though I still love music, it doesn't seem to have the same level of magic that it did when I was a teenager. Music rescued me back then, and now that I think about it, music would still probably have the same effect on me as it did back then if I was having similar problems. I hated school and was an unpopular kind of guy. That led me to try to escape to vocational school when I was 16. I knew I wouldn't make it in college at the time. But I still even struggled at that. Metallica saved my ass back then. I don't know if I would have finished high school if it wasn't for Master of Puppets and ...And Justice For All. It could be a long, arduous bus ride out to the vocational school because of the Future Dickheads of America I had to ride with. But I had my trusty walkman with me and I'd pop in Master of Puppets, crank it up, ease back in my seat, close my eyes, and be transported to another realm, totally oblivious to the world outside of me. That's magic, friends, and I think it's still possible, even for us old folks.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear Droopy!

I hear you about how music can transport you to where you need to be...

I had positive songs while I was in nursing school that helped me cope...

There's plenty of magic in music!

Even for us old folks...

:hug:

[enigmatic]

2. Music is my lifeline

Even more so than literature. There are albums and songs that have literally saved my psyche and still do; I don't know what I would do if music wasn't a part of my life

[Systematic Chaos]

3. I probably owe my life to music.

Growing up during the 80s I was a complete wreck. My father had passed away in 1975 when I was 6, and my mother, who was already totally ineffectual and lost, became a raging alcoholic and started dragging me all over the country. I didn't settle anywhere until I got to Vegas in 1982, and thanks to her gambling problem we ended up in section 8 housing and living on gov't cheese and crap from the "Christian" food bank.

I was a strange one, all right. I remember back in 1983 when Duran Duran and Iron Maiden both hit it real big. I liked them both a whole lot, so naturally both the preppies and the metal heads thought I was some kind of freak. During my senior year of high school, one of my teachers hired me and a classmate to do a bunch of work around her yard. She and her husband paid us very well for back then, and the money I made ended up getting spent on either quarters for the arcade or tapes from what was then the best record store in town (R. I. P. Odyssey Records and FUCK YOU Wherehouse Entertainment!)

I stumbled into prog rock during this same time frame. I already knew I loved the more commercial material from bands like Yes and Genesis which was on the radio frequently back then, so I just started looking at copyright dates and buying albums from those bands from the most current to the oldest. It just seemed to me like each new round of purchases sounded even cooler and more wild than the last one. Then I started perusing books which showed how different bands were related and had musicians in common, and who influenced whom, and things really took off. Today, thanks to the intertubes and iTunes Plus, I feel like I'm in some kind of musical nirvana (no pun intended) that just doesn't end.

Oh, and hey - if you're "old" at 36, :wtf: does that make me at 39? Fucking Methuselah?

[Droopy]

4. Hahahahaha!

Well, I remember thinking back when I was 16 that anyone over 30 was just ancient and hopelessly out of touch. It seemed that way anyway. Of course, I know better now days. But it does seem like tennagers get into and relate to their music a lot more than us, ahem, old"er" folks. :) It seems like a lot of folks lose touch with music as they age. My parents, in their 50s now, rarely listen to music.

[enigmatic]

5. I'm 45, and I feel ready for The Home!

:D

[Droopy]

6. kick

:dem:

[jus_the_facts]

7. Fuckin' A....

....here's a link to my playlist....to each their own taste...s'all in the ear of the beholder....and the memories they bring back. :headbang:

http://view.playlist.com/11308343563

[Broken_Hero]

8. I can relate with your thoughts/emotion about Metallica saving your

ass, I felt the same way.

My taste in music, started with what my mother and father listened to. My father was a big 60's fan, so a lot of Drifters, Herman Hermits, The Doors, Mama's Papa's...my mother was a pop/easy listening fan, Journey, Air Supply, Sheena Easton, Maria Osmond to name a few.

My first tape, I got when I was ten, it was Jan and Deans greatest hits, and I liked them a lot, and from there I branched into "borrowing" my parents tapes...

In Junior high I gravitated towards....well, don't laugh, Two Live Crew...I liked the big BASS sound, and being a kid, hearing fuck this, fuck that, brought me a juvenile smile...during my 7th grade year, a friend of mine asked me what I was listening too, and I said Two Live Crew, and he told me that wasn't music...listen to this...

And the tape he let me borrow, was Metallica and Justice For All...and since then, I've been a big Heavy Metal fan. I got into Metallica, AC/DC, White Lion, Skid Row, GnR, and eventually into the Nirvana's, Pearl Jams, Soundgardens....

I still cling to a lot of my parents music though, I love the hell out of classic rock, and oldies, easy listening, and lite rock....

During my, younger days, it was a rough time for me, and listening to Metallica, the raw vein of anger, it helped me deal with a lot of the issues I had....

Music still holds that magic over me, there are times where life seems, all chaotic, and I throw in Justice for All, or Master...and I try to mellow out...its amazing, listening to the angry/fast metal, actually mellows me out...:)