Music you grew up with.?

[KevB]

[quote name='spinynorman' timestamp='1395278058' post='2400686'] You'd never get stuff like that on "The Most Tedious Rock Album in the World Ever 46". [/quote] I used to play a game with myself whenever I went into second hand record shops was to look at 'dad rock' type compilations and see how far I had to go down the track list before 'Centerfold' by J Geils Band turned up. Not sure which your Island comp was, they did a couple called 'You can all join in' and 'Nice enough to Eat' so might be one of those?

Edited March 20, 2014 by KevB

[Kiwi]

My parents aren't really into music, to them it's tends to be something that happens in the background. They're the same about food as well. Just happens to be something they have to eat.

However, up until 1981, they were at least a little contemporary and I really enjoyed into Abba (Arrival album got worn out by me), ELO (Out of the Blue), Cliff (yes, when he was still cool) and Sky (Sky2). Tristian Fry's groove on Tristian's Magic Garden made me want to take up drums and I've had the great pleasure and privilege of spending a short time in Mr Flowers company too.

Plus the Muppet Show Vol. 2 for the car which I have had completely memorised for the last 34 years.

They bought their next albums 4 years later (Chris Cross - Another Page), Elaine Page (warbling about Evita) and Barbara Streisand (Guilty) and it sort of went a bit beige after that to Andre Rieu today.

HOWEVER, I do have a guilty pleasure - I have copies of those early albums and sometimes I go back to them and play along. It's the aural equivalent of comfort food.

[Heket]

Until the age of about 7 or so I grew up listening to 80s hard rock and heavy metal courtesy of my big brother. GnR, Iron Maiden, Alice Cooper, Metallica etc. I didn't really think about music at that time but it obviously got under my skin. When he left home I entered a musical wasteland of not knowing what I liked; nothing satisfied me and I never guessed that my musical tastes had already formed. My mum liked 60s pop and Motwon, my dad only listened to MW radio for the Indian stations and I was growing up in the perilous 90s when the radio only played Spice Girls and boy bands. I never thought to look in the metal section of HMV (lol) and why would I? It was hardly the done thing for a wee girl.

One day, aged 14, I did though. I'd heard a band I liked being described as "pop metal" and I thought "what the heck is metal?". I picked up a Metallica CD (because that sounded metal!) and once the distorted guitars hit me I never looked back.

Nowadays I'll listen to just about anything, but with a heavy bias towards rock and metal.

[Big_Stu]

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1395311368' post='2400900']
I used to play a game with myself whenever I went into second hand record shops was to look at 'dad rock' type compilations and see how far I had to go down the track list before 'Centerfold' by J Geils Band turned up. Not sure which your Island comp was, they did a couple called 'You can all join in' and 'Nice enough to Eat' so might be one of those?
[/quote]

I worked in a CD/DVD/Games factory for a few years that designed & printed the sleeve inserts. Any compilations we saw started a quick game of "Bingo". IIRC by far top of the list for appearances was "Paranoid" & also "Don't Fear The Reaper", "On The Road Again" & "Ace Of Spades".
House!

[spinynorman]

[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1395311368' post='2400900']
I used to play a game with myself whenever I went into second hand record shops was to look at 'dad rock' type compilations and see how far I had to go down the track list before 'Centerfold' by J Geils Band turned up. Not sure which your Island comp was, they did a couple called 'You can all join in' and 'Nice enough to Eat' so might be one of those?
[/quote]

Must have been "Nice enough to eat" judging by the track list on Wikipedia. I'd like to be in a band that would do "Better by You, Better than Me". Of ways to wind the kids up when the were about 12, playing Spooky Tooth or Blodwyn Pig loud on the car stereo, when picking them up from school, came near the top of the list.

[howdenspur]

My Dad came home with She loves you by the Beatles which, in hindsight was probably quite "out there" for a 38 year old police sergeant in 1963. I think he's still got a Love me tender EP kicking around somewhere.

Anyway, I think the early exposure set me off though, by the time I got to my teens he thought my tastes had gone beyond the pale, Led Zep II making an impact with him, my Mum ("I can hear that racket down the road") and the neighbours who wanted to borrow something they could test their new stereo out with

[UglyDog]

My folks' taste in music ranged all the way from A to B. It was an interesting mix of the dreary, the banal and the plain toe-curling, with the (very) occasional gem thrown in. They were pretty active in the local baptist church, so there was a fair amount of clappy 'prepare ye the way of the lord' stuff, and no matter how hard I tried to hide those cassettes they always found them. They also liked C & W, and had a big Reader's Digest yee-haa compilation in varying degrees of awfulness. My mum's favourite album from said set was the Jim Reeves one, and to this day the first few bars of He'll Have To Go are enough to start an Inspector Dreyfus-style nervous tic in me. My dad redeemed the situation to an extent, in that his favourite from the set was the Chet Atkins one, which was worth having simply because it had Chet and Jerry Reed's fabulous duet of 'Old Man River' on it. Thankfully neither of my folks liked James Last, although apparently Herr Last did have some brilliant musicians playing in his band and I'm sure I heard somewhere that it was a really great gig to get.
My dad was always a great whistler, something I have inherited from him, and he always used to whistle while driving. Which was either a good thing or a kill-me-now thing, depending on which particular earworm was in control of him that day. One particularly memorable journey for example had him whistling Roger Whittaker's 'The Last Farewell' all the way to my aunt's place. Two hours away. Trapped in the car. With Roger bloody Whittaker. I was ready to strangle something by the time the car stopped.

So I think I can safely say that apart from quite liking some of Chet's work, I have inherited absolutely none of my parents' taste in music whatsoever. And thank almightly zarquon for that.

[spinynorman]

[quote name='howdenspur' timestamp='1395319837' post='2401018']
My Dad came home with She loves you by the Beatles which, in hindsight was probably quite "out there" for a 38 year old police sergeant in 1963.
[/quote]

Did he get it on a raid?

[JellyKnees]

My mum sings in a light operatic society so I heard an awful lots of that kind stuff growing up, but it wasn't really my thing and still isn't tbh. She also had a few beatles, simon and garfunkel and carpenters records, generally melodic stuff, some of which was ok... (apart from that bloody liverpool group).

My dad had a few more interesting records (elvis, johnny cash, leonard cohen, george melly!) but he was away at sea a lot of the time when I was growing up so I didn't get to hear them that often.

I was the oldest so i didn't have any older siblings to feed me music - it was probably when I went to secondary school in 1978 that I started to pick up on the whole punk/new wave thing that was going on on, plus there was a weird zappa/beefheart cult at the time in merseyside, so that also fed into my early musical discoveries.

It feels like they were Interesting musical times compared to now, but perhaps that's probably just rose tinted nostalgia kicking in... it was definitely better than the mid to late 80s though, now that WAS a dire period.

[Len_derby]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1395301624' post='2400751']


I'm sure we must have met at some point.
[/quote]

Doubtless, but we'd have both been too pissed to remember.

[discreet]

[quote name='Len_derby' timestamp='1395322021' post='2401072']
Doubtless, but we'd have both been too pissed to remember.
[/quote]

Remember what?

[Mark Dyer]

Before I contribute to this topic can I first say what an excellent thread this has been to read, I've been dipping in and out of it all day, getting a fascinating insight into peoples musical backgrounds, well done bubinga5 for starting it. Can't help but feel that we're all of a similar age though?

Someone mentioned earlier "I guess we all feel lucky about the music we grew up with" but I can honestly say I feel extremely fortunate that both my parents were serious music lovers. Both were teenagers during the 60's and I am still slightly jealous of the bands and the music scene they saw and grew up with. I swear to this day I was born to the soundtrack of Bob Dylan!

As mentioned earlier, in the early 70's, TV was not the 24hr multi-channel marathon it is today and it may have had a bearing on the amount of music that was played in my parents house, but somehow I don't think my Mother & Father were that interested in TV. The huge volume of music that was played as I grew up is, looking back on it, simply breathtaking. I could come home from school one day and my Mum & Dad would be playing some serious classical work, the next day it could be C&W or Jeane Michelle Jarre, Pink Floyd, Celtic Folk music, Deep Purple, Blues from way back, Jazz (my Dad's jazz collection is something to behold), Beatles, Hendrix, World music, Gregorian Chants, in fact anything, of any genre that they considered good was purchased and played and as I grew older they continued to collect contemporary music and still do to this day.

But they also displayed a remarkable understanding of what they listened to. My Mother for example could identify practically any classical work, composer etc, and my Father would sometimes even identify what recording it was, year, orchestra and country of origin, terrifying to a small child at the time. His knowledge of blues and especially jazz music was also scary and yet inspiring, he was very much part of the jazz scene in London in the early 60's and attended live performances regularly. Later on he started to see bands like Pink Floyd at the Roundhouse with Sid as well as the Stones, Cream, the list is almost endless, he never saw Hendrix though.

They could see from an early age that I was into music and was encouraged to share it with them. Any pocket money I had and money from milk & paper rounds I saved and spent on records, for Birthdays and Christmas it was soon accepted that all I wanted were record tokens. But they never once said "you're not playing that in the house", it didn't matter if I brought home ZZ Top or Joy Division, Yes or The Damned, The Police or The Ramones it all got played. Some might see this as an absolute nightmare that their parents might be into the same music, but looking back it was just a household where music got played everyday, and I loved it.

My Dad sadly passed away a few years ago but he never grew tired of listening, I can remember coming home one Christmas and he was in the living room, hi-fi whacked up, listening to a Chemical Brothers album and totally digging it, he was 68! It was just music to him, they were no barriers or rules. I often hear some new band, or a piece of music and think my Dad would've have loved that, which is a little sad but at the same time a good way to remember him.

I still exchange music with Mother, if I hear something I think she will like I will post her the CD. She always had a piano in the house and still plays keyboards to this day. My Dad strangely enough, was hopeless at any instrument and was, I think, slightly jealous when I started to play bass and join bands.

I am SO grateful of the musical background they gave me and there's no doubt it has influenced me in a massive way. Like my parents, I have a huge appreciation of practically any genre of music, although I can't confess to an understanding of classical or jazz they way they seemed to find easy. There's so much out there, and every year there just seems to be more and more great bands, and more great music to listen to, the GF thinks I'm mental.......... she watches TV a lot.

Sorry, it looks like I've gushed out my life story here, apologies for waffling on but music is very important to me, a sentiment I'm sure everyone here agrees with.

[spinynorman]

[quote name='Mark Dyer' timestamp='1395336819' post='2401351']

Sorry, it looks like I've gushed out my life story here, apologies for waffling on but music is very important to me, a sentiment I'm sure everyone here agrees with.
[/quote]

I'd be delighted to think that one of my kids might write something like that about me when I'm gone. But that openness to all kinds of music is quite rare, and increasingly so I suspect.

[Bassman Sam]

As they say now, @mikedyer. Great post.