Freebase Dali

First one I really got tangled up in started when I was kid. I don't remember the exact age, but it was definitely way before I was a teen. An uncle had given us this outlandish jukebox thing that had both an 8-track and a record player on it, with a bunch of records. I used to sort through them a lot, but the only one I remember was Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues.
I used to think "shot a man in Reno" meant shooting a guy in the penis. I wasn't aware of the fact that there was an actual place called Reno. Why I chose to think it meant penis is beyond my recollection. But I used to act out that part of the song with a broken BB gun, needless to say.

Anyway, that's really the first solid memory I had with music that still feels like it could have been yesterday. I'm sure you've all already heard it, but I guess I'll go with the theme and post it anyway:

Listening to that takes me directly back to my childhood in that period.

Another one I remember pretty vividly that brings me back is when Salt & Pepa were big. I remember hearing one of their songs on the school bus, and there was this big thing from the school board about whether kids should be hearing that kind of music. The song was "Push It", and I remember trying to replicate the synth hook as a toddler on my mom's cheap ass piano keyboard for like a week straight. Now days, I can agree that the song itself is complete and utter crap, but there's an element of nostalgia involved, obviously. I can still listen to it if just for that fact alone.



Eventually, when I got into my rebellious teenager stage, it was already past the first wave of punk, which would have probably grabbed me had I been old enough or even born yet. It just so happened that when I came into that phase and my extremely religious parents got a divorce, I was suddenly opened to all this freedom to experience music that wasn't created in a church or spewing from a christian radio station. This was a period in the 90s where Pop Punk became a thing along side skateboarders and grunge. There's far too many bands to list during this period, as I had been "going wild" with my newfound freedom. Many times, I would record what was playing on the radio so I would have something to play drums to on my homemade drumset, but others, it was strictly word of mouth and through friends that I acquired music at first. Much of that music was angsty Pop-Punk. To this day, I can still love Blount, Lagwagon, Slick Shoes, Propagandhi, etc. After having joined a band along those lines that integrated some third wave ska into the mix, I got into bands like Mephiskapheles, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Buck O' Nine, etc. with it all eventually melding into a general '90s appreciation for whatever was fast, edgy-but-melodic, sometimes political, and fun to skate to.

The following videos are probably the best way to put all that into perspective:





And then to rebuff the third wave, along come The Specials, who we all held in high regard, even though they were out before all these fools, and we even liked a band that actually used them as a joke. We always just liked the music, I guess:


Then, after a while, the drugs.
Man, the drugs.
Man, the electronic music that resulted.

The first time I really got into that whole thing was a result from a visit to my brother in law in Florida. I don't remember how old I was, but it was near the late 90s. He had some acid on blotter, and he gave me two hits. One for me, and one for my girlfriend at the time. We waited until we got back to her parent's house where I was living at the time, and both dropped a hit. After about 40 minutes or so, we thought nothing would happen. Until we started noticing the ceiling sliding down...
After that, we were gone. We actually listened to Sneaker Pimps' "Becoming X" at least 10 times back to back, navigating ourselves around the audio in our minds, both laying there on our bed with the stereo right on the headboard. The thing I remember about this, besides the obvious other things, was one particular song from the album where I could actually visualize the sound escaping a tunnel dug into the side of a mountain, into a cavernous space, and zipping around a center column of lonely rock, and could hear and see the echoes bouncing from the walls. Of course, it was all happening in my mind's eye, but the memory stayed with me. I thought it was amazing because we both shared the experience, and laying together, hugging each other in complete darkness with the music going, we actually felt like we were on the edge of a cliff, flying through this thing together.
The song was:



Of course, that was sort of a catapult into the underbelly of the entire perspective back then with drugs and electronic music, although I never thought the two were mutually inclusive. I just enjoyed them together more than apart.
That led me naturally to The Prodigy, then in a roundabout path to Trance music, where some of the very classics are still stuck in my mind from specific experiences, and way too many to recount.

A progression through electronic and many subgenres sorta left the drugs behind and continued on with the music, but there's always that basis there that I'm not sure people who haven't tripped to it would understand. But then again, it's never really necessary if you're going for a personalized result.

Anyway, after the 90s, raves, drugs, etc... I started going to work, etc. Music creation became a big thing, versus the listening part of it. And musical memory sorta switched gears.
Beyond that part of it, there really isn't anything to report. Except the fact that since I've been here at this forum, I have definitely been inspired and amazed by a lot of the music I've discovered here, which would not have been possible otherwise.

So thanks.