i'm gonna slice this up in two ways.
as a listener
i started with mainstream stuff - first cassette i ever asked for was Lionel Ritchie's Dancing on the Ceiling. for whatever reason as a little french kid growing up in a little french fishing village that predominantly listened to nothing but bluegrass and old country i found myself always listening to funkier beats. lots of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince tapes, as well as Young MC.
then i heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers in late 1990. which then lead to a widely expansive listening palette of alt-rock throughout the rest of high school. though for whatever reason i did also end up owning the entire Kim Mitchell discography on cassette.
then college came along just as the whole P2P thing was tearing wide open all over the place. from post-rock to experimental electro and free jazz it was all there for the pickings. but looking back at it all, the funky beats have ALWAYS been there tickling my subconscious and making my head nod / foot tap / hips groove / whatever.
at this point i don't care that much anymore. i like what i like and don't really feel a driving urge to find the next great thing. it seems rather common place for musical expansion to develop in that same way and i think it's reflective of the way the modern educational system doesn't at all prepare individuals for the pragmatic realities of working for a living and continues to encourage idealistic growth like it matters for something. within those confines its a lot easier to spend the time necessary to sift through new material and to share ideas with others. the net does offer that to a certain extent as well but it's never quite the same as being in the same dorm room and sharing a bottle of good stuff while discussing great music.
now for the musical stages as a musician.
from the first day i got my first guitar on Valentine's Day 1993 it was covers and chops (LOTS of RHCP / Hendrix / Soundgarden / Metallica / Smashing Pumpkins). nonstop, just poring over every single bar of tab in any magazine i could get my hands on. it was 2 years before i had the opportunity to really play with others for the first time and i'll always remember how horrible and useless i felt by only knowing how to play along to cds. if we decided to try playing a cover i could NAIL it and get props, but if one of the guys just wanted to sit and strum G, C and D for a while before changing it up to A, D and E i was useless. i couldn't do squat. not that it mattered much, i moved again shortly after that session and wouldn't get a chance to play with others for another 3 years. so i stuck to playing along to discs.
by '98 i was in college again and we were having a dorm party one fine Friday night and this dude happened to be sitting on my floor and asked if i had a bass. i hand it over and he asks me if i know any Jane's... so we kick into the Mountain Song, except he doesn't really know it, but that night, it didn't matter, it was ON! another lightning bolt for the old noggin. one of the people hanging out in the room described it as a 'musical orgasm' when we came down. that's the exact point when improvising became my focus over practicing chops along to a cd.
from 2001-2003 it was all about trying to get a band started. what a mess. huge learning experience though.
2003-2005 was barren. felt so burnt from the failed band situation along with other personal crap revolving around music (both the art and the industry) that i didn't pick up anything for most of 2 years. the 'only' music i made in that time were a pair of sessions with a good friend where he basically begged and pleaded with me to make anything with him - so i 'played' the drum machines. i also saw it as an opportunity to forget everything i had learned - kind of like learning the rules so you can break the rules.
2006-2008 full improv freak out mode. spent at least 1 full night a week doing nothing but absolute improv. experimented with various setups as a way of creating and establishing my own sound eventually resulting in the light / dark stereo split. far more concerned with the overall sonic output than the specific tonal note coming through.
2008-2010 - another hiatus of sorts. the jam room flooded and we all went separate ways, not that it wasn't going to happen anyway (when only 1 of the other 3 guys you play with is 100% behind you it's not going to work out in the long term). i took this time to learn the rudiments of the one instrument that had eluded me to this point and ironically enough, the one that draws me into music the most - drums.
2011 - ? - now that i have acceptable abilities on my instruments of choice i'm hoping to get my hands dirty on the recording side of things just a little. nothing major, nothing pro, just a clearer reflection of my existence through the loudness of light.