What got you into avant-garde and experimental music?
 

This might not be the case for all of us, but there was a time (at least for me) when I first started listening to music a few years ago around the age of 11 or 12, where I listened to stuff that sounds nothing like what I listen to now. There was a time when I thought bands like New Found Glory and Green Day were the ****. So, when did you guys begin to listen to music that pushes boundaries and the like? Are there any particular bands that introduced you to this kind of music?

For me, It was kind of a slow translation. I listened to bands that people at my school liked for a short time. Then came of time where for some reason I only listened to alot of ska music (mostly reel big fish and the like), mostly because what alot of ska artists did was different from the usual alternative and pop rock that everybody at my school listened too. I always wanted to hear something different and original. I also got into bands like The Strokes.

Later I gradually began to get into more "hardcore" bands, mostly because of their aggresive, noisey style and once again, because they were different from the stuff that I heard on the radio.

I really began to love Dillinger Escape Plan. After listening to them and bands like them for a while, I eventually came across the band's collaboration project with Mike Patton, which I really liked. This led me to Mr. Bungle. After listening to a few of their songs, I instantly was amazed and loved their music and brought all of their albums. I listened to them almost religiously (I remember listening to their 3 cd's all the way through about 3-4 times during the long car rides while me and my family were in california on vacation). The individual solo projects from the band introduced me to Fantomas, Secret chiefs 3, ect. which introduced me to musicians like John Zorn, Boredoms, ect.

So...thats my story.

Pink Floyd=Tool=Mr.Bungle=Frank Zappa=Sleepytime Gorilla Museum=Residents=Acid Mothers Temple=Magma=Ruins=John Zorn=John Cage=Captain Beefheart=Univers Zero=Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music=Brainticket=Trist

My story is one big ****ing equation....
Yep, Turn on, Tune In, Drop out.

Alot of people's will probably be like that, one band leads to another. I got into basically ever normal genre of music before I got into the more experimental stuff. Before I got into Mr. Bungle and all, I listened to rock, metal, jazz, rap, ska, ect. Now, I listen to experimental rock, experimental metal, experimental jazz, experimental rap, experimental this, experimental that, ect.

for me it was the last time i went to college. it was also 1998. the internet was still developing and peer to peer file sharing required knowledge of ftp and irc clients. music television still primarily played videos, late night music tv actually featured legitimate underground exposure.

i still remember being in the lounge of my dorm and catching aphex twin's 'come to daddy' video on what was called 'RU receiving' on late night muchmusic. about two weeks later i caught squarepusher's 'come on my selector' on a random program in the middle of a sunday afternoon.

thankfully sites like oth.net were around to allow people to try getting random mp3s through a browser.

i fondly remember milking some irc channels during the summer break just before napster really took off at the start of our 2nd year. so i guess it's not really a specific musician or group per se but time and place for me.

oh yeah, and brave new waves. it was a late night CBC radio2 program that ran for about 20 years before being canned / replaced with radio3 a few years ago.

the need to go beyond punk rock

I don't think anything in particular got me into "avant-garde". In some cases, it has become a sound, but more often than not, it's the experience of going through something different that keeps me interested.

Boredom i think. Must of been about a year and a half ago now, i was beginning to find what i was listening to at the time quite tedious, the conventional song structure, time changes and instrumentation wasnt doing it for me anymore. I have since rediscovered, to an extent, my love for the more conventional, but ive maintained my new found love for avantgarde and all things experimental too, so its all good.

Like a couple other people have said, it wasn't one thing for me. For as long as I can remember I've always sought out unique and interesting music. The more time goes by, the more familiar I have become with a wider and wider array of styles so my search for unique and interesting music kind of inevitably leads me to stuff that's considered "experimental" in one way or another.

I'm not even sure what the first experimental album I ever got would be. Maybe Gub by Pigface.

I'd say it was interest on my part to go beyond metal and rock music, but as we all know that can come in so many more forms. I think it's because a few of the earlier albums I bought had avante-garde elements and I just wanted to investigate that particular aspect of music further.

If you are into a bit of prog then you can sometimes have more of an inclination for Avant Garde artists but I will admit that MB has helped developed my exploration of the genre.