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Forostar said:
It's less funny to see how many of you who started in the eighties turned their backs on Maiden in the nineties. Welcome home, disloyal crooks!
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I still loved them in the 90s, myself. I was actually quite excited about Blaze joining, considering I was also a Wolfsbane fan. I just never got to see that line up live.
 
I've just started getting into Venetian Snares. Amazing stuff.
 
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Nice to see people remembering that little Irish band, Therapy?

The first music of my own I really listened to was Grunge. But that passed fairly quickly. Prior to that I had liked Michael Jackson. My brother listened to proper music that I got into later like Van Halen, Kiss, Zep and Maiden. I heard 7th Son and didn't really like it. I was listening to Nirvana, Sonic Youth and bands like Faith No More and Pavement. Then I remember hearing No Prayer and then Fear and I was hooked. Bruce left but I liked the nineties releases. I remembered Blaze from Wolfsbane and thought he would be a good fit for Maiden. Since then Maiden have just gone from strength to strength. I've been really impressed with their longevity. They're still making great albums and I'm still buying them.
 
[QUOTE="jazz from hell, post: But then I discovered Squarepusher, [/QUOTE]

Totally forgot about Squarepusher. Had never heard of him but a mate knew i loved The Bass and told me to go see him. What a gig! And then i never listened to him since....

The only times i 'drift' from Maiden are long waits between albums and then its only a few months at a time. However i missed the Dublin '03 gig cos i had drifted and didnt even know it was on. Which is odd cos i bought Wildest Dreams, DOD and Rainmaker upon release. I suppose the student life (bottle of vodka for breakfast) took full control for a month or two.
 
My chronology:

Pre-1980: Beatles + Elvis + other crap my parents had

1980 (age 9-10): Bought my first rock albums, Hi Infidelity by REO Speedwagon, Crimes of Passion by Pat Benatar, and The Game by Queen. At the time they were considered pop -- in hindsight, they were guitar-based hard rock. Also bought a 45rpm single of "Refugee" by Tom Petty. Uncle bought me Led Zeppelin's Coda -- I didn't really like it and set it aside.

1981 (age 10-11): Started liking "corporate" rock acts like Styx (Paradise Theater), Foreigner (4), Journey (Escape), Rick Springfield ("Jessie's Girl"). At some point I remember hearing "For Those About To Rock" on the school bus -- some kid had a tape and the bus driver was cool enough to play it over and over. That was a big step toward hard rock/metal for me. Checked out Back in Black and Dirty Deeds too -- somehow Highway to Hell escaped me at that point. Also recall hearing "Tom Sawyer" by Rush on the radio and thought that was cool. Van Halen too.

1982 (age 11-12): Dusted off my old copy of Coda and started liking Led Zeppelin. A lot. Joined Columbia Record Club and started building a collection. Zep, Queen, Rush, The Who, Pink Floyd, more Beatles, Stones. Basically this is when I started catching up on some of the "classic" rock and hard rock from the 60s and 70s. Probably bought my copy of Moving Pictures in this time frame, and likely Signals as well. Van Halen was starting to get really big. IIRC, Maiden didn't really register with me until...

1983 (age 12-13): A big year. First, Pyromania by Def Leppard came out and was fucking huge. I wore that tape out. A little album called Thriller got some noteworthy attention. U2 hit it big too. Metal also started getting very heavy airplay on MTV; I probably first heard Judas Priest and Scorpions in this time frame. Some time after Piece of Mind came out, a friend made me a tape. I immediately became a Maiden fan. I bought the first four albums, plus Maiden Japan. Black Sabbath, Ozzy and Dio followed shortly thereafter, as well as more Priest. I officially became a metal fan this year. In addition to bands already mentioned, I remember Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Krokus, and other metal bands blowing up that year.

1984 (age 13-14): Metal/hard rock was extremely popular. Scorpions, Twisted Sister, Priest, Quiet Riot, Whitesnake all had huge albums that year. None bigger than Van Halen's 1984 -- though I hated "Jump," I loved "Hot for Teacher" and "Panama." Purple Rain was pretty goddamn big that year too. I got to second base for the first time while listening to "When Doves Cry." Still love that song. And, of course, I bought Powerslave the day it was released. I still own that copy, with the textured cover, and it still sounds great. Shortly before Christmas, I went to my very first rock concert: Iron Maiden in Kansas City, with Twisted Sister opening. World Slavery Tour. Needless to say, that made an impression.

1985-87: I vividly remember Live Aid, which was on my birthday in 1985. Queen stole the show, Led Zeppelin reunited (with Phil Collins on drums), and a lot of other great bands. I watched the whole thing on MTV. Somewhere in 1986 or 1987, I heard Metallica (Master of Puppets) for the first time -- holy shit. SiT released; saw that tour too. I started dating and listening to music that wouldn't totally alienate girls. Grew to like The Replacements, REM, U2.

1988: Appetite for Destruction -- holy shit again. More Metallica. Seventh Son. Still listening to classic rock and metal from the 70s and early 80s.

1989-1993: Went to college. Started digging The Clash and other punk bands, plus Radiohead, Nirvana and more college/alt-rock bands. Nevermind was a game-changer, nearly killed metal, except Metallica was even bigger. I recall U2's Achtung Baby being a big deal. Was also exposed to Public Enemy, Tribe Called Quest, Big Daddy Kane, and others. In 1992, saw G'n'R/Metallica stadium tour. Did you know Nirvana was almost the opening act on that tour? That would have been quite a bill.

1993-2006: Went to law school, got a job, got married, had kids. Life as a law firm associate didn't leave much time for music, plus I wasn't really into the grunge/hip-hop stuff that was emerging.

2006: Heard that Iron Maiden was releasing a new album. Went back and checked out albums I'd missed -- loved BNW and parts of DoD. Bought AMOLAD on release date, joined this forum, went to first Maiden concert in ~20 years. The last 10 years have been pretty well documented in this forum.

EDIT: My chron is pretty similar to AlexS's, which makes sense as we are the same age.
AlexS said:
a K-Tel collection with live "I Want You To Want Me"
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I had that too! Plus a K-Tel collection with "I Was Made For Loving You," which was my first exposure to KISS. Perhaps not coincidentally, I've always hated KISS.
 
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Anyone remember double deckers with 2x record speed? I still remember laughing my ass off when I heard 2MTM that way. After that discovery I'd intentionally push in the little hook on the top of the recording deck which was a sensor, which would enable pushing record without tape being actually in, so I could listen to any tape chipmunk style.
 
You can still achieve the same effect (with more opportunities) using simple audio editing softwares. I do entertain myself that way sometimes.
 
Cornfed Hick said:
Yup, discovering and assessing music is a LOT easier these days. But maybe not as fun. Nothing quite like going to a friend's house just to listen to records (and maybe smoke some weed).
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Not necessarily. The access to the music is easier, sure, but the offer is virtually infinite, so that no one has the cognitive capacity to process these discoveries as well as we did compared to when we were lucky if we could discover more than one band or record a week.

In other words, the music now is easier to access but more difficult to know well or even to remember, thus to assess.

Just consider who is selling out stadiums even today: what is the percentage of artists or bands that have started after the year 2000?
 
Black Bart said:
Not necessarily. The access to the music is easier, sure, but the offer is virtually infinite, so that no one has the cognitive capacity to process these discoveries as well as we did compared to when we were lucky if we could discover more than one band or record a week.

In other words, the music now is easier to access but more difficult to know well or even to remember, thus to assess.

Just consider who is selling out stadiums even today: what is the percentage of artists or bands that have started after the year 2000?
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You do need a way to separate the wheat from the chaff, but that has always been the case, and in my view the process is better today than it was when I was a kid. Back then, a person's "tastemakers" were limited. One had friends, a couple of magazines, and whatever the local radio station chose to play -- which, in turn, may have been influenced more by payola than the DJ's actual preferences. Today, I can pretty much pick and choose my own sources for recommendations, whether computerized (e.g., Pandora algorithm) or human (friends and critics). Whenever I hear or read -- for example, on this forum -- that an artist is worth checking out, I can do so within seconds. Discovering and appreciating artists is indisputably much easier now than it was 30 years ago.

And I can listen to an album several times before buying it, which is a big plus too. In the past, you'd hear one or two singles and, based on whether you liked them, you would make a decision to buy the entire album, essentially hoping on faith that the rest of it would also be good.

Whether or not they play large stadiums, I discovered some of my favorite artists of the past 15 years this way. They probably would never have been recorded, let alone discovered by me, if the process were the same today as it was in, say, 1984.
 
I blame that more on the lack of interesting rock/metal bands in the mainstream. Mainstream rock has been a major slump since the mid 90s.
 
In the beginning...

mckindog wandered aimlessly through the record collection of his parents, blissful in his ignorance, only knowing the mysterious joy some of these strange sounds gave him.
It mattered not if it was CCR, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Cash, or if it was Abba. He would settle in under the blankets with the speaker aimed into his room from a place atop the stairs and escape to his dreams as this "music" played on.

As he grew and began to experience the world, the knobs and buttons on the console of his father's 1975 Volvo station wagon introduced the charms of what was known as a.m. radio, and he discovered something rare and wondrous — a land of musical opportunity beyond what Mom and Dad offered. In short order, he learned many of the best songs discovered in the process of swirling that dial could be found, collected on vinyl by a mysterious benevolent being known only as "K-Tel." These became the first stirrings of a personal collection.

Then high school arrived, and with it new friends, one of them gifted with a resource most precious: a cool older brother. In a dark basement room, beyond furnace ducting and past dusty spider-filled crevices, in his sanctuary sat the ark of the covenant — a stereo system of rare power and temptation. And with it was a box stuffed full of precious metal and jewels, vinyl discs of unimaginable beauty. Sammy Hagar "Heavy Metal" Black Sabbath "Paranoid" Led Zeppelin "Rock'n'Roll" and, perhaps most importantly, Judas Priest "Metal Gods" opened a world he never knew existed.

The first mix tape was born, but it wasn't enough to feed the addiction. He started buying albums, real albums, by real artists. Rush "Moving Pictures" and "Exit Stage Left." AC/DC "Back and Black" and "For Those About to Rock." Van Halen "Diver Down" and "Women and Children First." He acquired a ghetto blaster, and with its skilled antenna, he was able to pull in sounds from another nation. A renegade radio station from a metropolis across the water called Seattle that loved this music, this "heavy metal" as much as he did. It exposed new sounds and new artists. Magazines like Circus, Hit Parader and Creem did the same. He wandered into record stores and bought albums based on articles, on radio singles, or on intriguing album covers that took things an exciting step beyond the art of his childhood comic books. One of the latter, a terrifying image of a demon throwing a chained priest into the ocean proved irresistible to this young Catholic-raised soul. Its sounds magnificent, its impact never left him. Another, the nightmare-inducing image of a ghoul frozen — gore dripping from its axe — in the midst of a bloody murder, caught his eye as well. He resisted initially, but later returned, unable to resist its grisly charms. In the darkness of his bedroom, it unleashed a soundscape of energy and blackness, horror and and adventure, aggression and melody all over a throbbing relentless rhythm that buried hooks into his soul and refused to let go.

This harbinger of the apocalypse, this "Iron Maiden" joined Dio, AC/DC, Rush and especially Judas Priest on a pantheon that nourished his moods, his leisure time, his fashion and his attitudes for the remainder of the decade. Other bands came and went, but these remained foremost.

Life changed. The world of popular heavy music became indolent and self-indulgent, its fans louts. The more obscure fringe was populated largely by bands too concerned with being dark, heavy, or other to have much time for melody, self-awareness or fun, their fans unsophisticated. mckindog was caught in a swirl of education, career and marriage, and he drifted apart from music, becoming largely a sidelines participant in the wave that seized the '90s. But late in that decade, he began to miss the joy music provided, fed perhaps by a desire to share that joy with his young children.

The departure of Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford from their respective bands in the early '90s both symbolized and fed his disconnection with music. After brief, disappointing listens to the X Factor and Jugulator, he essentially gave up on these muses. But in 1999, in a used CD store, he came upon Virtual XI. On impulse, he bought it. He gave it some time. And a spark rekindled. Technology had introduced an untamed beast called the internet, something he had largely ignored until this time. But he plugged in and discovered Dickinson had rejoined his band. He was excited again. Brave New World came, heralding a renaissance in heavy music. He reveled in it, diving deeper into the '70s and artists like Thin Lizzy and Blue Oyster Cult, and into the '90s with bands like Soundgarden and Foofighters. Music never inflamed him again to the degree it did in the early 1980s, but shining like a beacon Maiden produced work after work of such astounding quality it ensured that flame would never go out.

And he saw it was good.
 
That was a nice read, mckindog!

What are your three (alltime) favourite bands?

Maiden, BOC and Lizzy?

I'm enjoying all these contributions by the way.
 
Somewhereonline said:
I agree. Maybe the whole Napster thing around the turn of the millennium dissuaded a lot of would be rock musicians from pursuing it seriously. So, everyone keeps their day jobs and music is a hobby.
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I don't agree with this. Real bands always pushed hard and worked hard mostly self financed, until they made it big.
Napster crushed generics only. If even that. When Napster topic comes on, I always ask; give me a band, that had a viable chances of making it (not big, just making it to major label lets say), but got dragged down due to piracy.

There is no such thing. Until you're big nobody cares about you. If you think those few thousand copies, that you can really only sell in your dreams, would earn you $ you're dead wrong. It's better to have exposure, even as an established band, than to hunt down every $0.0003 piece of royalty that 'belongs' to you (that's even debatable).
 
Forostar said:
That was a nice read, mckindog!

What are your three (alltime) favourite bands?

Maiden, BOC and Lizzy?

I'm enjoying all these contributions by the way.
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Thanks. It was fun to write. And I am enjoying this thread very much as well.

In answer to your question, I'd have to say Maiden, Rush and Priest.
Lizzy and BOC are on the next tier with Dio, an Aussie band called The Angels (also known as Angel City) and Canadian band called the Tragically Hip.
 
Somewhereonline said:
I agree. Maybe the whole Napster thing around the turn of the millennium dissuaded a lot of would be rock musicians from pursuing it seriously. So, everyone keeps their day jobs and music is a hobby.

It's like being a novelist -- self publishing, electronic format, and online sharing have created a glut of books (many of them crap) to the point where only previously established authors (like Stephen King or George R R Martin) can still make a bundle on their fiction.

On the other hand, it goes back to art for art's sake versus art as a means to get rich and famous. That holds a lot of merit but the downside is that there's no post-millennial Led Zeppelin equivalent out there.
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bands worth listening to and following cultivate their audience through touring, not through radio play or a big break.
 
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