deadlax

What got you into the love of all thigns music?
-Hunting for new bands
-Finding rare lps
-Becoming an encyclopedia of music knowledge

I will be the first to admit I got into most bands on my own, through the first band I ever loved, The Grateful Dead. Their covers, and their culture got me into a wave of new bands, and has formed the path to the five bands I love today more than any other.

-The Who
-Wilco
-Jimi Hendrix Experience
-The Beatles
-Mojave 3

Yeah, the Dead are no longer on that list, even though I still love them.

DaveNinja

Dr Demento got me into music. yes, i was a nerd.

NaturalMystic79

Using my ears.

Hollowgen

mtucker

It speaks to me.

MJKTool

Sneaking into my older brothers room and listening to all his tapes is what got me into music.

cheapskate

I heard a song on the radio once... and was instantly hooked.

Gdrlv

The first band that really struck a chord with me was Def Leppard. When I heard "Women" for the first time in 7th grade, I was hooked on music. In the meantime, my musical tastes have evolved substantially. I don't own a single Def Leppard album anymore, but I'll always like 'em even if for solely for the reason that in some roundabout way, they've led me to all the amazing music I've heard in the past 18 or so years...

Ergyu

My parents raised me around a lot of music, mostly what they listened to. They were very open to buying and getting me into music of my own as well.

wendersfan

I come from a family of musicians, so there was music played all the time when I was growing up. I think the first specific song I was aware of was "Strawberry Fields Forever", when I was four.

bdrules

Listening to too much commercial radio when I was younger and getting tired of all the crap (no offense to those who like the stuff ). That set me out on my quest to find good music. Then I joined Emusic and that was a great music discovery tool for me. That and checking out the AMG similar artist lists.

Rypro 525

my finding a led zeppelin cd about 4 years ago in my dads car started my love for music that is today.

asianxcore

through my dad I go into a lot of oldies and motown when I was a kid. my parents would buy me vinyl of disney songs, my cousin had tons of Michael Jackson vinyl that we would listen to. when I was around 12 a friend of mine made me a copy of Sepultura's 'Arise' on tape, and I was hooked. From there my music tastes and love have just gone up.

wastro

A friend gave me a Pennywise CD in 8th grade, and I gradually weened myself off sugar-coated Top 40 staples, and by 2001, I was more into "underground punk," which somehow led me to Weezer, who somehow led me into even more good music. It's all such a blur now.

Tscott

I was in high school and had long realized I hated most of what was on the popular radio station, and that what I did like was way overplayed. So looking for something different I tuned into a show on MTV called 120 Mins. (Mind you this was 1989 or so and back then MTV would show these things called "music videos" during this and most of there other shows.) 120 Mins. at the time was said to offer an "alternative", if you will, to what was being played on the radio. I watched, decided what I liked, bought the albums, read up on the bands and found out their influences and checked out those bands as well.

And of course, reading music reviews from music magazines influenced many a purchase. Also, I wasn't afraid to ask "experts" in my life, like my uncle who lives and breathes Jazz, for their recommendations of an unknown genre I wanted to get into. And online message boards like this one and sites like Amazon.com with their recommendations helped steer me to even more new music I'd like.

B.A.

I was always into music, but my sister and her friends (who were in/out of high school) influenced me when I was still in junior high and then in high school (Like TScott, they were also into MTV's 120 minutes and I remember having to record it). My high school was full of people who could be considered indie-rock snobs (I was probably one of them) - and a particular group of friends heavily influenced me during my high school experience. In college, I was introduced to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin by one roommate and East Coast rap by another.

Now, I am much more adventurous in my search for music and come across a lot of it on my own w/out the help of friends or family.

Adam Tyner

Up until I was in high school, the only albums I owned (or at least, bought; I co-opted a few from my parents) were by Weird Al. On a lark, I bought "Flood" by They Might Be Giants in 1994, and in 1996, after that cassette broke, I started buying a bunch of They Might Be Giants stuff. That Fall, after I went to college, that They Might Be Giants fandom propelled me towards a bunch of different bands. Fans on message boards, Usenet, mailing lists, etc. would talk about other bands they liked, I'd buy some of those albums, and then I'd start reading message boards and the like for those bands, find out about even more bands, and the cycle seemed to quickly spin out of control as I spent every spare cent I could get my hands on to buy CDs.

Since I'm not involved with college radio anymore and don't read band-specific websites/mailing lists/etc. either, my music consumption has dropped to near-zero.

fallow

Listening to CDs from BMG on my sister's bedroom floor.

Giles

Washington DC's 107.3 in the mid eighties - they played mostly Top 40 but I always listened before I went to bed. Before that I mostly listened to my parent's record collection - classical.

When I was real young (6) I loved Ferdi Grofe's "The Grand Canyon Suite" - ya know the one with the donkey, and the climatic thunderstorm. I used to dance all around the house.

We also had this kick-ass disco version of the music from "Star Wars" - my sister and my friends used to boogie to it quite alot.

nazz

When I was about six my Uncle started turning me on to The Beatles. It stuck immediately and when I was eight I was begging my Mom to let me stay up late enough to see them perform Hey Jude. (Yeah. I'm that old.)

atlantamoi

I didn't come from a musical family. I just enjoyed a lot of hit songs on the radio in the '70s. I had an older aunt who left behind some Beatles albums at my grandmother's house and I would play those records over and over. That's probably what really did the trick.

Ted The Bug

Weird Al for me as well

costanza

spending a lot of time alone in my room listening to music is what got me into music.

palebluedot

My family were all musicians and I have been playing and listening to music since I can remember. Luckily my family had excellent taste in music.

Son-volt

I worked at a sawmill over the summers in high school, and the bikers and hard-ass sawmill-types I worked with listed this one rinky-dink classic rock station at work during the day. Zepplin, Jason Joplin, the Doors, etc. all hooked me. I spent the rest of high school telling everyone that would listen that no good song was written after 1977. Then right as I hit college Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins all broke through, and I realized that not all new music sucked. Once a friend introduced me to the Jayhawks and Uncle Tupleo soon after that I got hooked on No Depression-type stuff, and I've been a music geek ever since.