the 25 bands who had an impact on my life are....

[Galactus]

Great list, someone...only Mark Sandman didn't kill himself. He had a heart attack on stage.

[someone]

Gah, I actually knew that. But I'd rather look like an idiot. Way to make me look like a fool, DED, way to make me look like a fool

Man, could anyone sing better than him? And by 9-9-99 I hope I'm sitting on a back porch drinking red wine singing ooooohhh. French fries. With pepper.

What a loss. Where the hell is ueb? She'd sing with me.

I'd continue with my list, but I'm in between packing and trying to kill time. Just know that I forgot NIN somewhere in there, and that's a shame. Trent Reznor was my soulmate when I was 17.

[dolly]

1) Blondie

I think their first album was actually 1976 (I was born 1977) but that's just tough because this list for me, without Blondie would just be meaningless and it's bad enough I'm going to abide by the rule enough to keep The Kinks and The Beatles out of my list. Yeah. When I was 3 or whatever, Debbie Harry was the most beautiful woman on the planet and she had the attitude - as well as the songs pretty enough for a wee nipper to singalong to. Forget PJ et al. She's the only female icon I ever had and I so badly wanted to be her. She's influenced my taste in music from the year dot, not to mention fashion and hair do's.

2) Adam & the Ants

Yikes. Apparently I was in love with Adam and used to do that "Prince Charming" dance across the living room floor when I was a tot. It's one of those stories that mum just loved to wheel out (when I was a sulky red haired death metal fan) along with the time I was making a snow man and picked up some snow that had dog poo in it. Embarrassing, but undeniable.

3) The Cure

My first flirtation with goth. Bob sure looked silly in that red lipstick but their tunes were always irresistable and you didn't have to die your hair black to claim them as your own.

4) Guns n Roses

After a few years in the New Kids on the Block Wilderness I started to make my way back home. Well... Guns n Roses looked a bit naff for long enough (after grunge devastated the hair metal landscape) but I can't deny their pride of place on my walkman doin' my paper round.

5) Metallica

Ooh, graduating from rock to the lofty depths of heaveee metal. I have to admit that it was The Black album that got me into them at the age of 13/14. And yes, upon further investigation, that album was a pale shade of their former work.

6) Nirvana

Same as any kid my age...

7) The Clash

I remember being fascinated by The Sex Pistols and their mohawked followers when I was wee, but The Clash's influence and it's beginnings is a little hazier. I think it mainly started when "Should I stay or should I go" was on a TV advert. Anyway, they have surpassed all other bands and will forever be my number 1. And of course London Calling is the greatest album of all time, bitches.

8) REM

I was into heavy metal, I thought "what's this shiny happy people shit?" then I heard Losing my Religion. Shame they're dull as dish water these days.

9) Pulp

The last influence before I turned Goff. Chosen over Blur and Supergrass Jarvis Cocker just had something that the other Brit Pop dudes didn't. British music was exciting again for the first time after punk and I had my own movement. Sort of. Anyway, Jarvis could take on all The Libertines 'e could.

10) Sisters of Mercy

I heard Temple of Love and died my hair black. Patricia Morrisson was the closest after Ms Harry I got to a female icon - but Lily Munster was way cooler.

11) Bauhaus

It didn't matter that their time had passed - nothing was going to stand in my way of uber-gothdom and Bauhaus were a must. Bela Lugosi's dead. The bats have left the belltower....

To pick 25 in total would water these down I feel - although this list is lacking without the The Kinks and The Beatles (I don't care if I've whinged about this already. It sucks!). I could also add Snoop Dogg, maybe Cypress Hill, probably Joy Division, Nick Drake (when I really realised how beautiful music could be), and a few other suspects. But there you 'ave it. I feel these are my root influences from which most of the other's sprang - until, that is, I had RS folks to open up a whole new world of untapped delights.

[Mary]

Hmm, well, I'm trying to procrastinate on this fine Tuesday morning, so I might as well continue my list. I just realized I completely forgot about the rule that you can only include bands whose debut albums came out during your own life, but I think I'm OK. The Clash is the only issue there, their debut came out in 1977, and I was born in 1977, so I suppose it really depends on what month it came out. But in any case, here were the first 8 bands I listed, minus all the commentary, and then I'll continue with a few more - but I gotta say, having to exclude stuff like the velvet underground, the who, johnny cash, the stooges, television, and nina simone is pretty rough on me:

1) The Clash
2) Operation Ivy
3) X
4) Rancid
5) Pearl Jam
6) Nine Inch Nails
7) Minor Threat
8) Joy Division

....

9) Bad Religion - despite the fact that every song by this band sounds identical, I once owned every record they ever released. They were the perfect blend of melodic, hardcore, intelligent, and political for me in late high school. American Jesus was the song for 16 year old Mary, it was. I've seen these guys 5 times now, though I certainly wouldn't waste the money nowadays - on a show or a new album. I stopped following them after The Grey Race.

10) Dance Hall Crashers - good lord this list is embarrassing. But, I did go through a bit of a ska phase back in high school and this was the most important band of the lot for me - I loved elyse and karina, I thought they were the most badass women on the planet, and it was like a feminist ritual to sing along to He Wants Me Back at DHC shows (I once got pulled up onstage to sing with 'em - despite my utter lack of interest in DHC these days, that still stands out as a highlight of my youth!) DHC were super-tuneful, bratty, endlessly catchy, and had the whole girl power vibe down. Connected with me at the time, I suppose.

11) Metallica - These guys have got to be on this list for all the nights that I listened to For Whom the Bell Tolls and Fade to Black back to back on headphones in the pitch black before going to sleep at night. And there's no shame here, I still think Ride the Lightning has to be one of the all-time great metal albums. My brother used to make fun of me whenever I pulled into the driveway coming home from gymnastics blaring this album.

12) Sonic Youth - I had this one random Sonic Youth compilation for much of high school, Sonic Fields of Screaming Love. And it had never really connected with me until one random night, I threw it on the stereo for my friend and Eric's Trip hit me like a ton of stones, it was the most bizarre, beautiful, surreal music I'd ever heard. Sonic Youth helped me to appreciate the discordant and the flat-out weird in music. Dirty and Daydream Nation became a constant presence in my stereo.

13) The Misfits - the only surprising thing here is that it took me so damn long to get into this band. I was a 17 year old girl who loved punk rock and b-horror movies, so why the fuck wasn't I listening to the misfits my whole life?? In any case, when I finally got into 'em, I was like a full on fiend club junkie. To this day, the lyrics to Bullet make me gape in shock that anyone would have the audacity to write that song. I should also mention that I have an enduring fondness for absolutely anything glenn danzig related, including samhain and danzig - with the exception of his effort to write a "classical" album... ohhhh glenn, not your thing my friend....

14) Gang of Four - Holy. Fucking. Shit. Hearing Entertainment! was nothing short of a total revelation. One of the albums to which I'd seriously apply the term "life-changing" - I was introduced to this amazing album just before I graduated from high school, and in one fell swoop, Gang of Four just plain slayed all the kiddie neo-punk bullshit I'd been listening to. A band that makes you want to dance and riot at the same time: what more could you want on this earth?? Gang of Four were so fucking brilliant that they started me on a long music dry spell where I just couldn't find anything new that seemed worthwhile anymore, so in college I largely just retreated to my collection of clash, beatles, jam, X, gang of four, kinks, joy divison, and velvet underground. listened to almost nothing new the whole time...

...ok, well, that takes me through high school, and through most of college too since college was such a musical dry spell for me. I'll finish up later

NP: Interpol - Antics (song: Narc)

Cheers,
M

[pissin2]

) Bad Religion - despite the fact that every song by this band sounds identical, I once owned every record they ever released. They were the perfect blend of melodic, hardcore, intelligent, and political for me in late high school. American Jesus was the song for 16 year old Mary, it was. I've seen these guys 5 times now, though I certainly wouldn't waste the money nowadays - on a show or a new album. I stopped following them after The Grey Race.


ouch. that's a shame. the paragraph started great, then just went downhill. Their new album is great. I just seen them at the warped tour and they were great. And I very eagerly look forward to seeing them tomorrow night. Why anyone would give up on them is beyond me. One of the true great rock bands still left in this miserable world.

[Galactus]

After (some would argue on) Stranger Then Fiction, BR certainly experienced a slump. I'd put The Empire Strikes First up with their eighties out put though. Those guys were always better when they have something to bitch about.

[RocDoc]

25? Pah.

David Grisman(esp his first quintet, but subsequent bands with musicians like Mark O’Connor, Rob Wasserman…an absolute wizard)
JoJo Zep & The Falcons(Auzzie reggae/ska done gone ‘pop’…what a wonderful band)
Spirit(Randy California aspiring to Brian Wilson status on the Sardonicus album)
Sly & The Family Stone(my first stepping stone to ‘black-er’ music…onto James Brown after this, tho it took time)
Red Hot Chili Peppers(white boys running Sly’s funk through a Zeppelin strainer)
Led Zeppelin(Gods. Really.)
Soundgarden(the 2nd coming of Zeppelin, IMO)
Tool(masterfully different and very dark)
Living Colour(Black guys running the funk through a Zepp strainer, tho with the unreal Vernon Reid out-Paging Page…and the ‘blackness’ is completely irrelevant, they’re SO good)
Screaming Headless Torsos(an incredible NYC band seen during a marathon Hendrix birthday tribute at The Cooler in the East Village with Dave Fiuczynski guitaristically fusioning like mad and Dean Bowman doing the rapped complement to ‘the Fuse’ like a facking Pavarotti…actually made me doubt my heretofore hatred of rap as being anything near-‘artistic’)
Mott The Hoople(Rock & Roll Queen, Thunderbuck Ram and All The Way To Memphis…soundtrack to my youth!)
CSO(or at least those members of the Chicago Symphony who hired out for the production of ‘Carmen’, at which I was a stage extra…a big impression was made)
AC/DC(rock and roll damnation…no stop signs speed limits ain’t NO-one gonna slow me down!!!)
UFO(….doctor, doctor pleeeease..the state I’m in….)
Oscar Peterson(the beginning of me realizing that a jazz pianist could get me off with astounding technique much the same as a, say, Michael Schenker could…
Stephane Grappelli(OK, already 80 years old when I first witnessed him play, but he played with the very same sort of fire that Oscar and Schenker could play…I loooove jazz violin ever since, even Jean Luc Ponty on a good night)
Al DiMeola(a guy who can play with incredible precision, but who, to me NEVER loses the emotional underpinnings to the music he plays…well except for his SynthAxe period, ugh!)
Emmylou Harris(….the angel…with such a wonderful musical intelligence in everything I’ve heard her do)
Richard Thompson(…the Brit raconteur who can do it all…and DID each of the over 20 times that I’ve seen him….ditto the ‘intelligence’ part from Emmylou’s, above…)
CrosbyStillsNashYoung(Hippie scum, just getting up on stage and blowing everyone away….)
Little Feat(the flowering of my love of the New Orleans carnival backbeat)
Johnny Winter(I remember a room of buddies of mine unable to sit still while listening to ‘Johnny Winter And….Live!’….a dark and very smoky basement it was actually)
Jimi Hendrix(the Experience and the Gypsys….OH.MY.GOD.)
Kate Bush(Suspended In Gaffa! Among many others…)
Procol Harum(lots of stoned listening to their ‘Grand Hotel’ disc years ago)
Focus(the Hamburger Concerto disc was my favorite…and about the same time as Procol interestingly)
Frank Zappa( for years I thought he was just weird…then my eyes were opened to his ASTONISHING guitar technique...’Excentrifugal Forze'’was just the start….my god the shit he could do!)
Pink Floyd(the BEST live shows I’ve EVER seen)
Jethro Tull( showed that ‘touch’ was possible in rock and roll….tho they could bludgeon as well)
Santana(in effect all the WOODSTOCK bands belong here, actually….but these guys were the first where the hyperkinetic TIMBALES(and then all sorts of percussive Afro-Cuban/Latin music) of all things, could just make me crrrrazy…and then Mike Shrieve’s Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock…AAAAIIIIEEEE!)
Mountain( a fat guy with a voice AND a guitar that could peel paint, ENamel even, right off of a wall…)
Leo Kottke(OFF the charts in terms of a guy with, quote, ‘just an acoustic guitar’ blowing me away…Jorma Kaukonen did the same thing to me soon after…)
Sex Pistols(Steve Jones THUNdering through God Save The Queen…oooh!)
Ramones(whom I thought were boring slop until I saw them and was just FLOORED!)
Rory Gallagher(one of the best pure blues-rock players I’ve ever heard and seen….squealing notes and harmonics along with one the best slide techniques ever )
Albert Collins(An absolute wild man blues player)
Luther Allison(Dittodittoditto!!!!)
Fenton Robinson(Pure class this gentleman….I met him several times and he was always the nicest guy…and onstage, one of the most inventive players I’ve ever seen in the blues idiom….snaky snaky lead lines, winding around and around and always finding their way back ’home’…and the author of Boz & Duane’s Loan Me A Dime)
Aerosmith(the band that saved the DISMAL, abysmal early ‘disco-70s’ for me...Joe Perry IS a guitar god)
Nine Inch Nails(The Fragile, with its Bob Ezrin-enhanced production, is just a wonderful mood piece…and the song ‘Just Like You Imagined’ is absolutely THE aggro masterpiece of the album….IF I ever needed to make myself pumped up to insane rock and roll levels, then that NIN song and then, oh, Filter’s ‘Nice Shot Man’ could easily get me twitching, foaming at the mouth and contorting like I was fucking Iggy….YEAH!)

[Thorngrub]

That is a nice, lengthy, eclectic, and unusual list there, RocDoc. Certain sections of it, I could copy & paste as identical to my own thoughts:



"Led Zeppelin(Gods. Really.)

Tool(masterfully different and very dark)

Jimi Hendrix(the Experience and the Gypsys….OH.MY.GOD.)

Frank Zappa( for years I thought he was just weird…then my eyes were opened to his ASTONISHING guitar technique...’Excentrifugal Forze'’was just the start….my god the shit he could do!)

Pink Floyd(the BEST live shows I’ve EVER seen)
Jethro Tull( showed that ‘touch’ was possible in rock and roll….tho they could bludgeon as well)

Sex Pistols(Steve Jones THUNdering through God Save The Queen…oooh!)

Ramones(whom I thought were boring slop until I saw them and was just FLOORED!)

Aerosmith(the band that saved the DISMAL, abysmal early ‘disco-70s’ for me...Joe Perry IS a guitar god)
Nine Inch Nails(The Fragile, with its Bob Ezrin-enhanced production, is just a wonderful mood piece…and the song ‘Just Like You Imagined’ is absolutely THE aggro masterpiece of the album….IF I ever needed to make myself pumped up to insane rock and roll levels, then that NIN song and then, oh, Filter’s ‘Nice Shot Man’ could easily get me twitching, foaming at the mouth and contorting like I was fucking Iggy….YEAH!)"

So, that section of your mind, we happen to share. Really, your comments practically mirror mine in most of those examples, especially the Pink Floyd one, with which I agree concurrently & wholeheartedly.

[RocDoc]

See, I pretty much know that there's huuuge commonality of thoughts and tastes among alot of us here....but owing to differences in up-bringings, probably somewhat owed to age(throwing us into slightly different eras, ie the draft here in the 60s-early 70s), aspirations(what we wish to be, the types and subject of our educations), family situations(married w/kid)....because of these things, the rest goes off on different railroad tracks apparently.

I operated on nearly strictly the hedonistic(in a good way, usually) 'pleasure principle for a lo-o-ong time....the musical side of it, the centers which it touches, which I hope to GOD that I never lose.

Aaah, the drugs too, I'd have to suppose. Back when...

But the reality of who I am, where I've been and where I hope to go, keeps me from being this supreme idealist I know I also once was regarding 'the world'....my parents came here from very fucked up circumstances.

So has my wife...and a shitload of my relatives are still mired in the remnants. I do see my perspective as necessarily 'different' from some folks whose I see here. Some more radically, some less so...

But I also see MANY who've come from Eastern Europe on a daily basis and I've definitely accepted that there's a strong affinity in me to a sort of fatalism(tho that might not be quite right...they WANT to live, tho it's like 'well shit happens, so now what?') that their existence and often HUGE struggles here bring to them, tho still with a strong streak of understanding 'fun' and basically still knowing when to 'forget' the bad parts of living...tho with a sense of what's 'real' and when to get righteously pissed off...

I love these people, I'm still an 'American' but I identify very strongly with these people..

Bad part is that now, with my political leanings long since laid bare and seen as let's say 'Goofy'...or worse 'Very dangerous to ALL'...who the fuck can I talk to anymore here? There's all this 'Oh what a nightmare'-talk all over the boards....

I feel that I can't even say 'Well, I hope Bush DOES try to finally unify some of these factions'...but my GOD, such a VAST majority here has written him off that now well, according to you all, we're jsut completely fucked, there's no escape...

A bad time on the boards here, that's all...

_{...and way deeper than needed...}

[Hollow]

Still....not.....a.....citizen....didn't vote.....shoot me.

An Hello, I've missed you all

[RocDoc]

_{Shoots Hollow with toy pistol where the flag pops out...}

BANG!

~

Sammy, long time no see!
This was Bared Brains, wasn't it?

_{Oh shit!}

[Hollow]

Doc, How the hell are ya??? I found the email you sent me today in my archive, so i thought I might as well stop in.

RS.com doesnt' even have a 'community' anymore. Are they ever bringing the boards back?? oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

I don't even remember the last time I talked to anyone from RS. I've had a crazy year. Breakups, makeups, moves, weddings (sister, not me!) and plenty of other wacky things. I'm in desperate need of a vacation!!!!

I'd chat more, but I have a DSL outage and T-1 installation keeping me at work......and I missed my drop at the rehab center.....I got busted for DWI and am being completely ass-raped by the systems right now. I hate rehab, AA and all that shit....after your done with it all, you need a f'n drink....defeats the purpose.....back to de fun.

[Hollow]

and kill all the white people

[strat-0]

Hello, Hollow. Glad you made it in!

Realizing I've yet to come up with list of 25 bands with impact...

[Thorngrub]

Hollow! 'sup man. way good to see you here.