Dingwall
I had the missfortune being really into music but growing up in the 80s! This really was a terrible music decade in terms of substance IMO!
But as luck would have it I did have an older brother who happened to grow up in the 70s, played guitar and was majorly into music. So I guess I can't complain too much!
Anyway it was the Beatles (strangely after a very brief stint of Bachman Turner Overdrive!) that got me completely hooked on music in general. It didn't take long to take over my life....
This invasion of my life was soon followed by harder things like Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd and a whole host of good guitar bands, most introduced to me by my brother (thanks Dave).
From a guitar point of view, it was said "brother dude" and Jimmy Page that got me going at first! Followed closely by people like Andy Summers, David Gilmour, SRV, the Edge. BUT then their was that whole 80's pointy headstock guitar thing with Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani. I could not help but be swept along by as a young and 'enthusiastic' guitarist. I actually wish my skills matched my enthusiasm for the instrument but thats another story...
After the pointy headstock boys others came along to feed me, like Mr Morse, Kotzen, Nuno, Robben Ford, Phil Keaggy, Mike Landau, Dann Huff etc.
I think last person to grab me funnily enough was Slash. This sounds weird but I hated GnR and therefore completely disregarded him as a serious guitarist . Now being older and wiser, and giving things another chance, I have been quite impressed by how musically and emotionally spontaneous he is, particularly in his lead playing! For a pentatonic type player kind of thing.
It's all good....
ps nothing against pointy headstocks peeps.
MikeM
I grew up listening to Pink Floyd, Clapton, Santana, Foreigner, some Led, Phil Collins and the like. Got a guitar at 11 or so. Was listening to the usual kid stuff then, Linkin Park, Limp Biskit, Eminem, System Of A Down etc. When I was 13 my one mate's dad played some blues on his 50's ES135, that became my passion and aim for a good few years. Have now become sick of it, terribly terribly so. Nothing gets my blood boiling like some cheesy white man blues!! Worst part is I can't stop playing it. Well it's been a while to work it out of my system.
Kalcium
Wow my story is gonna be quite different ? haha
My older brothers used to listen to europe house and dance music (sorta rave kinda music...) and I had no interest in music at all, I didn't listen to anything at all, except of course if ur in the car and the radio is on or if my brothers were playing their club kinda music. Then when i was 13 I started skateboarding and hanging out at the beach skatepark where everyone listened to hiphop and underground rap, none of this 50 cent commercial stuff, only the really dope stuff you know...(my oldest brother used to listen to a little bit of hiphop sometimes...)... I still think some of it is pretty good stuff, I really enjoy the punchlines in the songs, like the one line was "attach razors to my shoes so I can cut to the chase" and things like that. So I listened to that throughout high school, but towards the end of grade 11 a few of my friends got me into 1 or 2 'rock' songs (anything with a guitar was rock and we were all like waaaah rock music sucks...) and I met a girl who was crazy about Blink 182. So I started listening to blink and falloutboy and poppy sort of punkish bands like that. After 3 months of dating I thought she might really like it if I started playing guitar. So I asked my mom for her old 3/4 acoustic she had, it was really falling apart, the top was coming away from the sides at one point and on one of the strings there were 2 frets with the same note. Learnt to play power chords to play Blink182- All the Small things, which i proudly played to my then girlfriend ? Thereafter learnt Queen- Crazy Little Thing Called Love, both using guitar pro tabs not knowing any chords or anything, though the tabs had me playing D, Dsus, G, C, even a barre chord of Bb unknowingly. From there I knew I wanted to play guitar and so when my birthday came up I wanted to get an electric guitar and got a bullet strat for R600 secondhand and my brother in law gave me an ibanez practice amp and a strap. I ended up liking more and more of this 'rock' music, and after a while got into Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet for my valentine and metallica a bit, and eventually onto heavier bands. This continued and when I got another girlfriend who was Queen obsessed (she still is obsessed with Queen) I got into queen and her brother John Ellis (ex tree63) gave her quite a lot of cds including Led Zepplin, The Doors and quite a few more classic rock stuff which I didn't like at first, but now I do ? (Classic rock and blues mmmm ? ) The journey continues! Now im reintroducing my dad to bands he really liked ?
Edit: My best friends played guitar long before I learned, they also encouraged me to play ?
flatfourfan
I'd have to say my mum and dad. Many of my mates grew up on cruddy nursery toones and whatever crud was being pushed out to the kids...........my mum raised me on rolling stones, Simon & Garfunkel, beatles, mammas & pappas.
As for my guitar interest, I'd have to say my buddy Tazio...........
Averatu
Birth.
First album, 'Flaunt It' by 'Sigue Sigue Sputnik'.
Jack-Flash-Jr
Not from a musical family... but I remember counting bars to Bill Haley songs when I was little and then... while watching a tv show (vietnam something or other), the bunch hop into a helicopter and the pilot starts blasting Satisfaction... a couple of days later I stole my first Stones tape (age 12/13) ?
Nylon soon after and electric soon after that follwed by a tidal wave of Jimi, Zep etc. etc.
@ Averatu, I do also remember this though ? :
Listen for the killer rockabilly riffs!
symbolofmylife
The one band I think got me into wanting to play guitar was Metallica. I remember mowing the lawn with my walkman on blaring Master of Puppets and I was completely blown away by the fact that it was humans playing that music. Sure, it may be seen as mediocre by today's metal and guitar standards, but at the time it was awesome!!! And I wanted to try it.
I did listen to rock prior to that (Deep purple, Hendrix, and Vai strangely) but nothing really that made me want to pick up a guitar and play.
So I started and the only lesson I ever got was from a friend showing me how to play a power chord, and then Come As You Are by Nirvana. I played that tune to death and eventually started hitting some Metallica stuff...I basically sharpened my teeth on the Black album. And then moved on to their older, more intense stuff. Funny, some people nowadays still say my playing and writing/riffing is very Hetfield-esque...guess old habits die hard...lol
But as time went on the availability of non-"mainstream" metal improved in this crappy country and I really got turned onto another band called Paradise Lost. They're a gothic metal outfit from the UK. Their album "Draconian Times" is still awesome.
So on a writing level Paradise Lost had, and still has a big impact on me.
singemonkey
My dad used to sometimes put headphones on me to shut me up - connected to his reel-to-reel tape recorder or his cassette deck. They knew this trick would work because I'd just stand there for 45 minutes (a record when you're three and a half), entranced.
It was The Beatles. Elvis. Simon and Garfunkel. Leonard Cohen. And they had a couple of compilations of music that reminded them of their teens. Those had Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Jerry-Lee, The Penguins, The Big Bopper, Bill Halley, and Little Richard (no one wails like Richard).
But I had to play guitar when I saw The Song Remains the Same. That film demonstrated that it was clearly the most awesome thing you could do in the whole world.
It took me a long time to realise that most people don't listen to music like we do. They like to have some background or occasionally they like the lyrics, or when they're 17-25 it becomes important to showing off their identity.
But it's very different for people like us. You know how I tell? Those other people think that it's ok to change the song we selected, or turn it down without asking us ???
symbolofmylife
singemonkey wrote:
It took me a long time to realise that most people don't listen to music like we do.
Oh man don't get me started. What also chaps my @$$ is people that "listen to everything" or "like all music". Then, when you drop some Tool or In Flames on them they "don't like metal". Opinionless little sheep. Thought you liked everything?!
I also think that if you play music, you absorb other music differently.
PeteM
My aunt introduced me to her ukelele when I was about 4. I was so taken by it that she bought me one and a basic chord chart.
Bob-Dubery
singemonkey wrote:
It took me a long time to realise that most people don't listen to music like we do. They like to have some background or occasionally they like the lyrics, or when they're 17-25 it becomes important to showing off their identity.
But it's very different for people like us. You know how I tell? Those other people think that it's ok to change the song we selected, or turn it down without asking us ???
THis is becoming a big problem for me as I grow older, more puritanical and grouchier. Why can't people just shut up and listen to the damn music! I actually have very little interest now in putting on music unless there's a reasonable expectancy that there's going to be some attention paid to it. If it's going to be just a background to conversation then I'd rather have nothing on at all. So I treasure the drive to work because it's whatever I feel like listening to. I need to get a car player that will speak to memory sticks - then I can just load up 1000s of songs (the one I have at the moment plays MP3s, but only off a disk). We're selling our house. The location of the new chateau X is going to mean a longer commute for me. The plus side of that is that I'll get more listening time.
I suppose there is music that is made for talking over. Muzak. Elevator music... I'd still rather have nothing as a backdrop to the conversation.
I also think that if people just put their mind to it, make just a little effort they will be surprised at what they can listen to and enjoy and their lives will be a little richer as a result.
Jack-Flash-Jr
singemonkey wrote:
But it's very different for people like us. You know how I tell? Those other people think that it's ok to change the song we selected, or turn it down without asking us ???
+10100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
I'm not
listening to the song, I'm
living it.
Squonk
singemonkey wrote:
But I had to play guitar when I saw The Song Remains the Same. That film demonstrated that it was clearly the most awesome thing you could do in the whole world.
This is what did it for me!!!!
make-and-do
singemonkey wrote:
But it's very different for people like us. You know how I tell? Those other people think that it's ok to change the song we selected, or turn it down without asking us ???
It's very annoying when people kill a track that's playing mid-song. At least do a fade out!! Modern day i-Pod Attention Deficit Disorder.
I love the part in Greenberg (movie) where Ben Stiller puts on some Duran Duran for party music and one of the much younger
guys just switches it off for a Korn track.
Argument ensues.
Very funny.
Not from a musical family, but music was always playing in our house. Grew up with Shadows, Beach Boys and Beatles.
1st track that got my air guitar going was ...wait for it...Europe - The Final Countdown.
Hahahaha, cheese deluxe I know...thank god for musical taste development. I had the tape (my 1st ever original tape I bought)
and the flashy Malmsteen type fingertapping solos got my attention.
Only picked up a random nylon string few years later at a friend's place and started tinkering.
Subsequently the thing that got me started - noodly Malmsteen/hair-guitar type playing, is a real turn-off to me know.
Koning
Unfortunately I was the only one in my parents' house that played any music, so didn't have a lot of influences growing up.
My first introduction to proper music was GNR Appetite for Destruction album when I was about 7 or 8 staying with my aunt, it changed my life and to this day Slash is still one of my favourite guitar players of all time. I stayed around the rock track with Def Leppard, Skinnard, Stones, Zeppelin and a bit of Pink Floyd. At this point my nephew that introduced me to these bands started listening to black/death-metal, I never quite got the hang of these so steered clear.
Guitar lessons introduced me to bands like Metallica, Alice in Chains, Ozzy, Gary Moore, Clapton, etc. and somewhere along the line something called the blues bit me, an infection I've never been able to shake and probably the only thing I can listen to every single day without even wanting to skip a track for fear of missing something. John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, BB King, Albert King and the list goes on.
Thats about where I am at this point in my life (26)
Demon-Dave
When I was but a little demon, about 5, my mom took me to guitar lessons with a lady named Ildy in Kensington, that was in 1981 to learn Classical Guitar. Ildy worked at EMI and decided one day, to give me a cassette, Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”. That really did change my life forever. I then got very into my rock and metal, whereas my mom was a huge fan of rockabilly and my dad classic rock and Umpahpah Yodelling crap (Austrian)! That could explain a lot about me.
IceCreamMan
Led Zep 2 - the voice and the guitar working in conjunction sold me
took me 30 years to pick up a guitar from 1st hearing it though
rebelwithoutaclue
Albert Lee on half of Nashville's recordings in the 70's and 80's.
Charlie4
When I was 11 my friend Adrian started playing guitar and classical guitar lessons and we were hugely into grunge at the time ('99) - Nirvana, Bush etc.
I started playing a year later, dad bought me a Takamine G530 acoustic. Wasn't really that serious about guitar till we moved to Cape Town (14) and got involved in the high school gig scene - Neshama, Fuzigish, The Hogs etc. (Good ol' days 8) )
Found Iron Maiden that year and it just took of from there.
Still love playing metal but started playing classical and currently trying to master jazz.
Now 22 but will keep on playing till the hands and mind start failing me - am just enjoying the ride.
Averatu
Jack Flash Jr wrote:
Not from a musical family... but I remember counting bars to Bill Haley songs when I was little and then... while watching a tv show (vietnam something or other), the bunch hop into a helicopter and the pilot starts blasting Satisfaction... a couple of days later I stole my first Stones tape (age 12/13) ?
Nylon soon after and electric soon after that follwed by a tidal wave of Jimi, Zep etc. etc.
@ Averatu, I do also remember this though ? :
Listen for the killer rockabilly riffs!
Tony James is KING!!! He was a member of The Sisters of Mercy in the Vision Thing years among many other great acts.
