DCC Archive influences

I would like to know what are the most influenced records from our forum members... I doesn't mean the musical influences like for example Jimi Hendrix's first, Flying Burrito's Gilded Palace Of Sin, Moby Grape's debut or Led Zeppelin's 2nd... I mean records who influenced your life. I like these great records, but they haven't influenced me.
I think two records influenced me... Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks and Nirvana's Nevermind. They changed also my musical direction...

 

Ahhh, well I listened to Black Sabbath at 78rpm and saw God.
Nah actually, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks "Two Thousand and 13 year old man".

Oh Phil please don't step on us!

 

There is just no one album that had that much influence on me. I can hear the bursts of laughter now! Here goes:

THE ARCHIES-Everything's Archie (I was 6-yrs. old, ok?

THE TEMPTATIONS-Greatest Hits (THERE'S a job for Steve Hoffman! Remastering some MOTOWN!)

EARTH, WIND & FIRE-That's The Way Of The World

OHIO PLAYERS-Honey (A title for DVD-A if I ever heard one! It was originally mixed to quad back in the day and the masters still exist. MoFi mastered a surround CD of it but never released it)

CHIC-C'est Chic

 

Some of the music that influenced my life includes Tom T. Hall's "Sneaky Snake," The Chipmunks's "Urban Chipmunk" album, The Bellamy Brothers's "Sons of The Sun" album, particularly the hit "Lovers Live Longer," Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts" 45 (thanks Steve once again for mastering the "Juice" album on CD), Gram Parsons's "Grievous Angel" album, The Byrds's "Sweetheart of The Rodeo" album (which I still don't have in my collection but may ask for it for Christmas), Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," Eva Cassidy's music which I don't have yet, Martin Sexton's "Black Sheep" which I don't have yet, the Grand Ole Opry, Hee Haw, Gordon Lightfoot's "Gord's Gold" compilation, and many other albums. How I became a fan of Gram Parsons is that I listened to "Grievous Angel" at a friend's house on the turntable while I was typing his record collection database. The same thing happened when I listened to "Will The Circle Be Unbroken," "Sweetheart of The Rodeo" and many other albums and that includes the Flying Burrito Brothers.

 

I grew up listening to what my parents were listening to at that time (mid-late 70's) which were Elton John, The Beach Boys and the Beatles. When I turned 8 years old for my birthday my uncle game me 3 albums that changed my innocent young life: 1-Van Halen's first album 2-Gamma 1 featuring Ronnie Montrose, 3-Ted Nugent-Double Live Gonzo and 4-KISS Alive 1. This led to a fixation to KISS in the 3rd grade. Picture a little kid going to Catholic school with his metallic KISS belt buckle and KISS lunch box, then after school I'd go home and crank out "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" on my little flip top Mickey Mouse Record Player. It took me until my early 20's to appreciate the Elton John, The Beach Boys and The Beatles ever again.

 

Yeah ya see, Bradley's experiences although not exact were a lot like my listening life. Even at 3 I had my own record player and took to vinyl like I still do today. At Christmas I'd get Joe Cocker, Donna Summer, Beatles, even a huge heaping stack of white label 45's from the grandad who scavanged the dump near the local radio station. I really got the gammut and just the accidental influence made things weird but very seasoned.

It was hard to beg for the real good albums of the time, because a lot of artists were doing Double Album sets, and Mom didn't have the cash. Elton John's Yellow Brick, Dying to get a copy of the White Album ,and $22 bucks for a Capitol reissue was, in those days, good money.

Gawd, 8 Tracks in the budget bins got me Burt Backerack, a Monty Python BBC TV sountrack tape, some chick my grandfather's mechanic dated thought I was neat, so she threw Dylan and some 1/2 track reel recorders, albums that had scratches on em, but GOOD stuff like Joni Mitchell, Yes, Zeppelin tapes on that Ampex and Scotch C90 cassettes. I carried around a Panasonic dictation cassette player like many people did Boom Boxes before they went popular. The unit finally broke at the screw-posts and split in half.

My parents didn't take my hobby as seriously as I wanted it to. If they did, I'd have 1/2 of what Steve owns by puberty.

Liking Def Leppard because chicks did. They didn't understand Pink Floyd much. "Final Cut" made them run to daddy and "Atom Heart Mother" made my father question if I was doing drugs, and do you know birds/bees?

Byrds? Sure! Sweetheart Of The Rodeo?

Firesign Theatre was also a big influence during college. Now I can build a house and boat with the music media I own. Mom asks still "do you have time to listen to it all?!?" and I say, "yep, have all my life!"

Better than sex? Yes and no.... and that's another chapter.

 

My sister's 45s back in the seventies were my first influence to pop music. I remember her having Elvis Presley, Bee Gees, and her buying Elton John's Greatist Hits album (which reminds me to snag a DCC of that while they're still floating around). I remember sitting in the back of Dad's 76 Volvo while he played 8-tracks of Chicago, Simon and Garfunkel, Three Dog Night, etc. I didn't buy my first pop/rock album until 10 when the Police's Zenyatta Mondatta (don't know if I'm spelling that right) album came out. I still have the cassette over 20 years later.

In early teenage years, I went for Air Supply, Alan Parsons Project, Little River Band, etc. All non-threatening stuff. Later, a friend of mine started lending and taping albums of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, for me. So my taste started to dovetail with the other white males in high school.

However, my friend also copied Genesis' Trespass and Foxtrot, and lent me Selling England by the Pound and Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. So, I was pushed off into a direction that ultimately saved me from the blandness of hair metal and synth-pop that typified my peers taste in high school. One thing led to another. In addition to early Genesis, I started checking out bands like the Moody Blues, Yes, Pre-DSOTM Pink Floyd, ELP, and other late 60s-early 70s acts on my own.

In '87, I picked up King Crimson's "In the Court of the Crimson King" CD on the JEM label. I was 17 and I was the only one in high school that I knew of that was even familiar with KC. That album blew my world apart. At first some of it was not accessible to me, but nonetheless it challenged me musically. I believe it and other prog-rock albums made me take jazz and classical music more seriously. Then, in college, two guys lent me Buffalo Springfield Greatist Hits and Neil Young's "Harvest" CD. Those albums helped me to open up to county and folk more.

Then, I became a campus DJ. Listening to "Chicago Transit Authority" in college made me realize that I shouldn't automatically shrug off artist because I was told they were "seventies pop." In fact, I soon realized through high school and college that I shouldn't apologize for my tastes because they didn't meet the crowd's standards. I listened to something because I wanted to - whether it was seventies pop, classical, alternative, new age, jazz, folk, blues, whatever. Now my music collection is all over the place genre-wise from Daniel Johnston to Miles Davis to Black Sabbath to Otis Redding to Dwight Yoakam to Bach to Fripp/Eno to scratchy '30s vintage Carolina blues to George Winston to Soundgarden to James Brown's Seventies Funk to Bee Gees (both teen years and helium-vocal years) to whatever comes along to suit my whim. I think it was that King Crimson album and that Genesis Trespass album that started all of that.

[ October 01, 2001: Message edited by: Browserman ]

 

When I did College radio (mid 90's), I took Chicago Transit Authority off the shelf to do a station opener. (People thought I was nuts "Chicago!?!") It was because our airtime was only 16-19 hours daily, we had to legally open the station with "You're listening to....Operating at a frequency of...our offices are located..." in a recorded message once we heated the vintage transformer up and started broadcasting, every morning. The choice cut was "Free Form Guitar", the painful, screetching, wailing, wammy-bar bashing continuing for 4 minutes or more with reckless abandon. I read calmy over it into a tape cartridge to be used every morning at 7AM or earlier. Over a 200+w vintage exciter (tube!) the noise was frightening on that scratchy vinyl. (sounded worse than Jimi's "EXP" on "Axis:" for those Chicago-less)

It was waking up those who may have tuned in and passed out to empty dial static. Once people used the cart, people got the joke. "Good morning, KERBLAM!!" I loved it.

No, Chicago was a force to be reckoned with in a small, snowy mountain town.

 

The first album by the Beatles.

Other than Chrismas records and Alvin and the Chipmonks, it was my first music record. I had to ask my grandmother to buy it for me, and from then on I was on my way.

Who would have guessed that in a few years I'd be listening to Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida.

 

Well, the original question was about albums but I actually started out life listening to all of my sister's Motown/Stax/Atlantic, my dad's Impressions LP's, my mom's jazz LP's and British invasion music on the radio. THEN came the Archies.

 

Without question, these albums changed my life...

Traffic - Low Spark
Joe Walsh - So What?
Led Zep - I,II,III,IV,Physical Graffiti
The Who -Who's Next
CCR-Cosmo's Factory
Pink Floyd - DSOTM

Cheers,

Ben

 

Hi Claus,
My first album that changed my lstening preferances was Black Sabbath: Paranoid 1973 and I was hooked on this metal sound and the second was Rush: S/T 1973. Then came the one that you particularly like Claus, Nazareth: (can't remember if their first was S/T)1973, after those the only 2 albums were Pink Floyd: Darkside Of The Moon and The Wall. After those 2 not much else compared until Joe Satriani: Surfing With The Alien and Strvie Ray Vaughn: Texas Flood.
Cheers

 

Good choices, but Paranoid came out in '71, and Rush in '74. I believe Nazareth s/t was '71 as well.

Just being anal(ytical).

 

Patrick,
Hate to burst your bubble of infinite wisdom but Paranoid came out in 1970, Nazareth in 1973 and Rush 1975 (this one I got early from a buddy of mine who worked for the band in 1974). lol. You know what they say "the mind's the first thing to go". Now where's my alzhiemers medication.

 

Steve, you're the only one I know who's caught that. It's got to be Aragorn, although I must say that all the main characters are compelling in terms of their actions and nature.

Anyway, the cobwebs are clearing so I'll add The Mills Brothers, Harry Belafonte, and even Julie London to my list above. My Dad had a reel-to-reel setup way back when so I grew up listening to that stuff.

I used to sneak in there and play my favorite tapes when my parents were out. One day I fed the tape improperly while rewinding, and ended up wrinkling a whole bunch of tape...

 

Hank Williams, Jr. & Friends has been reissued on CD on Universal Special Products. It should cost about $7-8 locally or if you have the "Living Proof" boxed set, it does contain the entire album on CD as well.

 

Where are you getting these dates? Check:
http://freespace.virgin.net/keith_john.fitzgerald/albums.htm http://www.naz-net.com/html/discs.htm
http://www.erotomania.org/rush/ http://users2.ev1.net/~paulscott/rush/discography02.html#RUSH

You may be right, re: Paranoid. I've seen it listed as both '70 and '71, depending on the source (but never '73).

Please keep the catty comments to yourself.

 

All the issues I own including the Vertigo UK vinyl says 1970 for Paranoid. The Castle UK issue CD (also has the Vertigo label in the folio) says ©1970. CDnow says 1971, but we all know CDnow doesn't necessarilly have to be correct. Just an FYI.

 

Patrick,
Don't take it personally I was just kidding. Anyways I got the dates right off the records themselves. Guess I should have said Nazareths album was Loud N' Proud and I was looking at the wrong Rush S/T release. The first one I looked at was the Anthem pressing not the Moon/Mercury pressing. Oops

[ October 04, 2001: Message edited by: Dave ]

 

allmusic.com and rollingstone.com also say 1971, but I think 1970 is correct. I think Septemberish, but I wasn't alive at the time.

 

So, Claus, what is your opinion of all of us? And, how about me, because it seems out of everyone here I have the most interesting/unusual/strange influence listed.

 

i listened to a lot of 60's pop thanks to an older brother in the house: mostly 45's from the beatles, stones, S&G, etc. in 70's high school i went "progressive": yes, ELP, pink floyd; although i did start listening to some 20th century classical music around this time, too: stockhausen, vareese, cage. in the early 80's a good friend turned me on to captain beefheart, the "clear spot" LP in particular influenced me a lot. but without a doubt british guitarist fred frith and american bassist bill laswell changed the way i listened to and played music. three titles to check out are:

material "memory serves" (1982)
massacre "killing time" (1982)
the golden palominos "s/t" (1983)

all were originally issued on celluloid records and all go a long way to stretching your ears and the sound of music in general.

also, john cage's book "silence" (published 1961, i think) did much to open my ears and made me start listening to music in a different way when i read it the first time in 1981/82.

later, chris