What was your "Musical Epiphany"?

As a pre-teen: finally “getting” Dylan…

Prior to that, I knew him casually as the folk singer guy with ‘that voice’, and remembered my Kindergarden teacher having us sing along to “blowing in the wind’ while she strummed along on her autoharp…

That year, Blood On The Tracks came out. I bought it…
I finally “Got” him…. That LP was a turning point in my growing up, musically…

 

Hearing Steve Reich's 'Electric Counterpoint' and throwing away that old "repetition = bad" misconception that I'd grown up with.

 

Watching the girls gathering around the stereo and playing records during the Christmas party when I was in the eighth grade. Seemed like something I should be paying attention to...

 

• Hearing stereo for the first time (our family wasn't very music-minded) wearing headphones and listening to ELO's Out of the Blue. Mindblowing!
• Seeing and hearing Strawberry Fields Forever on Dutch tv; these dreamy and strident sounds!
• Hearing Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden on a cassette tape on a boombox.....must have sounded horrible, but even then the sounds and silences had a profound effect!

 

Man, I used to live in Columbus GA, than joined the Navy and spent 5 years in a row of out 20 in Coronado.
I actually lived in France for five years 1961-1966, where we had Armed Forces Radio and fell in love with all of those up and coming British bands, that broke big back in the US. I got into RnR with "HDN" by the Beatles, but after we moved back to Georgia things were a little tense in the US with race riots, assassinations, bombings, protests, and kind of got side tracked. Finally picked it up again with the Stones "YCAGWYW" and then by Fleetwood Mac in Chicago.....especially Danny Kirwin doing "World's in a Tangle".....man am I one of the old ones

 

Having been born in '54, there were a lot of musical epiphanies that I experienced, from Beatles to Big Star to AM/FM radio to Mott to the Dolls to Springsteen to CBGB to Husker Du to R.E.M. to dozens of others across the years, but this gig from 1974 is the one I always come back to because it's the one that , for me anyway, changed everything:

 

Hearing the music of Anton Webern (5 Pieces for Orchestra) in 1968 at the age of 13 had a profound impact and influence on me. I loved the economy and scale of it, not a wasted gesture. Some of those pieces last only 20 seconds but they are complete musical expressions. Little diamonds.

 

I'd say, I can give you the moment when I knew music was gonna be 'my thing', but, for me:
It was staying up to watch "The Rutles : All You Need Is Cash" on TV.
Beatles were always around, but seemed too 'of the past' for me to really be a true 'hard-core'...
By '77, I had gotten a small taste of "Saturday Night Live" and a BIG taste of Monty Python, so, when they converged to make fun of The Beatles, I KNEW I had to be there.
A true 'come-to-the-light' moment!

 

I was fortunate to see REM at two different college bars in the early eighties.

 

In The Air Tonight, by Phil Collins.

I was 15 - sure, I had an interest in music before that - Oliver's Army, Don't Like Mondays, Video the Radio Star were all early faves - but In The Air Tonight was THE ONE.

From that point on, I didn't just listen to music - I had to own it

And so began a lifetime of record collecting.........

 

I remember that show. He scared the hell out of me that night. He wore a dress.

 

Imagine seeing Alice Cooper wearing one as early as 1968! And that's just on stage!

 

My life has been a series of musical epiphanies.

A big box of Beatles and Beach Boys 45s when I was 7 or 8.

"Walk This Way" when I was 9.

"Piss on the Wall" when I was 10.

Mötley Crüe when I was 12.

Iron Maiden when I was 13.

And the list goes on, I'm 47 and eagerly awaiting the next one.

 

The Cars - Panorama
Prince - 1999 (album)

 

Nirvana "Nevermind". I thought : this music is for me, speaks to me

 

In my sophomore year of high school I took a mechanical drawing class and the teacher had a big, old fashioned, wood console radio in the class tuned to KMPX, 106.9. After the introduction to KMPX, I not only listened in the classroom but, also, every evening when I went to bed. It was absolutely mind-blowing. Tom Donahue used to play full albums in the evenings. I still remember the first time I heard the long version of Happy Trails by Quicksilver on the radio. I had seen them in concert many times prior to this -- but, on the radio -- no way. I was deep into the SF sound at the time but this station expanded my horizons to blues, soul, R&B and everything in-between. That would have been in 1967. Interestingly, Dusty Street from KMPX works at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is the host of Classic Vinyl, channel 26, on Sirius Radio on the weekends.

KMPX (defunct) - Wikipedia

 

Here is a link to a 1967 KMPX show:

Tom Donahue – KMPX FM 107 (May 5, 1967) – Bay Area Radio Museum

 

Grateful Dead, Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY, February 1971.

 

I've had more than one. Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now did it in the '80s. Mis-shapes by Pulp (the first track off Different Class, which I bought without having heard anything on it) did it in the '90s. As for the '60s, I can't even remember if there was one single specific track that made me get into music, but I certainly did.

Here's a track with the line, "Rock & roll is our epiphany" -

The Manic Street Preachers, Little Baby Nothing:



One of my '90s Top 10.

 

2012. Listening to Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart on Youtube for the first time ever literally changed my world. That’s when my music obsession started. I didn’t know music could be so powerful.

 

Sgt. Pepper's changed my life, then Dark Side did it again. The other Floyd albums were apart of that too.

 

Know what pair specifically?

 

My epiphany was sitting down and teaching myself how to play Blackbird from the White album. When it all came together it was slightly mindblowing.

 

The combination of Mexican dirt weed,headphones and Dark Side of the Moon as a fourteen year old in 1975.Opened the door of album rock that continues today.

 

Radiohead- "Ok Computer"
Neutral Milk Hotel- "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea/Everything Is"
The Velvet Underground- "The Velvet Underground and Nico"
The Music Tapes- "First Imaginary Symphony for Nomad"
The Beach Boys- "Pet Sounds"
John Coltrane- "A Love Supreme/Ascension"

All of these records changed my life musically or otherwise. Very important and dear to my heart.