for some of music friends around the world this is a big hello and welcome.originally from Los Angeles, now near d.c. in virginia, 33 years old.
i was always the one to rather stay in than go out. if anyone coined the phrase 'staying in is the new going out' it had to be me. my hobby has always been listening to music. Since i was 4-5 years old nothing's changed. I can remember having 2 records. I had Blondie's heart of glass and a Queen record(does it matter which one?). I quickly took off my brothers records off the fisher price turntable and played them. now in retrospect, from that moment, from those two distinct different sounds (i never played a queen record again), my path in electronic music was set on a long and enjoyable journey, i just didn't know how important that decision was till a few years later yet like one of those childhood moments i remember it like it was yesterday. various things influenced that early spark from when i was 6-8 years old, from my grandmother playing some gospel organ music while i fell asleep(i still fall asleep to music most of the time) to watching the lights on my dad's digital amplifier to see if at any certain point if it would ever get to the next LED light. those are just some examples of what music means to me.i was lucky to be the youngest of 4 children and at any certain time in the day i could walk around the house and hear all kinds of new sounds. My oldest sister got me into Pet Shop Boys, Depeche Mode and the Cure but also was well rounded with stuff like The Who, Afrika Bambaataa, U2, The Smiths and plenty of new wave music. By the time i was 9 i got my first walkman and bought my first cassette with my own my money. I heard 'Opportunities' by PSB at my sisters talent show/lip sync in the fall of 1985 and I first heard the power of a dance track on a PA system in her high school gym. 1985-1987 i started to listen to my first hip hop. Beastie Boys, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Fat Boys and others struck a nerve with my rebelious urban side. Others like suicidial tendencies, tsol, fishbone, red hot chili peppers and allot of other urban street los angeles music influenced my tastes for anything out of the normal during our skateboard thrash sessions. an early example of the proper place for a certain style of music and how i would always be obsessed with having the perfect music to set the perfect mood for any given setting. also during this period i could not escape the latin influences that were everywhere in l.a. from Trinere, Zapp, Madonna, Debbbie Deb, to Shannon and later Expose' and others it would always entertain the dance pop side of my tastes.by 1987 at the age of 11 I started to get really into dance mixes of my favorite new wave songs. that coupled with by 1988 i got my first boombox featuring 2 cassette player and i also got a outboard cd player, I started to edit them into extended and dub remixes and make mix tapes and give them to my siblings, friends and my father who always supported my music tastes which for a few years he entertained my wants being my fan base for a weekly top 20 and music playing sessions while i would radio dj.
my brother influenced my tastes alot during 1988-1990. he introduced me to skinny puppy, front 242, siousxie and the banshees, bauhaus and many other influential bands.
many days of school would be skipped while i found my mixing sessions much more enjoyable. from 1988-1991 my mix cassette collection would grow giving birth to my hobby as being a physical collector. from early on studying music, reading liner notes, remembering names, labels, pictures and even fonts was the original way pre-internet that i discovered most of my tastes as radio stations and other media avenues were not giving me what i wanted to hear. during those years a few radio stations did round out my tastes for finding music, KROQ 106.7, MarsFM and 91X but I was still wanting something new.by 1991 i started to see techno compilations in my local record stores. the obscurity of the artists attracted me. techno and electronic music seemed as for a music medium ,all about art and substance over image. as new wave music was on the decline, rock music(grunge around then) i inheritantly didn't like and rap moving away from party and towards gangster/money, electronic music was just what i needed and just at the right time. everything about it was perfect for me, i stopped editing tracks into instrumentals because with electronic music i didn't have to! i began looking for the perfect beat. i began looking for the perfect synth and the perfect mood.i could on and on about artists and labels that influenced me from 1991 till now but when you have over 6000 pieces of vinyl, cd and cassettes it's just too hard to single out some to mention specifically. hopefully you can see some of them here on myspace as friends. thank you peoples for shaping my life.my favorite music style and periods/countries are:ambient: UK/NY/west coast/Belgium/Germany 1993-1994
ambient techno: UK/Belgium/USA/Netherlands/Detroit/Germany 1991-1995
deep house: USA/UK etc 1988-now
rave: UK/Belgium/Netherlands/Germany/US etc 1990-1993
trance: UK/Netherlands/Belgium 1993-1995
new wave: UK 1981-1988
minimal techno: uk/germany/detroit/scandanavia 1992-now
industrial: 1984-1993right now currently digging stuff that was not distributed much to the united states or more, los angeles area in the days of pre-internet; ambient house 1990-1993 and italo house songs that are either more downtempo and lush or more catchy and somewhat upbeat but still non cheesy in the days just before house verged on some of the rave sounds.as always, ambient techno is king of my speakers...
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