My dad listened to classical, opera, and folk music, mostly on WQXR. Later in life he also listened to gospel on Family Radio. My mom didn't listen to much, but she liked musicals and country. I don't know exactly how or when I started listening to pop music, but I distinctly remember asking for and getting the Beatles 1967-1970 album for my 12th birthday. I was at my grandmother's house (which my wife and I have just moved into), with my mom, my sister, my aunt, my grandmother, and my mom's friend and her son. I played that thing to death.
By eighth grade I had started building a big record collection. It was a combination of stuff I heard on the radio, scavenged from my friend Jesse's brother's abandoned record collection, or that my musician friend, Andrew, turned me on to. Among my favorites were Jethro Tull, Queen, and, of course, the Beatles.
The little I knew about punk rock, other than fear-mongering news clips, came from a short span when WPIX radio went with it. That's how I first heard Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Jam, and Graham Parker. It was a pretty mainstream sort of punk, but it started me listening to a little broader spectrum of music - though not enough to make me buy any of those albums.
It was the summer after eight grade that I really started becoming the music nut I still am. Working as a cleaner that summer, I heard a radio ad for Ian Hunter's live album, Welcome to the Club. I heard the opening to "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," and I knew I had to buy it. When I bought the album, I also bought Judas Priest's British Steel because of the cover. Within six months, I had several more Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople albums as well as a few more Priest albums.
Somewhere between the start of eighth grade and my freshman year of high school, I heard "Gangsters" by the Specials and "One Step Beyond" by Madness. That was enough to make me buy both albums. Slowly, my tastes, while not completely dropping standard rock radio, were changing.
