...at my uncle's in Ohio, on his '70s hi-fi, with... could be the same Grados I have now, oddly enough, I should ask. I remember the earpads being orange though. Reading... something, I think it was about Brahms, maybe Walter Piston talking about Brahms. This is also, incidentally, the greatest thing ever, and I've seen it live. Not with Klemperer conducting of course.



In a hotel room in Washington DC, late at night. Borrowed from a friend along with a KMFDM record for the trip. Again on 'phones. Pining for my first love (outside of things like music and reading and art, of course!); we had just seen Metallica together the night before. Someone had started a fire out of I don't know what and a pit formed around it during that show. That was quite a thing to be present for. My voice was hoarse and I was so very tired and it was completely dark.



Apparently I've spent much of my life with stuff jammed into or over my ears. Unseasonably warm, and raining. This was new; I was familiar with them from a few years before, and heard it was supposed to be really good. My Boss DR-660 was involved somehow? And my metalliband-girlsinger at the time; we were probably walking from somewhere, and the guitar store near the coffee shop I lived at then. I incidentally also started reading Wheel Of Time that day. Actually there with the Opeth record. I can't say I read fantasy anymore unless Neil Gaiman counts, but I do still like this.

Three of yours that keep coming back, even if they're not what you usually listen to anymore. Go.

Picking so few of any sounds is always very difficult for me, so i will just pick any old three that pop into my skull.

EDIT: Wound up being a fairly nostalgic/flashbacky sort of affair.



1. When i was younger and living in behind the curtain of a restricted listening environment, i discovered college radio. The most obvious and loud outcropping of this, was the hardcore show called The Lost Cause that used to broadcast at night on WZBC which is Boston College's station. Because of that show, and the fact that i couldn't (wasn't allowed to) go out and buy anything i heard, i began just putting a cassette into the machine and recording off the airwaves to keep it. I was only interested in one two things: speed and violence. That is what i aimed to record.

But sometimes, when i fell asleep, the tape would just keep rolling as the show ended and the next DJ took over. I don't remember what he called his show. The dood had a british accent. He played some strange tunes that i generally did not like.

It was on his show that i heard this:

The Girls - Jeffrey I Hear You.



This is just one song really, an EP. Which at the time i didn't like, because it is long(very long when you consider that 95% of the songs i liked at the time would have been under 45 seconds). But every time i listened to that tape and the hardcore show ended, this song started, and then over time, i realized that it was fucking awesome.

The single was recorded in 1979 by a Boston band, and produced by the weirdo from Per Ubu. Droning synths, completely shit production, and a mindnumbingly repetitive pounding thump of a beat to it, the song goes on too long, and then still finds a way to end too soon... Desperate sounds about a dead brother who maybe also didn't make it to twenty.



A lot of things about the way it sounds stuck with me. The youtube is not very good quality, but then, neither was the version i had on tape from a fading in and out college radiostation. I prefer the tape copy though, as it sounds even more buried, there is a lot of high end missing from it, which suits it well.





2. My father was always pretty good about trying to keep up with hip music. He grew up stoned with Hendrix/Sabbath/Cream/Yes, but unlike a lot of kids who grew up in the sixties with classic rock stuff, by the time he hit the eighties, he was still keeping in touch with what was new. He bought this as soon as it came out basically:

The Cure - Disintegration.



But he didn't really like it. He said something along the lines of that he found it a bit too miserable/depressing/slowpaced. So my angry older sister inherited it from him, and then i stole it from her.

It has since been the soundtrack to too many dark times. I vividly recall a time when everything fell apart pretty well, lying in the direct center of my dorm room with this loud enough on the stereo that it sounded like it was on headphones, staring hard at the ceiling, probably the lowest i have ever been. That was how my college experience ended basically.



The louder you play it, the better it sounds. Those tiny tubularbells/chimes that open it, that you can hardly even hear at 'normal' listening levels, the way the bass and cymbals EXPLODE when they come in about 30dB louder. Just... oppressive. I actually listen to this record for the fact that it gives me some kind of lift that i cannot explain. I don't know, maybe it is kind of a "well maybe i am not as depressed as THIS guy, huh?" sort of thing. Or maybe wallowing in it a bit can be helpful, who knows. I still love this record though.





3. This is another one that i have my dad to thank for. I remember sitting in the back seat of his brand new 1986 Nissan Pulsar in the driveway waiting for my mom or one of my sisters to get out the door so we could go wherever we were headed, and he put this cassette into the Blaupunkt (i have a tendency to remember things with sweet names like that) and let it blast:

Paul Simon - Graceland.



Kind of the polar opposite to Disintegration, my dad was not about to let this one fall into my sister and my clutches. Maybe the only thing that i love, that also exhibits the production values of the eighties:



I got into Paul Simon backwards in this fashion. My mom certainly knew who he was, she was a total folkie in the 70s before she met my dad. But at some point she left that behind. Like, FAR behind. She used to play and sing just about all the time i hear. I haven't seen her so much as touch a guitar in all of my life except when i hand one to her.

So, instead of hearing Bridge Over Troubled Waters, The Sounds Of Silence, Parsley Sage Rosemary And Thyme, or even Sounds Of Silence, i heard Graceland first.

And even though i have gone back and met the other material by now, i still go back to this one because it reminds me of waitng for sisters in the driveway blasting cassettes on a Blaupunkt tape deck in a new Pulsar. That car wasn't with us for very long, it was the only car that either of my parents ever bought new. It found itself in the middle of a five car pileup shortly after we moved to this house, and aside from this one instance of listening to Graceland in the driveway of the old house in Methuen, most of my memories of that car are of it sitting in the driveway here in Burlington, abbreviated front and back end, sad crooked headlights, lying on a heap. My dad i don't think had the heart to throw it away. For several years, the dog used it as a perch to stand on the sunroof and bark at people coming up the road.

Also, later i pulled the Blaupunkt from the dash and the JBL speakers out of the doors and rear sill, and wired them up quadrophonically with a 12v DC adapter in my bedroom. That was actually a pretty sweet setup.

Cool thread concept, excited to contribute.

bI'll start with the obvious and see where it takes me:



I was fresh into college and I was meeting people on my floor. I say hi to this emo/rocker/whatever chick and we start chatting. We both liked some similar music (I was a Dream Theater fanboy at the time) and she put on a song by this band I had heard of just hadn't heard anything of. So I acquired some music of theirs and started listening on some cheap Sony earbuds. First song starts and a light yet interesting intro plays. The song explodes into my earbuds and an obsession begins!


Not sure when nor where, but I do remember how. I was just beginning my exploration into this band and I decided I would go ahead and acquire their most talked about/famous albums. I had my Itunes on shuffle and I was doing somethings, just can't remember what. What I do remember is this chorus of acoustic guitars and a simple vocal line "You gotta to be crazy..." Whatever I was doing, I stopped, checked the name of the song and just listened...


I had heard a song or two of this band. It was either around the time of the Reading, Leads, or Download festival. Festival was being transmitted live via web and I saw them play one song from this album and I instantly had to acquire it. This isn't really one of my favorite albums at all but it does contain a few songs I would not be able to live without and when my computer has decided to shit the bed, its always one of the first albums I acquire.

Alright, here it goes.



This album right here (Alkaline Trio's S/T compilation album) was the first thing I really loved outside of music that would be easily grouped into the mainstream version of whatever genre other bands I liked where in. For the longest time (in comparison to how quick that changed for awhile) I would have told you this was my favorite band, probably from the age of 13 to 16 or so.. The punky aggression and saddrunk lyrics really compelled to me at that age considering how I felt and my general outlook on life at the time thanks to all the medication I was on. Still give it a spin here and again, still sounds great but it will never mean to me what it did then.




Now, here's the first metal album (Slipknot's debut S/T album) I fell in love with, mildly shamefully. I had previously been listening to tons of early Metallica but I heard this and shit my pants. It was probably so appealing to me because it had the heavy qualities of DM and other extreme music while still maintaining some accessiblity on quite a few songs with melodic choruses and whatnot. After that I just kept consuming more and more violent music until I ended up with the fairly refined taste in it that I have acquired. They are humble beginnings, but I still appreciate it a legitimate fashion. This song is the shit to this day.

Finally, this absolute fucking beast of a record:



I know every single riff and vocal pattern off of this album by heart. I have listened to it so many times it's quite ridiculous, it was what really opened up the appeal of traditional death metal to my eyes when I was completely immersed in breakdown-driven deathcore. This album is a gallery of Class A riffs and virtuoso drumming. It also came to me during a very important time in my life; the month I stopped straightening and dying my hair and wearing other stupid shit. I looked at my newfound heroes and saw what they were doing an followed suit.. This is how I became a bro, yo. I also had just started to smoke weed in a big way and having fun while doing it rather than just sitting around and tripping balls. ALSO ALSO: Same exact time we formed our band, this group being a gigantic influence on what we do/did.

Mine's kinda lame because I am still quite young without too much time for retrospective nostalgia but it's the best I could do.

hard to pick just three and these choices could change at any point, but..



1 - Alkaline Trio self titled
Firstly I really like the production on this album. The guitar and bass tones are really great for punk rock, the bass is how I like a bass to sound - fairly bright, punchy and a bit clicky probably from being picked rather than played fingerstyle. The album reminds me of being at uni and "My Friend Peter" reminds me of a good friend (called Peter) I had only for about a year at uni, and I haven't seen him for fucking ages. This album was on pretty regularly when we were drinking before a night out.



2 - Afroman - The Good Times
Mainly because the lyrics are funny as fuck. I'm listening to this quite a bit at the minute because it reminds me of my friends back home who I'm starting to quite miss now. We listened to this so much whilst smoking, and it's still funny even when sober. Also there are actually some pretty good harmonies and stuff going on, his voice is like chocolate I don't like "Because I Got High" though, definitely the weakest song on the album.



3 - The Bronx II
I love this album. It's just (almost) non stop rock fury. Sounds like lotsa energy went into making this, the singer is awesome. Love the slightly fuzzy and raw guitar tones. There's only one song on the album I don't like much, but even that one's still pretty good. Again I really like the production, it sounds fairly polished (to me) but still sounds like a real band playing.

hmm.. there are way more "stand out" albums to me but that'll do for now. Honorable mentions go to Fugazi, Every Time I Die, RATM, Touché Amoré, Goo Goo Dolls (who seem a bit out of place in this lineup) and Rancid. Oh and Beastie Boys.

Funny that we both used the same first choice.

Yup, gotta love the Alk3.

edit - another honorable mention goes to Deftones - Around The Fur.

hmm, must think on this one.....

Love this thread...
1. The AC/DC Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap Album. It was the first CD I ever actually purchased for myself. Before that, all I listened to was the country that my parents would listen to, or oldies stuff (beach boys, jan and dean, etc.) I saw this album on sale for $4.99 at a Best Buy or somewhere. (Thinking back it may have been circuit city). I played it all the way through twice in a row, and thought it was a coolest thing I've ever heard. Still enjoy it.



2. Has to be the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young Deja Vu album. I got a ton of records from my stepgrandpa, and this was one of them. I had heard Carry On on classic rock radio, but listened to it all the way through and loved it. They have my favorite vocal harmony of any group. Absolutely love the band, and all of the respective members solo work. Just great music.



3. The Metallica Black Album. I got this in 6th grade. Before that, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, etc. was as heavy as I got. My history teacher that year recommended it to me, so I went out and bought it. Holy shit. I had never heard anything that heavy before. It completely changed what I began to listen to and play musically. Still one of my favorite rock guitar tones of all time. Just great hard rock songwriting in my opinion.

I fixed yer vidlinks yo!

Thank you sir, I was having difficulties.

Also: Malcom Young's guitar sound is fucking unstoppable. Rock iconic.

This. It was so unlike anything I had ever heard before. It started the downward spiral haha.

nice.. this is kinda fun.



the sound of pittsburgh in the late 80's, early 90's.



also of that same vintage. so good. van damon.



ah..

an sentimental trio of many many many of said trios! but i felt this one RIGHT NOW>

I still dunno. But this one one of them:

Nailed it with the first two. Srsly solid records.

Not too familiar with the last one.

Also, its impossible for me to answer this thread.

How i read it, this thread isn't so much about your top three, as it is about three that for you have been around for a long time, and still have stayed solid/awesome.

You don't need to rack your brain too hard, just list three things that for you, can't be stopped.

What is this one all about? I have never heard it.