#520: Musical Firsts

GETTING MORE TALE #520: Musical Firsts

What are your “musical firsts”?  Here are mine!  Let’s start with concerts.

  • First concert: Johnny Cash (1983)
  • First highschool concert:  Free Fare (1986)
  • First rock concert:  Helix (1987)

Who remembers Free Fare?  They billed themselves as “the band from Florida” (there was only one?) and toured highschools all over the US and Canada.  They played Grand River Collegiate in my grade nine year, performing popular covers and giving away Free Fare bandanas.

FREE FARE

 

How about your first musical instruments?

  • First instrument played – bass guitar
  • First instrument bought – electric guitar
  • First instrument smashed – the same electric guitar, smashed by my sister

 

Finally I’m sure you all remember your first albums.  Here are mine:

 

Leave a comment with some of your memorable musical firsts!

55 comments

  1. HA! Complete with a cartoon from the late great Don Martin to boot! Was that your doing Mike or was that cartoon used back when for the band??? The BIG Completely MAD Don Martin collection takes pride of place here at home (alongside my Calvin&Hobbes and FarSide volumes :), Nice one Mike, much much respect :)

    So far as this post goes…

    1st important life changing rock concert: Noiseworks 88 Touch Tour

    And having been raised on classical music my albums came late and in my mid teens…

    1st Cassette: 1985
    1st Band album on cassette: SPORTS – Huey Lewis &TheNews
    1st Metal cassette: SKID ROW(?)
    1st 7″: JUMP – Van Halen
    1st LP Vinyl(s): HOWLING – The Angels, and 5150 VH
    1st Soundtrack: Back To The Future
    1st CD: PHALANX Australian Crawl or RECKLESS Bryan Adams
    1st Metal CD: FOUR WINDS Tangier (Caved late to the CD era)
    1st Grunge CD: CANDLEBOX and SUPERUNKNOWN

    At least to the best of my memory :)

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    2. HEY WARDY! You nailed it, that’s Don Martin, and that’s a real band poster that I found online! I don’t know how they got Martin to do their poster, but what a cool concept. Much respect right back at you! I wish I had all my MAD Magazines from when I was a kid. I know my New Kids issue had all the stickers intact.

      Great list too! Superunknown was such an amazing album. I should listen to it more these days. I used to play it non-stop back then. I liked even the “bad” songs like Kickstand and Half!

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      1. I’ve got a MAD Star Trek spectacular from my dad’s collection. Far and away my favourite MAD ever. It’s chock full of great stuff, even if I don’t care too much about Star Trek

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      2. It’s a collection of all the Star Trek spoofs, so the dates vary (latest was 1993). It doesn’t appear to have an issue number or a year printed anywhere on it unfortunately.

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    3. Thanks.

      I was being conservative when I said Boppin might find a few duds on the Angels CD. I didn’t want him to get his hopes up a lot and buy something on my word because I liked it a lot, and then not like it himself.

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    4. I looked again, but still nothing, but a quick searched on the internet revealed it is from the 1994 holiday season. Still no issue number though

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  2. Well here goes:

    1st concert: The Guess Who (they played before a Philadelphia Phillies home game

    1st Concert where it was a concert intended: Johnny Van Zant Band

    1st Festival: The Mayfair Festival at Jacksonville North Carolina in May 1983. Headlining was Nantucket and second on the bill was Georgia Southern Rockers, Doc Holliday

    1st Thrash gig with moshing and stage diving: Motorhead, Wendy O Williams and the Stormtroopers of Death

    1st album remembered, the Soundtrack to Bedknobs and Broomsticks, my sister played it to death.

    1st album bought: Monty Python’s Flying Circus

    1st musical album bought: Bob Dylan- Hard Rain

    1st 8-track bought: Photographs and Memories, The Best of Jim Croce

    1st cassette, actually there were three bought at the same time. Cheap Trick- Dream Police, Jefferson Starship- Freedom at Point Zero and Molly Hatchet- Flirtin’ With Disaster

    1st CD- Megadeath- Youthanasia

    1st song downloaded onto MP3, Jim Croce- I Got a Name

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    1. Another great list! Dream Police…great album. Youthanasia, that was the year I started working at the Record Store.

      And the Guess Who? That’s cool. Even if it wasn’t a real concert! Why were they there I wonder?

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  3. First concert was meant to be Tatto The Planet with Pantera but it got cancelled, then Limp Bizkit but it got cancelled then it was Ozzfest 2002.

    First album was some pop compilation album like Now That’s What I Call Music 96 or Ultimate Party Album 1995 or something. First proper one was Dookie by Green Day (I think… memory is fuzzy)

    Never really bought any blues, jazz or classical stuff myself.

    First LP was some Babyshambles single free with a magazine. Maybe ‘You Talk’

    Instrument was guitar, although I was all about the drums for the decade afterward. Still can’t play guitar lol

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  5. Righto. Here’s some (based on what you’ve listed, but minus stuff I can’t answer!)

    First concert: Meredith Brooks! (1995 or so)
    First rock concert: Bush (1996 or so)
    First instrument played: piano
    First instrument bought (and first smashed): Jedson tele-copy electric guitar
    First rock cassette: Queen’s Greatest Hits
    First pop cassette: Michael Jackson – Bad
    First rock CD: Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion II
    First blues CD: Robert Johnson – King Of The Delta Blues Singers
    First jazz CD: Miles Davis – Blue
    First country CD: Johnny Cash – Man In Black
    First comedy CD: Denis Leary – Lock N’ Load
    First electronica CD: Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust
    First rap CD: Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The 36 Chambers
    First grunge cassette – Nirvana – Nevermind

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    1. This is another great list! Man in Black! Miles Davis! Great stuff.

      I never had Bad, but I did have Thriller. Everybody had Thriller. But there was one song I wanted, and nobody I knew had it: Say Say Say with Paul McCartney! Little did I know it was on HIS album!

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    1. I sincerely hope that is a true story.

      My sister used to make fun of them so bad. She used to say to me, “You know when they’re saying they’re Radiation Romeos, that what they are really saying is ‘We have radioactive cocks.'”

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  7. I’m gonna answer here, but may not be fully accurate…

    ▪ First concert: 8 Seconds/Frozen Ghost
    ▪ First highschool concert:  none. Erica Ehm and Much Music did a dance, once…
    ▪ First rock concert:  Gowan, Strange Animal tour? Does that count as rock?
    ▪ First instrument played – trumpet
    ▪ First instrument bought – acoustic guitar
    ▪ First instrument smashed – none. Instruments are my friends.
    ▪ First remembered LP: a 7” of Oak Ridge Boys’ Elvira, a gift from my Nana
    ▪ First rock LP:  oh who knows… Sex Pistols’ Bollocks was early…
    ▪ First rock cassette:  ZZ Top – Eliminator
    ▪ First pop cassette:  Glass Tiger, maybe? Thin Red Line? Again, hard to remember…
    ▪ First rock CD:  Honestly, I think it was Rush’s 2112
    ▪ First instrumental album:  Take your pick from a humungous pile of jazz…
    ▪ First blues CD:  Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, I think…
    ▪ First jazz CD:  On CD? Harry Connick Jr., When Harry Met Sally OMPS
    ▪ First country CD:  Patsy Cline
    ▪ First comedy CD:  Robin Williams’ A Night At The Met
    ▪ First classical CD:  Holy crap, take your pick. I’ve owned a pile.
    ▪ First electronica CD:  Haha whut.
    ▪ First rap CD:  Likely Roots’ Things Fall Apart
    ▪ First grunge cassette – Pearl Jam Ten
    ▪ First Spice Girls:  Haha whut.

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    1. FROZEN. GHOST. That is awesome. They were great. Round and Round we go! And Gowan…ZZ Top…Glass Tiger…I LOVE this list.

      And yes I owned that Melanie C disc, that is 100% true.

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  10. You saw Johnny Cash live! I wish my list was as cool as yours! :) Here’s mine.

    First concert: Anthelion
    First instrument played (badly): Piano
    First instrument bought: Classical guitar
    First (and only) cassette: Bryan Adams – On A Day Like Today
    First CD (I stole from my brother): Santana – Supernatural
    First CD bought: Led Zeppelin I

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  11. this is cool…here we go…..

    First concert: Kiss/John Cougar…Oct 1979
    First highschool concert: Free Fare-played my H.S spring of 85 as well…
    First rock concert In Thunder Bay: AC/DC..July 1980
    First remembered LP: My Dads Buddy Holly….
    First rock LP: Kiss Alive 2
    First rock cassette:
    First pop cassette: Boston Don’t Look Back/ Cheap Trick:Heaven Tonight( both bought at same time)
    First rock CD: Actually I bought 10 Cd’s to start off my collection in the spring of 1988(I was working than) AC/DC/Aersomith/Halen/Maiden made up the 10 pretty quick..
    First instrumental album: Vai Passion and Warfare
    First blues CD: SRV/Texas Flood
    First country CD: Steve Earle/Shut Up & Die Like An Aviator
    First comedy CD: Sam Kinison
    First rap CD: Beastie Boys/Pauls Boutique
    First grunge CD: Soundgarden/SuperUnknown

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    1. WOW! You are the first repondant to have seen Free Fare as well!

      So your 10 first CDs…were they from Columbia House? Is that how you got 10?

      We have the same first instrumental albums too!

      Man there are some amazing answers here. Thanks for this Deke!

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      1. Sorry dude i have fallen behind on the reads as i got a wicked sinus cold earlier last week and it just kicked my ass plus toss on a party friday night which almost put me in a coma hahaha…
        The 10 cds I bought at all the record shops in Tbay in one shot as i wanted to build up my collection fast!
        Columbia House as well a few months later i would get the 12 cds for what a nickel? I than would buy all four or whatever it was cds to fulfill my commitment than cancel and rejoin and do it again ..i built up a couple of hundred discs real quick….
        FreeFare…man great memory…i recall them playing Crazy Train and the MTV theme….
        great idea for a post dude…loved the other lists as well..

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        1. Quite OK dude you’re a busy man.

          I don’t remember any songs Free Fare played but my buddy Rob still has his blue bandana!

          I have a post coming soon about Columbia House, you will love it!

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