My first real exposure to rock n roll music beyond radio was when I was about 13 years old. My best friend had an older brother who was probably 19 at the time and he had a serious album collection and a killer stereo. He would have killed us if he knew we were playing his records, but we did it a lot. I can remember hearing loads of bands for the first time from that collection. Foghat, Foreigner, Bowie, Hendrix, Tull, Robin Trower, Black Oak Arkansas, Bad Co, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash, Yes, Floyd, Zep. And of course, Cheech and Chong. It was a real eye-opener. That would have been summer of 1975. Half a century ago. Holy crap. That led to the last half of the 70s driving around with a floorboard full of tapes of Thin Lizzy, Rush, Kansas, Nugent, Boston, Buckingham Nicks, Rory Gallagher, Skynyrd, Styx, Elvis Costello, Police, Bob Marley, Kraftwerk, UFO, and of course, Jimmy Buffet for drinking songs. I had some friends who were into Smiths, Echo + Bunnymen, Psych Furs, Joy Division, Flock of Seagulls, Fixx, Cure, Ramones, Pistols, Patti Smith. I liked some of that but never enough to buy it. I think I appreciate them more now than I did then. Sometimes I wonder where all those old tapes went. I think I may have sold them with a car after CDs came out.
