As I was out dancing last weekend I began thinking a lot about how I became so interested in and involved with music. Since I never kept journals as I was growing up, I thought I would begin writing about my past so I will have some sort of record of my earlier years...

Like many pre-teen kids I didn't have much knowledge of music. Not knowing any better, I listened to what was played on the local AM station and liked it. Occasionally there would be a song that I really, REALLY got into, but for the most part I just listened to a lot of crap.

In the late 70s my best friend's older brother had a pirate radio station which he ran out of their house. I started doing radio shows, but since I didn't know much about music at the time I just played some stuff of his that I liked. It just so happened that the "stuff" were things like The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Elvis Costello, Devo, and The Cars. It wasn't until many years later that I realized the significance of that music! Doing those shows certainly infected me with the DJ bug. I knew I wanted more, but I didn't know how to go about it, so that stayed on the back burner for several years.

As a teenager I listened to rock music; usually the harder stuff, as there was something about the intensity of that genre that spoke to me. I didn't want anything to do with that girly "light rock"! I didn't like much of what I heard on the radio so my listening habits were based not so much on commercial airplay as they were on word-of-mouth. I really got into Rush and they were my favourite band for a couple of years. (In fact, listening to bands like Rush and Iron Maiden gave me an appreciation for excellent musicianship, especially drumming, that I carry with me to this day.) I started going to concerts at age 15 and everytime a band I liked came through town, I was there watching them onstage.

After Rush released Signals, the first album on which they used keyboards, I read an interview with one of the members who said that the electronic influence on that album was due to listening to some band called Ultravox. Fangirl that I was, I went and bought an Ultravox album to see what the fuss was about.

Wow, I was floored! Ultravox was not only a far cry from the progressive and hard rock stuff I had been listening to, but they were also my introduction to that wacky New Wave stuff I had been hearing about. They had a fresh, new, very exciting sound that I loved! I was hooked.

to be continued...