Another #JukeboxFridayNight#ThatFirstTime is from attending the first ever PAX East. At the time I hadn't yet heard of any of the musical acts that played at the concert, but I was utterly delighted by all of them and have been a fan since. It introduced me to a whole world of nerdy music I hadn't known existed. There were lots of groups that played but I'll shout out @mc_frontalot because he definitely left the biggest impression on me.
There are so many songs to choose from (please check them out!) but this is one of my favourites:
I was a HUGE S.E.S. fan. Do y'all know them? They were early 2000s-era K-pop and had a couple of amazing albums. Great from beginning to end.
"Dreams Come True" was SO emblematic of the era and I couldn't get enough of it: The English version, at least. Here's the Korean-language music video w/cringy animated alien rapping + bad sfx: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiR4SrDGZk.
It was like a revelation that you don’t always have to adapt yourself to fit the world. Sometimes, you change your circumstances to better fit who you naturally are.
So, today's #JukeBoxFridayNight theme is #ThatFirstTime. The idea, from what I'm seeing, is a song / tune that had a huge impact or really stuck with you when you first heard it.
This was one of the first #KPop songs that really stuck with me & got me interested in hearing more. I don't know what it was about it, but it hit me. Before that, honestly, never really listened to any.
Hearing that song on #TinyToons was...a musical awakening for me. It started me on the path of actually venturing out and discovering music that I liked, not merely what my parents listened to.
#ThatFirstTime
There are records that divide time in "before" and "after" hearing them. It can't be undone. With this one it happened during a party with a local motorcycle club. I had a 100km ride on a bycicle to join their one year aniversary. Next day I crossed the french border severely hung over to continue my ride that ended near Bordeaux on the Atlantic coast.
There are a lot of first times. Some were amazing, some too embarrassing to share, and others not as good as you expected. I hope I came up with some fun ones.
That first time I ever downloaded a mp3 was 1994 and it was Biz Markie "Just A Friend". My dad was kind of a tech geek back then and was like, you can download all this music now in a smaller file format. "Just A Friend" was the first file that came across the newsgroup I was looking at.
Fun fact: I met Biz Markie in 2002 when he came in to the Blockbuster Video I worked at in Laurel, Maryland.
Last one from me, I recall hearing this for the first time in '97 and my spine tingling and getting goose-bumps... you can play it when I pass (see also Massive Attacks 'Unfinished Sympathy')... Lamb with 'Gorecki'...
Sometime down a YouTube rabbit hole I discovered the amazing voice and soul filled power of #MavisStaples for #ThatFirstTime by means of this backstage rehearsal of "The Weight".
I don't know how little baby me understood the sentiment, but I remember being a child in the back of a car, driving on Balmoral Road listening to David Byrne half-talk, half-sing about water and time and life, and I GOT it.