My parents were useless. Dad listened to Frank Sinatra, Mom listened to nothing.

I heard The B-52's "Planet Claire" on WAVA in DC when the first album came out, and I was hooked. Didn't buy baseball cards for two months to save up for that album--first one I ever bought. Still have it, still love it. Each scratch, crackle and pop was earned on that one---it's been played to death for 25 years now.

At around the same time, from the same station, I got introduced to Warren Zevon "A Certain Girl", The Fabulous Poodles "Bionic Man", and The Fools "Psycho Chicken". 5th grade was quite the coming of musical age.

I'm the youngest of 5 kids, but my brother Brian (the middle child) was the only older member of the family with "non-mainstream" tastes. He was a big fan of some low-watt radio station when he attended Marquette, and he would often bring home tons of new tapes and CDs on breaks from school. Fishbone was the band that really got my attention, until a little later when he left a Galaxie 500 album (On Fire) in my tape deck. That was a musical turning point in my life - it was just so different from what I had been exposed to before that. I didn't really start reading tons of music magazines and buying albums all the time until he recommended "this band called Fugazi" when I was in 8th grade. I fell in love, bought all the albums (that had been released up to that point in early '92), sought out other Dischord bands, got into other punk, and made some new friends at school. Fugazi is still my favorite band. Oh...and I'm listening to Galaxie 500 as I type this. Thanks, bro.

Brother's tape collection (R.E.M.). Brother's friend made a mixtape with Sonic Youth, Ramones, Replacements, Husker Du, etc. on it. I was 11. I saw Sonic Youth, Mudhoney and Dinosaur Jr. on 120 Minutes.

I'm the oldest sibling, so mine was also from my parents...they're big country music fans so that's what I cut my teeth on...seems like there was always music going, if not on the radio, then it was watching Hee-Haw, or anything else with music...I had a record player at an early age, so I was always playing my mom's records or listening to the radio...in elementary school, I listened to Casey Kasem's Top 40 every Sunday night...I eventually branched out a bit in late-elementary school by listening to Dr. Demento...then a friend's older brother introduced me to heavy metal and it then it was on

I'm the youngest, but i think ive always been the biggest music fan in my family--and everybody in my family likes music; i think i started making mixed tapes when i was about six (i suspected bort started MUCH ealrlier)

my parents liked willie nelson, the beatles, the beach boys, elvis, kenny rogers, and loads of other shit, good and bad; riding around with my old man and being on vacation with my family shaped a lot of my early listening (frostingspoon this is where i learned "o lord its hard to be humble")

my older brother was one of the first honkies that was into rap in the early eighties; so there was that.

then came metal from the rednecks up the street (the ones who called my brother "nigger-lover" even though they all played ball together)

roll it all up

Mom rarely listens to much, but I find that Dad and I have similar themes running through. Aritsts I remember listening to from his crate of records:

The Band, Rolling Stones, CSNY, Al Green, Four Tops, Temptations, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Withers, The Fugs, Steppenwolf, Rare Earth, Doc Watson, Charlie Daniels and one Alice Cooper 8-track, though I don't remember which one.

That made for a good foundation, and a stroke of luck saved me from the 80s make-up and hairspray pop-metal. From 6-9th grade, I rode a bus with a pretty permissive bus driver. One guy on the bus would beatbox and bring in all the new rap tapes and the bus driver would play them.

EPMD, Ice-T, NWA, LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, 2 Live Crew, Too Short and the big one, Public Enemy. He even had a black satin PE jacket with the crosshair logo on the back. I would kill for that today.

When I got to college, after bumbling around for a year, I found some likeminded people and discovered the previously formidable Ruston, LA music scene, including a bunch of people who were pissed and jealous about Jeff Mangum hoofing off to Athens and Colorado and leaving Ruston to the flunkies like us.

The silt left behind from the now-stagnant scene was full of people with all kinds of different musical tastes and even some talent, which led me even further from the radio dial. Except of course for KGRM, Grambling State University radio on Sunday afternoons.

I love that one.

Those Fugs records are worth some bucks, if you've still got 'em.

I got hit smack between the eyes by Alice Cooper's "School's Out" when I was 12. The Coop led me into glam (or glitter, as it was called back in those days), which led me to the New York Dolls and Iggy and the Stooges in '73. My perspective was never the same after that.