3 Songs That FLOORED You When You First Heard Them

Mr. Mean:

Boys, to make it easy, list 3 songs that were insanely influential on your life when you first heard them or just blew you away because of how different they were at the time. Explain why they floored you.

Mine…all very different and influential on me.

     1. Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force “Planet Rock” – As you both know, I grew up in South Florida, born and raised, and roller skating, freestyle and electro music, and great FM stations were plentiful in sunny Pompano Beach. I used to go to the roller skating rink in Lighthouse Point all the time and “Planet Rock” was one of those songs that basically got me asking the DJ every 5 minutes what song he was playing. It was just insanely out there at the time. This, for me, was the bridge between disco and electro. Before this, songs at the rink were decidedly disco sounding. “Planet Rock” drew on Kraftwerk’s “Trans Europe Express” and “Numbers”, which were straight up synthesized with no live instrumentation. The songs I heard in the summer of 1982 were amazing…”Planet Rock”, Yazoo’s “Situation”, Peter Godwin’s “Images Of Heaven”, etc. These songs laid the foundation in my blood to begin DJing and to embrace hip hop, freestyle, electro, synthpop, and club culture in general.

     2. Minor Threat “Filler” – I got into hardcore punk when I moved north to Palm Beach Gardens in 1987. Before that, I liked mostly metal if it was heavy/loud/whatever. I bought the Minor Threat EP on 12” from a store at the Palm Beach Mall somewhere around September 1987. It was the one with the blue cover. In fact, this was the first hardcore punk record I ever owned. “Filler” was the first track and it was brutal. The whole EP is classic DC punk. From here, I got into stuff like Bad Brains, Broken Bones, D.R.I., and the like. 

           3.    The Cult “Rain” – Around 1985, I wandered into Uncle Sam’s Records, which was conveniently about 1 mile from my house in Pompano Beach. There was this cool English dude working there with long black hair and he just seemed cool in that whole Batcave/Punk way. I was 12, so of course, I pestered him every time I went inside. The album this song is from, Love, was playing and I asked the guy what he was playing. He showed me the record sleeve and I thought the cover was just so cool. Stark black, gray text, blood red highlights, symbols, cool font, everything. But, I really, really loved this song. MTV played it here and there for a time and I actually remember catching it once or twice, but never really made the connection until I went to the store. As it turns out, this is one of my favorite songs from the 80s and Love is definitely my favorite Cult record. I bought everything they ever did from that point on. To this day, I love this band. They changed their sound so many times but I felt they were completely relevant no matter what.

Minor Threat - Mr. Mean did wanna hear it.

Mr. Lonesome:

 

    1. Terry Reid “To Be Treated” – Mr Reid is a fascinating character in the history of rock music. He was Jimmy Page’s first choice to be the singer of the New Yardbirds (who later became Led Zeppelin, a pretty cool band from England). He declined, preferring to do his own thing (and I believe he was the one who recommended Robert Plant for the gig). That decision made such an impact on the traveling line of rock music it’s weird to imagine had it gone the other way. So, in 1976, Reid released the album Seed of Memory (produced by Graham Nash), and it had little fanfare in America. Except to a guy named Rob Zombie. He used three songs from it in his movie “The Devil’s Rejects” which is where I heard Terry Reid for the first time, along with countless others – all of us became enamored. Reid has a delicate, gorgeous voice that can hit it as hard as anyone when he wails. That voice honestly still gives me chills every single time I hear the song. Every time! When I first heard it, I fell in love with the acoustic structure, as I’m wont to do. Then hearing that voice. It made me seek out everything Terry Reid. He just might be my favorite singer ever. There is something so melancholy yet magical about this song.

          

         2.  Metallica “The Call of Ktulu” – like most other Metalheads, I was really into HP Lovecraft in High School. I was also a fan of dark arpeggio guitar riffs in music. It’s an instrumental, so there is a lot of repetition to the main riffs with solos over them. But the tension completely swells for me, the build-ups, the dynamics of the drums and guitar crunch. Plus, you basically have Cliff Burton playing a bass solo throughout the whole song with distortion and, at crucial times, a wah-pedal. The song honestly matched the creepiness of the original Lovecraft story (“The Call of Cthulu”), as if Erich Zann composed it himself. Now, when I said “crucial times” earlier on the wah-usage, I meant that he used it to create, or represent, the sounds of Cthulu itself, especially near the end, when the music holds, and there is the wailing coming from the bass that sounds like the actual Call of Cthulu as I imagined it when I read the story. The first time I heard that wail, I shivered. It’s a masterful tribute to the story (and also a genius main chord structure, which was co-written by Dave Mustaine and used in the intro to Hangar 18).

 

    3. King Crimson “21^st Century Schizoid Man” – In the Court of the Crimson King was a perfect album for me when I discovered it: very prog, and very English. Greg Lake is one of my favorite singers, and he kills it on this one. But instead of his sweet and melodic baritone, you get a madman singing with aggressive choppiness, with distorted vocals, singing bizarre lyrics, setting an indelible tone for some pending insanity. The main riff is super cool, and the drum runs on the toms give a crazy pace to it. Then there are the horns. During the middle section, I feel like I am on acid. Then you have the prog bits, with the snare matching the stop-time riffs as the guitar, bass and horns all mirror each other. The first time I heard it, I never wanted it to end and played it probably 10 times in a row, just trying to grasp what exactly I was experiencing. I remember thinking “this is music I want to make.” It’s creative and all-together unique. 

    

King Crimson - Mr. Lonesome was in their court.

 

   Mr. On'ry:

    1. The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” – I’ve talked a lot in the past about how I think this is easily one of the greatest songs ever written.  Now you will get an idea why (other than the fact that it is).  When I was a young lad (I’m talking real young like 5-6 years old) I can clearly remember hearing this song and things kind of clicking for me.  I no longer wanted to listen to whatever kids music my family members had purchased for me, I wanted to listen to “grown up” music.  My mom was (still is) an insane Beach Boys fan.  They were always on in my house and we were always dancing around to them.  “Help Me Rhonda”, “Surfing USA”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “Sloop John B” – all these songs, and more hold a special place in my heart but this one was always the cream of the crop.  I can remember the first time I heard Brian Wilson hit that high note at the beginning and getting chills.  I still do.  

     2. Willie Nelson “Railroad Lady” – You guys already know that Willie is my all-time favorite musician.  So why this song?  Why a song that was a throw away that they stuck at the end of the ‘To Lefty’ album.  Why a song written by Jimmy Buffet?  When I was a young kid we moved around a lot and Willie Nelson was the soundtrack to those years.  Sometimes I throw Willie on in the car and I think I could just get on a highway and go 3000 miles without stopping.  The one album we literally wore the print off of the cassette cover wasWillie Nelson’s ‘Greatest Hits (And Some That Will Be)’.  This was the opening track on the cassette version.  The opening notes on that old acoustic guitar would kick in and I’d be lost in his music for hours, just watching state after state fly by.  More importantly though this was the first song that taught me to pay attention to the lyrical content.  Before this song music was just melody and instrumentation with some words attached to it.  This sorrowful story of a woman “…on a bus to Kentucky and home once again…” trying to relive her past glories and failing miserably was so profound to me.  It still is one of the saddest stories I’ve ever heard in a song.  This song gave music a whole new meaning to me.  This was the song that sent me on the path to being the audiophile I am today.  I cannot overstate that enough.   

      

     3. Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath” – I can remember when I was a little kid (maybe 10 or 11) catching some crazy 700 Club show about the evils of metal music during the height of the “Satanic Panic”.    It was so fascinating and in reality I have Pat Robertson to thank for my obsession with all things metal.  Two bands that they talked about at length though were AC/DC and Black Sabbath.  I bought AC/DC’s ‘Flick of the Switch’ almost immediately with my allowance.  I have mentioned multiple times that they were my gateway band to all things heavy (punk included)and because of that they will always be one of my favorite bands.  But it wasn’t until I heard this song that I knew, I absolutely KNEW that metal was going to become a life-long obsession.  That riff.  Those vocals.  The lyrics.  The rain and church bell that start it all off.  It was evil and dark and twisted in a way I never imagined music could ever be.  I go back and listen to this song and I’m still blown away by it and as far as I’m concerned it not only started me down the proverbial musical left-hand path but it’s the first ever metal song.  Ever.  There is no discussion where that is concerned in my book.

Black Sabbath - they made Mr. On'ry metal