My First Time

Do you remember the first band you fell truly, truly in love with?

Do you remember the first time you listened to a band that you loved that didn't belong to your parent's generation, or wasn't something that got played on the Disney channel?

The moment where you came into your own in terms of your music taste?

I do.

I remember the first band I loved, and I remember the first song, and I remember exactly how it felt to want to hear that song over and over and over and over again.

I couldn't just wait for it to come on the radio, I had to have it! I couldn't just listen to it once or twice and stash it away for later, I had to listen to until I hated it and then listen to it more until I fell in love with it again.

For me the song was Dammit by Blink 182, and I was 10 years old. 

Music had always been a huge part of my upbringing, and it was everywhere when I was a kid. If the radio wasn't on, my dads records were spinning, and if they weren't then he was singing. He has the hugest, most impressive record collection I've ever seen, and the last time we counted most of his albums it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000.

Since he listened to music constantly, I listened to what he listened to, and we liked all the same stuff. He loved Jewel, bought her tape, played it in the truck, we sang it together, and then I loved it too.

But the first song, the first band I fell in love with that had nothing to do with my dad's taste in music at all, was Blink 182.

Considering the music I'd been listening to with my dad, stuff like Paula Cole, Jewel, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Jackson Brown, etc., and what I'd been exposed to by my brother, music like Sublime, CandleBox, Nirvana, Offspring, and the hip hop and pop my sisters liked, to me Blink 182 sounded completely different. At the time it took me completely by surprise that I loved them as much as I did, considering how different they sounded and how fast and loud the music was. 

But still, whenever their video came on VH1or Mtv {back when those stations played videos}, I couldn't help  myself. I would turn the volume up and spin and thrash around the living room, dancing until I was dizzy and out of breath....until the last cord was struck and the last note hit, and the song was over.

And now, 14 years later, after 4 albums together, 1 album as Boxcar Racer, 1 band breakup and Mark and Tom separating into their respective new projects: +44 and Angels and Airwaves, they're back together, and they've put out a new album.

I heard their newest song today and instantly I was 10 years old, dancing in my mother's living room to the first single by the first band I ever loved all by myself. 

Not because they were popular, or because my dad loved them or my brother or sisters listened to them.

Just because they moved me, and I loved them.

The purest kind of joy: discovering music that tells your story.That tells you you're not alone, and you're still alive.