“Puberty Principle”: First sonic crushes

(Ray Brandes asks how your first musical love looks in the stark light of adulthood.)

AdamEveIn an essay in Esquire, celebrated rock and roll historian Ben Fong-Torres once formulated “the Puberty Principle,” which holds that the music we listen to in young adolescence is the music that informs our tastes throughout our lifetime. Why not test this idea using ourselves as subjects?

What was the first record (cassette, eight-track tape or CD) you ever purchased? What was the first concert you ever attended? How good of a predictor of your tastes was that “first” experience?


— Ray Brandes

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52 thoughts on ““Puberty Principle”: First sonic crushes”

  1. Well, I had my own turntable by the time I was four, and three albums: A Hard Day’s Night, Flowers, and Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. And growing up, my mom would buy me albums sometimes when I was out shopping with her. A new slab of Partridge Family vinyl, for instance.

    But the first albums I recall purchasing with my own money were Wings Over America and KISS: Originals (the first three albums packaged together). I bought them at Tower Records on Sports Arena Boulevard.

    The first concert I ever attended with my parents was David Cassidy at Golden Hall. Without parental supervision, my first concert (at 13 years old) was Queen with Thin Lizzy opening. That was March of 1977.

    A predictor of tastes? Well, I’m playing guitar in a Queen tribute act tomorrow night. I think that answers the question!

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  2. I like this kind of topic. Like Kevin, my first own-money purchases were Kiss, probably “Alive.” The one that changed everything, though, was Patti Smith’s “Easter,” which I bought with a gift certificate from my Granny. Around the same time, I think, I went to my first few concerts (not counting earlier ones, with the parents), aged maybe 12-13. I might be misremembering this, but I think some fun would go out of it if I looked up the dates to see which actually came first. These 4 all seem to be around the same time in my memory:

    Alice Cooper, From the Inside tour, Sports Arena
    Kiss, Dynasty tour, Sports Arena
    Penetrators and two other local bands, Sea World (?!)
    X and Circle Jerks, Roxy

    Did these predict my future tastes and experiences? Pretty much.

    Aside on Queen: Some cousins of mine attended the same school as the child(ren?) of Brian May. One of them said that May had “the best hair of all the Mums.” A pretty good line for 10…

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  3. First recording I ever took the shrink-wrap off was a cassette of “Let It Be” my parents gave me with a little cassette player, probably for my sixth birthday …

    I actually suspect my first rock show was the Village Fugs when I was a toddler!

    My tastes have been ridiculously consistent … They’ve grown progressively wider, but I literally cut my teeth on the Beatles and Stones. Actually, I’ve come to enjoy a lot of stuff I was too snobby for in junior high! (Viz. Queen.)

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  4. I saw the Dynasty tour, as well, and was definitely at the Penetrators Sea World show. Mentally, for me, that was getting late in the Penetrators era!

    That show was a benefit for independent presidential candidate John Anderson. He ran in 1980. Dynasty, however, was released in May of 1979. Unmasked was their 1980 album, so those two events, at least, were something close to a year apart.

    I was remiss in not mentioning my first local concert: As I recall, it was The Zeros, The Zippers, and The Last. I saw my first Penetrators show soon after that, and yes, those shows definitely had a strong influence on me, personally and musically.

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  5. Great topic again RAY! My first record may have been Ziggy Stardust…(I can’t help it if I’m lucky).

    First concerts were Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith, Mott The Hoople, (lucky again).

    I moved to SD when I was 17 and I bought a Chevy Malibu…in the glove box were two eight tracks…Who, Who’s Next…and Highway 61. That’s all I listened to until I met Lou Skum and started my path toward the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, Iggy pop, etc…

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  8. First Vinyl: K-Tell Greatest Hits featuring “Seasons in the Sun”, “The Night Chicago Died” and more. Great to mime to. Also, Mom’s 45’s of Elvis, Dion, etc. as well as Magical Mystery Tour. I think the first LP I personal bought was Led Zeppelin 1.

    Earliest concert, Harry Chapin “Cat’s in the Cradel”-guy with my Mom. Must’ve been 1974-5.

    Influentially, saw the KISS Dynasty tour at the SD Arena. Again, with Mom!

    Also saw the Crawdadys and Penetrators at Crawford High when I was still at Horace Mann. Definitely made me want to go ape shit and learn guitar. Complete opposite to KISS, the accessibly of the music, and the fact that it was played by peers, had an enormous impact.

    My first Punk show was at King’s Road with Bad Brains. I’d never heard reggae before, let alone punk played by African Americans. Mind blowing in every way.

    And I love Queen, but have been listening to their American rivals Sparks a lot recently.

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  9. No.1 Sparks fan here. Love it all….Kimono My House, best album.

    They’re still playing and still have a huge fan base. Better, more artsy than Queen….without the commercial success.

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  11. Since I grew up listening to 60s AM radio I think I’m forever more of a singles fan than an album fan. My first 45 is fairly obscure: Masmakhan’s “As Years Go By”, which I heard on the radio in 1970 and had to buy. My first album was the American Graffiti soundtrack 2-record set, that I bought shortly after the film came out. I also remember finding albums by The Troggs and The Seeds at flea markets around the early 70s, which had a big influence on me. I became a big fan of 50s and 60s oldies at this time and started listening to K-Earth 101 all the time.

    In the 60s and 70s my older sister bought loads of LPs, my faves of her’s were by The Who, David Bowie, and The Rolling Stones. I tried to get into The Beatles’ later albums but I never could (Let It Be, Matthew? -- you poor kid,ha!). Later I bought the same 2 Beatles comps Dave Fleminger mentioned and got really into their pre-Sgt. Peppers stuff, but I got tired of it after a while.

    The first concert I went to was The Who at the Sports Arena in 1979. I was already 18 years old. None of my friends in high school were into going to concerts so I missed out on a lot.

    I think The Cars were mainly responsible for my musical horizons expanding. They were pretty accessible yet different and they got played on the radio. They opened the door for me in 1978 to explore other bands like Blondie, DEVO, the B-52s, and The Ramones, and then move on to more obscure stuff.

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  12. first album with my own money? andy gibb, shadow dancing. so no, i don’t buy ben fong-torres’ theory. i never listen to bubblegum music anymore. but renee brought u2 “boy” home from new mexico in 1980/81 and we were forever changed.

    first concert? the who. with john cougar opening (wtf?????). at the stadium. they killed it.

    now? pretty much everything but new country. but i am partial to hip hop lately. mostly late 80’s early 90’s stuff. nwa, ice cube, and tribe, de la.

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  18. (@ gary: agreed. that man has a chip on his shoulder that i am rather fond of. ice-t, too. saw him with body count at the fillmore. it was a phenomenon. saw grace slick once, on haight. saddest thing was, NO ONE knew who she was. no one. or at least no one acted like they did. yeah… ::shakes head:: it’s completely unlike, but similar in irony to, the two african american boys who broke into the house of and beat up on rosa parks. clueless people.)

    robin gaines and i once listened to white rabbit for a few hours on repeat. her mom came in after about 3 1/2 and calmly took the record off the player and put on mozart. lol

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  19. my first album….(pops was still alive so i’m guessing i was 10 or 11):
    Gary Lewis & the Playboys: This Diamond Ring….includes needles and pins. just now discovered leon russell arranged and played keyboards on this record.
    my second album (shortly thereafter) Gary Lewis & the Playboys: New Directions
    album 3: The Beatles: Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (marcus discartin and i bought this at the yokohama navy exchange and listened to it about 6 times that first night….bewildered to say the least).
    album 4: Mothers Of Invention: We’re Only In It For the MOney ( i was home sick and found it at the North Island navy exchange for only 88 cents while shopping cold-medicine with my mom…..insisted that i needed something to bring my spirits up……ended up laughing all day.)

    first 3 concerts>
    1) the ventures (nas yokuska gym 1968 or 69)
    2) iron butterfly (san diego stadium 1970)
    3) steppenwolf (golden hall 1970 or 71)

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  20. There’s a longtime Milwaukee musician named Sigmund Snopek — who later got his maximum national exposure backing the Violent Femmes on keyboards — who was my first local musician my friends and I were into without any prompting from parents. He had a big ol’ stack of keyboards, and he and his band Snopek did a mean “I Am the Walrus.”

    My dad took me to the Sports Arena to see Bob Dylan in 1977; my first in a very short list of stadium-size shows. (I think I could count those BIG shows on my fingers.) I’ve always preferred venues that are small enough where beverages (alcoholic or not) are a major part of the profit motive to those where you have to buy tickets six months ahead.

    I can’t for the life of me remember my first San Diego local-band show. I know a couple that made an early impression were the Standbys and folks at La Paloma and whenever I first saw the Penetrators.

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  21. It’s interesting how so many people in the scene had similar experiences with pre-punk music.

    I guess Beatles, Pink Floyd, Airplane, Doors, are influential and iconic for a reason!!

    I saw, maybe, a dozen stadium sized shows…mostly BIG rock…Blue Oyster Cult type stuff. Wish I had seen Floyd in their prime too!

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  22. the doors strange days still affects me…and i still pull out crown of creation..this diamond ring! I love that song, and too was surprised that leon russell played on that…as a record geek, i’ve got autographed copies of diamond dogs, lou reed’s first (with the bird),
    leons Carney, bob dylan and the bands before the flood (signed by all) Bruce’s darkness, and nebraska, and dylans highway 61 revisited signed in oil paint and so much other stuff including a book on the hells angels signed to the heff from sonny barger…what a geek eh? i never got pink floyd until just a few years ago…now i love em.

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  23. >>i never got pink floyd until just a few years ago…now i love em.

    Syd’s version of the band was the one I went ape for … But earlier, before I got to that really old stuff, “Dark Side of the Moon” was a definition of cosmic.

    It makes me happy to see the Doors getting props here. After some of our earlier convos, I thought I was the only person who thought they did some great stuff. I always thought their Brecht/Weill cover should get more props for pioneering dark rock cabaret.

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  24. experienced on acid, pink floyd doing Echoes on-stage with the big-screen rolling george greenough’s inimitable footage shot from inside world’s longest immaculate tube-rides was a complete brain-scatter.
    i was given a george greenough surfboards bumper-sticker just recently….
    people slow down to see what it is…it’s pretty zany……not that my car isn’t somewhat unique on it’s own.

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  25. and bruce you should give the predator a listen to just for the production alone..and yeah…dudes ot a chip on his shoulder…youknow whats funny is they remastered the germ album many years back and i got it on tape…i was so surprised to hear how “safe and poppy” the album was.

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  26. Having older brothers into music made things easy in a sense so some things I co-opted , some I borrowed and some I stole (those are all the same right?).

    I think my first purchase may have been a Wings’ 45, I know I found an ‘Over, Under, Sideways Down/Jeff’s Boogie’ 45 on Epic at a church rubbish sale in ’75 and that got a lot of play on the Garrard/EICO/Magnavox 6x9’s setup for months. My first concert was a Beach Boys/Tower of Power/Boz Skaggs summer tour in ’76 at the old Metropolitan stadium in Mpls.

    My tastes have always been a classic, yet eclectic probably due to my position in the family and what with my brother Steve’s hand in the 8 track tape selection, my mother’s predilection for 60’s folk and pop, my dad’s listening to classical music on the radio and growing up in a fairly eclectic area (I watched the same stuff on the Mel Jass Matinee movie as did the Coen bros).

    So the Beatles, Simon/Garfunkle, Dylan, Moody Blues, Baez got plenty of air time in our house. Then of course KDWB was the sound of AM and they played all kinds of cool stuff.

    I remember one Christmas my aunt showing up with a bunch of albums and in the pile was the Doors Soft Parade and before any of us could make a comment on the selection my bro Steve yanked out the Doors LP and said “I’ll take this…”

    BTW, Fleminger and I went to the New Barbarians’ show together, but my first major concert in SD was Jethro Tull and it was my first date rejection lolz! So what’s that say Mr. Ben Fong-Torres?

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  27. Gary -- you are the crown of creation…ha…GREAT song!!

    I am the youngest of 5 kids so in the early ’60s my older siblings were always coming home with “new” records like Rubber Soul, Pet Sounds, Revolver, Dylan, Simon Garfunkel,…..raised on good stuff in real time.

    I didn’t like Pink Floyd until I was, like, 40. NOW I think they’re genius.

    My new love, if anyone wants to check out something unique, is:

    http://www.palastorchester.de/

    Play video in upper-right….I want a band like THIS!!!!!

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  31. When I was a paperboy, I delivered to a local radio station. For x-mas they gave me a 45 of “Me and you and a dog named Boo”. I guess this would date the time, song, and my employment status!!

    I believe that “Brandy” was a hit at this time too as well as “Space Oddity”????????

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  32. @ Ray lolz

    Joe, Cathy Carroll just scared my son! Hahahaha. 2 drummers on Cathy’s Clown btw, and still a monster hit.

    Bruce, I’ve been hoping for several years that Max Raabe would tour the western US.

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  33. DAVE -- I never heard of him until a week ago. I LOVE that kind of music!! If Max Raabe comes back to the US I will see him.

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  34. Holy Crap!! I love the Palast Orchester!!
    If only Dennis Potter were still alive to write a teleplay around them…

    Dave, I should have included a warning. I still have the scars that Cathy left on my psyche.

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  35. Bruce, I love his version of ‘Opps I Did It Again’, it’s brilliant! The song is oddly addicting lol

    Joe, hahahaha, pysche-therapy! And since Dennis is not around, here’s your big chance…

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  36. TWO people who know Palast Orchestra!! Where Have I been???

    LOVE their version of Bei Mir Bist Du Schon, (of all the girls I’ve known, and I’ve known some), and Dancing Cheek to Cheek!!

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  39. My mom used to wake me up for the school bus with the White Album. and Minnie Ripperton. She also loved the blues and kept the shelves stocked with lots of Chess records. My first album was the B-52s, which I purchased through exchanging the Xanadu album my aunt gave me. The first time I experienced any sort of epiphany while listening was with Journey, kneeling in front of my neighbor’s record player. My first concert was also The Who, with JCM.

    I absolutely believe what the article posits. Not so much that the music of that time in my life is what I like now, but that the music from that time reminds me of the innocence of the sincerity and intensity of my hormone-fueled feelings. The extreme happiness, the pains of awkwardness, the absolute need I had for John Taylor. and the lead singer for Haircut 100. My dreams and visions for how my life would look when I still had it all in front of me. So yes, when I hear “Save a Prayer” now, I don’t so much listen to it ( because I now realize how insipid the lyrics are) as remember what I felt when I was 12 and played the song over and over again in my darkened room dreaming that the lyrics were going to somehow be applicable to my life, and that Simon Le Bon was looking through the jungle for me!

    These days, I seem to be having a midlife crisis of a 50 year-old Camaro-driving man, and listening to a bunch of Led Zeppelin. so shoot me.

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  40. I’m overjoyed to see that this topic has prompted the return of some of our old friends, including Ava, Megan, Toby, Lou, etc.

    I was surrounded by music in the house in which I grew up, from my mother’s Ranchero records, to my father’s big band jazz, to my older sister’s Elton John, Chicago and Three Dog Night albums. AM radio is what I listened to most in my formative years, and I’m sure it influenced my love of melody and interesting chord structure. When I was old enough to start buying my own records (singles), I bought Stevie Wonder’s “You Haven’t Done Nothing,” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” After that, it was pretty much all Beatles albums for years. I had complete discography that I had copied and typed and would carry around with me. I systematically purchased all of the Beatles albums by my junior year of high school, which was no small feat.

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  42. >>the very first record I bought with my own money was Vee Jay Records, VJ-581, “Please Please Me/From Me To You” – The Beatles, in 2/64 from the drugstore in the Clairemont Quad.

    Joe,
    Surely you mean Rasco’s!

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  43. Hey Doriot -- I’m assuming you mean Tecolote Canyon and lived off Mt Acadia?

    You know that Gary Puckett & The Union Gap used to play regularly at The Clairemont Bowl? He & Paul Wheatbread used to cruise into my Dad’s Texaco station at Burgener Blvd & C’mont Dr pretty often there for awhile.

    And I got my copy of “Are You Experienced” at Fed Mart in Kearny Mesa!

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  44. GREAT comment, Lesha.

    (I guess I spend too much time on Facebook--but sometimes I wish we had a “like” button, just to let people know you like or agree with something without having to leave a comment.

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  45. I like your comment Lesha….My high school friends and I parted when I opted for “Now I Wanna Be Your Dog” instead of “Frampton Comes Alive”!!

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  47. Simon….I think I went to thoes first shows with you. Alice Coop, Kiss and X/Circle Jerks. First album I spent my own money on was Kiss Alive or Black Sabath But my first “Punk” whatever record was the Penetrators single “Sincitive Boy” and that NON single with 2 holes in the middle. I know Simon has my coppy of the Non, Do you have the Penns. Single too? I was a big listener to The Modern World On KGB. I still listen to all thoes bands. Well maby not the NON.

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  48. The first album that I paid money for was The Beatles White album. I bought it after; as a high school project in Speech and Theatre Arts class, we did a cass stage production of the song Rocky Racoon (I played Dan and Debbie McGill; I remember her name cause a had a hard crush on her real bad, played the part of “McGill but called herself Lil”) it was after I listened to a friends copy of The White album that I went to Licorice Pizza to purchase my first album. The first 45 I bought was Dizzy.
    The first concert that I attended was Jethro Tull at Balboa Stadium yes I was stoned on pot and was totally taken in with Ian Anderson’s stage presence and musical talents.

    First moive I paid to go see was a double header get this it was Jesus Christ Superstar and The Beatles Yellow Submarine. Man I think there is something to this article because I am just as strung out and artisticly free as what caught my intrest all those years ago.

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  49. First: Earth Wind & Fire: “Gratitude” live album.
    THEN Kiss Alive, THEN Ohio Players “Fire.”
    Gotta say, this was EW&F’s finest hour; before the hits started to pour in.

    Being in National City, you had no choice but to at least be quite familiar with the soul and funk, and I am damn glad for it. But after hearing Kiss Alive and the first NY Dolls albums I knew the direction I was going to go.

    Saw Kiss with Cheap Trick for my first show, and Cheap Trick BLEW KISS AWAY. They were awesome. I went out and bought their two albums the next day at the National City Wherehouse. As that was the Love Gun tour for Kiss, I went to buy that LP, but instead went for the first Ramones album, which had been out for some time by Summer of ’77.

    A month or two after the Kiss show, I went to my next gig, The Zeros and Dils at Adams Ave. That iced it. I never bought another EW&F or Ohio Players OR Kiss LP after that.

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  50. megan! we were there together? that’s awesome. renee was there with me, too.

    i bought henry led zeppelin last fall and he vanished into his room to listen. an hour later he came out and proclaimed that not only did he LOVE them, but that black dog was about the coolest song ever. that and ramble on. he loved that half the songs were about lord of the rings. he caught that without my telling him. “golem, the evil one…”

    for xmess he got the white album and so far he loves “while my guitar…” and “martha”.

    minnie ripperton is one of my very favorites, megan. love her. especially “les fleurs”.

    i would love to take the way back machine and have us all be at one of the final shows at the old california theater. i saw “the the” there right before the closing. johnny marr played with them. it was awesome.

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  51. I have never hid the fact that my tastes run on the same level as those of an 11 y.o. boy. esp. re: humor, music, candy, etc.

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