Weaned on Beatles, and 70s disco, courtesy of my Mother, until the first track that blew me into orbit, played on a friend's dad's upmarket stereo, I never really "Got it", until then. It was before any exposure to alchohol or drugs, but I will never forget the adrenaline rush I had that moment, was almost like first orgasm. The track was the sex pistols version of Johnny B Good, that they couldn't even remember the words of, other than the chorus to sing it. I have no idea why that track was the trigger for me, it was something to do with the realisation they were ad-libbing, "Gigging", making it up as they went along. I listen to it now and still can't work out exactly what happened in my head or heart at that moment. Since then I've loved all kinds of things, especially new sounds and rythms I never heard before. First concert was the Damned, went to see them four times in total. Went also to see Ramones, stiff little fingers, siouxsie and the banshees, the clash, and a girlfriend got me into Reggae at the deep end with Linton Kwesi Johnson. First album I bought was Elvis Costello - this year's model, the year that came out, must have been about 1978.
I tried to play the sax also as a teenager, owning one for a couple of years before giving it up. I wish I'd persevered, I didn't have the patience to learn it.
Since then I've gone through a lot of things, but was never really crazy about mainstream rock - Springsteen, not my thing, nor country and Western, so our tastes completely different. Last rock band I would say I really liked before turning completely away from rock, was star sailor, I was getting divorced, and that first album of theirs was the perfect tear jerker.
I met an afro-Latino girl then, who changed my whole life around, I got more into Reggae, but also salsa, merengue, even reggaeton. The relationship with the girlfriend lasted a few years, but my Latin music addiction just got worse after she was gone, my eyes had been opened to a whole new world of Latin music. and culture. Since then I've been to Cuba several times to learn more about the culture, and the Yoruban faith, which is central to the music, learned to dance salsa, a smattering of spanish language, enough to understand the lyrics, and learned to play some of the percussion insturments with all the variations like cha-cha-cha and son Cubano, also all the flavors of salsa from the different areas in Cuba. Now, at nearly sixty years of age, I roller skate along my local beach skating in son-cubano steps to Cumbia, salsa inspired experimental music from Colombia.
The reason I went off rock, is it makes me melancholy, depressed, maybe due to my path, whereas latin music makes me want to dance, always, without fail. I actually avoid anything that doesn't make me feel happy now. Life is too short to spend another minute of it feeling down :-)
This clip explains things much better than any words I think:
