Introduce Yourselves!

I'm 44, an obsessive music fan, a systems analyst in a top London university, single. I've got thousands of albums. Old soul is my top favourite, and I love punk, rock, country, reggae and lots more, but these days I guess I buy most hip hop and pop. I've lost interest in new rock/indie bands since the end of the '80s, with the odd exception like Pulp. I write a bit for this board's parent, Freaky Trigger, occasionally about music but more often about comics, books, art, TV, science and sport, not because I am more interested in those things but because they're more in my comfort zone and I feel a bit less awed by the other writers.

My musical interests range from jazz to prog and all places in between, but I'm more picky about what hip hop I'll listen to than I am about, say, psych, for which I exercise no restraint consuming.

Well, I guess there's nothing more to me, so rather than bore you more, bye bye.

Anyway, I'm 17, so it's only been about 6 months since I've gotten over the whole Pitchfork indie fixation. I have an MP3 CD player and keep two CD-RW's around, so whatever's on them is the best way to show what I'm listening to in a given week. The bands of this week are the Fall, Aphex Twin, Sonic Youth, Wire, the Misfits, Kraftwerk, Boredoms, James Brown, Gary Numan, Ghost, Michael Mayer, New Order, The Zombies,Tim Buckley, Scott Walker, Otis Redding, the Pet Shop Boys, Roxy Music, Saint Etienne, Neu!, Can, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, Acid Mothers Temple, and the Wu Tang Clan, but that changes regularly.

Anyway, go easy on me, guys. It's not easy keeping your record collection up to par when you're a young'n living in Bumfuck, Illinois.

Woke up recently to discover that I'm 33 years old and living in Northern Virginia. Once voted "most likely to get drunk and beat himself up."

Hallo!

i was a denizen of the indie-stry 1992-97 (BOMP! Records)
i was in bands 1981-2003 (bass/vocals, drums, even though I really play guitar!)
i hate Flyer Saucer Attack. nothing personal
i was the "Indepedent L.A." column writer for Strobe music mag
i co-ran a short lived label until medical problems got in the way (No-Fi Records, we put out Busride, Last Days of May (Karl Precoda) etc)
I love psych (60s/80s); powerpop/new wave but not synthpop; brilliant production (eg Mike Chapman) the Charlatans and all kinds of weird shit.
I am female (there has been occasional gender confusion on ILE regarding this)
i am perky.

To make a long story short, 4AD and Factory were pinnacles of my teenage experience, and the C86 era was fun, too.

I now consider myself somewhat of a Martin Hannett fanatic,
recently fell in love with John Cooper Clarke albums and Chic. I've been a huge fan of Crispy Ambulance for many years and above all, New Order.

Nowadays I like to trade rare UK punk/post-punk era records with people, roughly '78-82. But there are a select few newer releases I have liked lately, such as the ex-Red House Painters project, Sun Kil Moon.

I also appreciate reading Nietzsche, Louis Bunuel's films, some surrealist painters, especially Magritte, and...French Beaujolais wine. I used to DJ on the radio, I used to DJ in a club. Now I don't DJ anymore, but that's okay with me.

i went to school for photography but i havent really picked up a camera since graduating because i have music on the brain. im sure everyone can sympathize.

i currently work for the university of pennsylvania; every day i thank my lucky stars that my boss loves husker du and lets me subject her to lots of crazy music. in exchange, i have learned more about tolkien than humanly possible.

in my free time, i enjoy putting on shows with ILM contributor sara sherr. please send us your poor, your unwashed bands yearning to be heard by a room of jaded philadelphia hipsters.

my first foray into the world of rock was accidentally switching to WPRB and hearing sonic youth's "kool thing" when i was 13. it saved me from what probably would have been a very boring existence in NJ otherwise. but then again, i dont know. all the kids in my high school were really into indie rock. open up my yearbook and you'll see kids quoting palace, superchunk, avail, etc. maybe i just lived in an alternate universe. thats the more logical answer, since i used to see big pete from "the adventures of pete & pete" at shows all the time.

im still very fond of that era but dont listen to much of it on a regular basis. however, when i do, im consistenly amazed at how good those bands really were. well, thats my opinion.

oh, i love my opinion. if i had a better grasp of the english language, i probably could have been a music writer. until they make a smart pill, or at least one that reverses the damage of drinking, you'll have to bear with me.

im currently fascinated/obsessed with the following bands: the constantines, spoon, the raincoats, the dB's, sons & daughters, the joggers, middle class, the undertones, etc blah blah. my brain shuts down when the need to make a list arises.

hello.

I'm Cecily, 20, live in London, do plumbery type stuff at an FE college & will be going to university to study Japanese come October. I was born a corny indie fuck & stopped liking Take That at the age of ten or so because they went rubbish with the second album, the start of a tragic&soul-destroying slide towards songs about girls who dress like librarians & how mean they are. In general, I'm fond of most genres of music that aren't indie rock. I only say I hate indie rock because I think that will make me sound 'edgy' (& it all sounds the saaaame + too too terribly dull ahem).

My list of favourite bands/artists went something like 'sonic youth, ride, plaid, radiohead, kelis, ...and you will know us by the trail of dead, jeff buckley, smog, nsync, sleater-kinney, autechre', but I haven't updated it since the last time I decided that having favourites was counter-revolutionary.

I like Latin poetry from around the Augustan era, Georgette Heyer novels, Hong Kong police films & baking. I fret when I'm no longer third on the chart predictions game & overuse the term 'rockist'. I don't always replace the word 'and' with an ampersand, but I am incurably pretentious. Starting lots of sentences with 'I' makes me uneasy, so I'll stop here.

Ha, another library person, welcome! I'm not acquisitions, though I know an irregular poster who is.

(I don't know how to quote.)

Dude, I used to live there! Do you live in Litchfield? Can you get 88.1? Anton, Doug, and the JB, if they're still on, have great shows.

Anyway, now I live an hour north of Chicago, 26, married, work as a trainer at Borders and a church organist. First loved the Beach Boys, then a Christian rock phase, then King's X and Tom Petty, then other stuff. Currently would buy anything new by King's X (though it would probably suck) or the Coup.

A watershed event in my appreciation of music (as a listener and as a musician) was a two-week trip to Havana last year. For months after I came home to Canada I was (irrationally?) embarrassed by the lack of musical proficiency and creativity exhibited in the shitty blues, rock and 'indie' scenes here. Anyone that's been to Cuba will know what I'm talking about, I presume, even if they don't fully agree.

Anyway - I love music of all kinds and I don't want to seem overly biased (too late). Can't wait to hop in to the discussions!

I am not particularly into Cuban music per se, but (as mentioned above) salsa is one of my favorite forms of music (especially, but not exclusively, for dancing to).

No, but very close. A town called Highland. And yes, 88.1 and 90.7 (the NPR station here) are all I listen to. I'll make sure ot listen to who the DJ's are a little more closely.

Looks like Sean's pretty local too. You're in Columbia, Sean? We're down there pretty often for shows and such. It's a pretty cool town.

Are you guys in St. Louis very often?

And Ned - I really can't be bothered. I am me. Will that do?

Order has been restored.

Cis, indeed, rocks majorly.
-- Ned Raggett (ne...), April 26th, 2004.

Hm.

My name's Joe, I live in North london, I'm 25, like most of my disaffected peers I still live with my mama, I'm, ahem, a 'writer', and when I grow up I wanna be a motherfuckin' hustler, you better aks somebody.

Oh, and I used to really really like metal. I think I've mentioned that before though.

!!

I did not have sexual relations with that man. Mr. Bergman.
*ha-ha.*

my home town has a bronzed sculpture of 3 corgie dogs on high street - the squickly swishified boutique type district of christchurch.. recently i developed the catch-phrase 'surfing the corgie' as some kind of anal sex analogy..

I'm here because I love everything from Carcass to Dylan to Boredoms to Waits to Sonic Youth to Neil Young to Phillip Glass to Joni Mitchell. My Morning Jacket and Yo La Tengo are my current fave bands which I cannot, for the life of me, stop listening to. I play in a band here called the Fragments and we will be great in about six months ;)

I'm 30 and from Toronto (and would be curious to hear from other Toronto ILMers). I freelance as a composer and producer - jingles, corporate video soundtracks, voiceover demos, you name it. I also do production and remixes for a couple of tiny dance labels. I have yet to give up my day job, as it involves flogging studio equipment and thus keeps me in reasonably priced gear and freebie software.

I've been obsessed with music and recorded sound for as long as I can remember - one of my earliest memories is of my Dad showing me how to handle LPs and work a turntable, and my Mom is convinced that I was born knowing how to play the drums. I have my favourite genres and artists (I have a serious soft spot for early house and techno, as well as late-80s hip-hop), but I'm open to anything that's good.