For a long time I was stuck.
I didn't shop at record stores, department stores or mega-stores. The internet wasn't the shopping/swapping/discovery paradise that we now know it to be.
I pretty much bought everything, including music, at thrift stores. I have to say it was really great, and I stumbled my way into a good musical education. But my ears were as dusty as Farberware and rusty as a dinette chair (to paraphrase Jonathan Richman).
Then, back in 1996, on the way out to San Diego, I stopped off in Chicago to see my little brother. He was finishing up his BS at the University of Chicago, and was living in a big old house with several roommates. They held a party the night I was there, and someone popped in a CD towards the end of the evening.
Emperor Tomato Ketchup, by Stereolab.
It blew my mind, like the first time you see HDTV. Or taste a really good Cabernet. Or go from dial-up to cable.
Cold and warm; distant and intimate; borrowing from the past but creating the future.
Velvets. Astrud. Nico. Kraftwerk. I could hear it, but it was all in crazy technicolor. (OK, I know you can't actually hear colors.)
Anyway, I copied that thing onto a C-90 the next morning and listened to it over and over, driving through the desert on the way to the coast.
"The Noise of Carpet":
And from Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), "Wow and Flutter":
