easymode

So I feel like it's pretty common to have some exciting moments of discovery when exploring music. What's a song or band you vividly remember discovering that blew your mind and expanded your taste?

I have plenty of these, but I'll share the first one that comes to mind. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm a massive prog head. My parents were both big Rush nerds, but I never really got into the genre until I was in high school. One night a couple friends of mine were talking about Yes, and they both raved about their music. I had to check them out. I started with Close to the Edge and it blew my mind. I quickly dove into prog and I've mever really looked back....

So, what are some of these moments for y'all? What blew your mind and had you diving in to a previously unknown genre?

I discovered Clutch at around age 13 when I saw an ad for Left 4 Dead 2 where they played Electric Worry, and I fell in love. That was the first time I started actually caring about music.

At age 14 a good friend of mine introduced me to Neutral Milk Hotel, and that kickstarted a long phase of deep-diving into weirder and weirder music that "normal" people didn't listen to. By 16 I was already listening to stuff like Coil, Nurse with Wound, and Jandek.

My taste in music nowadays is very eclectic and still pretty weird, but I'd say it's mellower than my edgy teenager phase by a whole lot. I'm happy to have explored music deeply when I was younger because it's given me so much perspective and lasting appreciation for the medium.

(Maybe one day we could have a 4x4 or 5x5 chart thread, too?)

Great topic!

Growing up in the Adirondacks, we didn't have cable and I didn't get satellite until I was maybe 13 or 14. So all my music discovery leading up to that was via radio and/or friends at school.

In the spring/summer of 1994, we went to visit my uncle in New Jersey. I was allowed to sleep on the couch and thus stayed up late watching MTV. I'm 11-years-old at the time, hyper-impressionable, and was getting to see music videos for songs I had heard on the radio. At this time I don't really have favorite bands yet; just the songs from the radio I like. But then I saw this music video of a strange woman hopping around on a flatbed truck as it drove through city streets. She looked weird, sang weird, and I had never heard anything like it.

That was the music video for Big Time Sensuality by Bjork.

A few years go by, I get my first CD player, and start buying my own CDs. I'm heavily in to alt-rock and pop-punk. Green Day, Local H, and Our Lady Peace are constants at this point. One day at the store I see this weird-ass CD with a CG woman on the front. "Ohh it's what's-her-name". So I buy Homogenic by Bjork not knowing a single song off of it. This album goes on to completely tear in mind in half. The production, the lyrics, the themes - none of it was present in any of the music I was listening to. And it was wildly futuristic for 1997. For years this was an album I would just lay on the floor and listen to because I just wanted to hear it. Easily still in my top 5 to this day.

I would honestly read walls of text on this subject. I'm extremely interested in the deep connections between music and our minds. I'm reading these and thinking... @Casey, what was going on in your life when you found Yes? What did this music do for you beyond blowing your mind? What rabbit holes did it open up? How did it restructure your brain?! Oh, and what do you think of Mars Volta these days? lol.

And @Virtua Wug, what was it like to discover that you loved music? I grew up with musical instruments in every room so it was just always a thing. I can't imagine what it would feel like to get into music for the first time and be like, "wait, this is awesome."

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I have walls of text I can post on this... so I will.

I grew up in an evangelical christian world. Luckily, my dad was in an acid rock band in the 70s that later became an 80s rock band with crunchy guitars and heavy keyboards. We had so many cool keyboards at home. I say I was lucky because I HATED church music... and for some reason, many people in the church scene think you have to listen to that garbage "praise and worship" music all the time or else you are harboring sin or some nonsense (I'm putting a lot of this angst into the game I'm working on). My mom was a concert pianist the obvious choice when it came to who would play piano at church. At least she was into classical and I loved Brahms and Mozart as a kid (still do)... so that was pretty awesome.

Anyway, my dad brought rock into the house. King Crimson and the Moody Blues were allowed if mom wasn't around. Also, as a very young kid in Eastern KY, I was exposed to bluegrass... and I still love it. Calling bluegrass, "country music," is a quick way to get slapped upside the head (in case we ever hang out). Bluegrass has more in common with Celtic, Irish/Scottish folk, classical, and even some African styles of music. The banjo was introduced to us thanks to slaves in the deep south (like much of our culture and food). Country is more similar to rock and I have some jokes about this that I can't post here.

So, the prog stuff was OK and I loved the insanity and complexity of bluegrass... At around the age of 7 or 8 I had already developed a preferred style choice: theatrics and varying intensity. However, I always needed something crazier.



We would go to this christian book store that had a small selection music... and they even had a rock section. The owner had no idea, but a local distributor made the decisions and kept the music shelf stocked. I would look at stuff based upon the cover (front and back) and decide if it was interesting or not. One day, I found this Show no Mercy by a Bride.

Holy shit... I had discovered METAL! Not only had I discover metal, I had discovered the best metal vocalist of all time. I will stand by that and back it up:
Those high notes are so clean... I think he still holds the record for the largest range in metal music.
rabbit hole material: https://therangeplanet.proboards.com/th ... e-thompson
His highest note:

Anyway, I was hooked. I had a hard time getting into GnR, Metallica, etc. due to this. It was like having water after whisky. The weird part is that this music was Christian. Having since listened to nearly every old-school metal band, I'd say the true top 10 has 5 christian bands... and it sucks because the lyrics do make me cringe at times.

So, that got me started, but it was a problem. My dad loved it... mom hated it... so I literally moved my room into a different wing of the house so I could listen without bothering her.

My dad started this event in Pikeville, KY where he would bring a metal band to town every weekend to give all us kids something to do. It was crazy. The bands would usually crash at our place then we'd have a concert the next day. So, I got to goof around with all kinds of long-haired weirdos.

Then came phase two. I was probably 13 and mom was wandering around the christian bookstore while I was digging through the CDs. I found this:
The owner had no idea what it was. My mom hated the cover. I had $30 in my pocket. The planets had aligned.

So, I didn't hate it, but it was kinda a novelty. I also picked up Bride's Snakes in the Playground and that album is still in my top 5 to this day (listen to it all the time). So, I guess Mortification planted a seed, but straight-up death metal never ended up being my thing.

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Then something terrible happened. We moved to fucking Florida. I met some amazing people there, but hated Florida every day. What a downgrade from eastern KY. I was 15 and in my life, I have two major memories... KY and after KY. I have far more vivid memories of KY, despite it being longer ago.

While in FL, the alternative thing really got started and all the rock stations switched over to Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It was always kinda background music that I tolerated. It was everywhere though. Sometimes some metal like Slipknot or something would slip into the mix, but it wasn't my thing.

I stopped listening to metal for a while and got deep into bluegrass and classical... I picked up a mandolin and acoustic guitar... even got to play a little in some Irish pubs, but there was a metal shaped hole in my life.

Sitting in front of this massive 22" CRT I got from a hospital surplus sale for $50, I distinctly remember typing: "american metal sucks," into the search-bar... and one of the top hits was this website: metal-observer dot com (don't go, it's gone and filled with weirdness now). It was a German site that reviewed extreme metal. Now, it looks like it exists as a label on bandcamp. Here's the YT page: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRealMetalObserver

I spent literally thousands of hours on this site, browsing by genre and opening EVERY album if it was a genre I loved (folk metal, viking, black, death, etc). I sat in this comfy green chair and researched metal incessantly for days and days. And suddenly, I was deep into it. I magically had 50 metal band t-shirts, so many albums, and I started going to shows again. The funniest part was that many of the best metal bands were from America... they just didn't get any air-time on the radio. However, that German site covered it all.

I somehow got hooked up with some local metalheads. Herman (he used to work with us back in the RTW days) was a metal promoter and we spent plenty of time organizing events and working with bands. He produced stuff like this:

(not exactly my genre, though I love some of the guitar parts... and the band was fun as fuck to chill with... they turned me on to Tom Waits, so that's a bonus).

We also organized a few concerts ourselves. The biggest was A Perfect Circle. They cost about $10,000 to bring to town then we split the tickets and bar income with the venue owner. That show made money... Then Herman got me to throw money at bringing The Crystal Method to town even though I didn't care for them... Their main guy (don't remember their names) was an asshole and we had a hilarious fight where he called me a "lame straight-edge." He was such a fuckin' diva. They were big at the time, so it should have made money, but there was a hurricane looming so many people decided to stay home. We kept their ticket revenue if they pre-purchased, but we lost a LOT of door and bar income. The hurricane never came (there was a thunderstorm for a while and some eerie clouds), but ticket sales sucked and I lost a few thousand on those idiots.

I realized I didn't care about promoting concerts and went back into enjoying the music...

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I ended up in NYC... and there were SOOOO many shows. I didn't have enough money to see all the bands I wanted to see, but I knew how to make websites. So, I created keepitmetal.com and it grew. The forum had over 100,000 posts when the database got .... deleted... because someone forgot they were hosting it. Before that, the site became an easy way to get into shows. I'd get to stand up front and take photos/videos/etc... for free?!
Amon Amarth was amazing:

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This last chapter has been about chiptunes, FM-Synth, and Midi... and retro anime music (like Bubblegum Crisis and such). I spent the last few years going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. I won't go on about this, but this stuff has had a huge influence on my music. My favorite composer is probably Ryu Umemoto, who died WAY too early (only 37) due to bronchitis. He worked on mostly eroge games for the PC-9801, PC-8800, and Sharp X68000.


I can't believe he did all that before he was 37...

Anyway, this seems like a journey, but each piece of this was a major event in my life. I could probably make documentary, but that feels narcissistic... I just like to talk about music and the artists... and how it all has changed my life.

@ward You're right! Let's go deeper! I was in my last year of high school when I got into prog. To say that there was a lot going on would be an understatement...I'd had a 'fling' the previous summer that was abusive and traumatic, a family member of mine was getting deep into hard drugs, and my mom's husband was starting to get sick...COPD and congestive heart failure. Music had always been a therapeutic thing for me. It was an escape of sorts. At the time I got into prog, I was big into big post-punk and goth rock, especially Joy Division and The Cure. I still love that stuff today, but at the time, I think I needed something with more energy, something more upbeat. In hindsight, getting into Yes was exactly what I needed.

The music was incredible. Those guys are all masters of their instruments. They did shit I didn't even know was possible...like Rick Wakeman's keyboards, holy shit. Something else I immediately appreciated was the length of their songs. I would often find myself wanting MORE of a great song or album growing up. More of a riff, longer solos. The lengthy compositions of a band like Yes were exactly what I needed. With Yes in particular, it was also so upbeat. While Joy Division conjured bleak images of decaying cities, Yes brought images of lush forests and strange, alien worlds. It was a magical experience. I immediately went and did a deep dive into Yes's music, and I'm still a massive fan today. I'm even one of the few people who likes the current lineup despite it mostly being younger guys and it not having a lot of the people who first put the band on the map...I really like their last couple albums, which would get me eaten alive on the band's subreddit and such. Now as a band that has been around since my mom was a kid, they've had several outright bad albums that I never put on, but I still love this band. I could gush about them for hours, but this post is getting a bit lengthy and I have more I want to say, so I'll leave my praise for Yes there.

Yes was my gateway into prog, which ended up being my gateway into Death Metal via Opeth. I still have a decently wide palette musically, but prog is kinda the centerpiece of my collection these days. Sure, I still love goth rock and I'm always gonna be down for putting on some nerdy 90s alt rock or a Propagandhi record or a Soul classic or some Hip Hop (especially the political stuff) but again, Prog is kinda my main jam. Even with stuff that isn't outright progressive, I like seeking out stuff from other genres that has little flourishes, weird time signatures, strange lyrics, concept albums, etc.

As for Mars Volta...I've never really gotten into them! I held a bit of a grudge against them in the early days of my undergrad. It's all really silly, I knew someone who adored Mars Volta. It was her favorite band, cool. That's all well and good...she was just kind of a dick about it. "listen to mars volta and you'll wanna throw that opeth record in the trash" and "mars volta is like the only good prog metal band, the rest is shit" were things she would say a lot. It's absurd, and nowadays I would just shrug and laugh it off, but back then it really rubbed me the wrong way...should I give them a shot some time? Any recommendations?

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Hoooly shit, that high note. I need to go do a deep dive on Bride now. I'll work on that after work. I vaguely remember you talking about how you got into Metal in a video back in the day, maybe one of the Q&A/inbox videos?

Also, Ward, your post got me wondering: how did your mom and dad even co-exist? They sound like such different people. If that's too personal a question, no need to answer, I'm nosy....also, condolences on having to live in Florida. My partner lived there for a long time as well and has NOTHING good to say about the place.

With Ryu Umemoto, I think you just gave me another rabbit hole to go down! On the list it goes.

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@Virtua Wug Neutral Milk Hotel is another favorite of mine...I HATED them at first, but I revisited thme a year later thinking "what is the hype about this band? I don't get it!" and then it clicked. I've been big into NMH and other Elephant 6 bands ever since. Good shit.

Casey wrote: Mar 10th, '26, 05:50 @ward You're right! Let's go deeper! I was in my last year of high school when I got into prog. To say that there was a lot going on would be an understatement...I'd had a 'fling' the previous summer that was abusive and traumatic, a family member of mine was getting deep into hard drugs, and my mom's husband was starting to get sick...COPD and congestive heart failure. Music had always been a therapeutic thing for me. It was an escape of sorts. At the time I got into prog, I was big into big post-punk and goth rock, especially Joy Division and The Cure. I still love that stuff today, but at the time, I think I needed something with more energy, something more upbeat. In hindsight, getting into Yes was exactly what I needed.

The music was incredible. Those guys are all masters of their instruments. They did shit I didn't even know was possible...like Rick Wakeman's keyboards, holy shit. Something else I immediately appreciated was the length of their songs. I would often find myself wanting MORE of a great song or album growing up. More of a riff, longer solos. The lengthy compositions of a band like Yes were exactly what I needed. With Yes in particular, it was also so upbeat. While Joy Division conjured bleak images of decaying cities, Yes brought images of lush forests and strange, alien worlds. It was a magical experience. I immediately went and did a deep dive into Yes's music, and I'm still a massive fan today. I'm even one of the few people who likes the current lineup despite it mostly being younger guys and it not having a lot of the people who first put the band on the map...I really like their last couple albums, which would get me eaten alive on the band's subreddit and such. Now as a band that has been around since my mom was a kid, they've had several outright bad albums that I never put on, but I still love this band. I could gush about them for hours, but this post is getting a bit lengthy and I have more I want to say, so I'll leave my praise for Yes there.

Yes was my gateway into prog, which ended up being my gateway into Death Metal via Opeth. I still have a decently wide palette musically, but prog is kinda the centerpiece of my collection these days. Sure, I still love goth rock and I'm always gonna be down for putting on some nerdy 90s alt rock or a Propagandhi record or a Soul classic or some Hip Hop (especially the political stuff) but again, Prog is kinda my main jam. Even with stuff that isn't outright progressive, I like seeking out stuff from other genres that has little flourishes, weird time signatures, strange lyrics, concept albums, etc.

As for Mars Volta...I've never really gotten into them! I held a bit of a grudge against them in the early days of my undergrad. It's all really silly, I knew someone who adored Mars Volta. It was her favorite band, cool. That's all well and good...she was just kind of a dick about it. "listen to mars volta and you'll wanna throw that opeth record in the trash" and "mars volta is like the only good prog metal band, the rest is shit" were things she would say a lot. It's absurd, and nowadays I would just shrug and laugh it off, but back then it really rubbed me the wrong way...should I give them a shot some time? Any recommendations?

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Hoooly shit, that high note. I need to go do a deep dive on Bride now. I'll work on that after work. I vaguely remember you talking about how you got into Metal in a video back in the day, maybe one of the Q&A/inbox videos?

Also, Ward, your post got me wondering: how did your mom and dad even co-exist? They sound like such different people. If that's too personal a question, no need to answer, I'm nosy....also, condolences on having to live in Florida. My partner lived there for a long time as well and has NOTHING good to say about the place.

With Ryu Umemoto, I think you just gave me another rabbit hole to go down! On the list it goes.

Music is therapy... beyond just an escape. People who fail to see that it can also be a visual medium are missing out. I think you kinda described what I'm talking about in this regard... and your experience with finding an escape or a haven in music does mirror mine. Which brings me to answering your question... how did my parents get along? Well, it was pretty rough with intense fights. I learned the real reasons this year and it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, they seemed to have had their day early and they connected through music. My mom was a few years older and she was the best music teacher in the area, so my dad went to her as a student. He was wild and into jazz and metal, so that probably was interesting to her since she was so by-the-book. Anyway, I'd drown out fights with music.

I am really a prog philistine. I have 3 prog rock bands in my collection and only really enjoy one: 3 - https://theband3.com/discography/
I discovered them when they opened for Opeth, lol... and their guitarist/singer is wild on an acoustic. Now, my progressive metal/death metal/black metal folders are huge. I also tend to favor psychedelic/avantgarde stuff like Astra and Oranssi Pazuzu over the regular prog stuff:


So, regarding Mars Volta... I'm not that into them as they are a bit too spazzy for me and I have to really be in a mood for them, but I recognize how good they are. I've found that many people I know who like Yes, also really like Mars Volta. To me, they kinda sound like Yes, pitch shifted up... then electrocuted. I do really like a few of their songs, especially on their 2003 album:


Anyway, putting them above Opeth is wild imo. I think anyone is entitled to be wrong, but to force that wrongness on others... nasty. But seriously, I hate snobbery and the idea that one thing is superior to the other in regard to this art is insane to me. There are objective arguments like, "this singer can sing higher," and, "this guitar player has a world record for fastest picking," but objective facts like that aren't important when discussing personal, subjective preferences. I prefer Opeth 100 to 1 over Mars Volta... and someone else might hate Opeth and prefer Mars Volta... and we are BOTH right. We only become wrong when we try to force our opinions onto others. It's natural that you would have a stigma and it sucks that that plays in your head, clouding your subjective experience. Anyway, I wouldn't try to like something just because someone else does... but Mars Volta does have some good songs, a crazy singer, and they are extremely good musicians... it's just a bit much for me sometimes.

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Regarding Bride... they are all over the place and range from masterpiece to terrible. They chased trends too much because they were always worried about reaching the younger generations. In the 80s, they were almost glam metal... in the late 80s they were pure metal, heavier than Judas Priest... in the 90s they hit their stride with slightly southern heavy metal sound and that was probably their peak. Then they tried alternative... then rap metal kinda like POD or something (and it was weird at best). I'm not expecting anyone to like them, but I do love regular heavy metal like this and Dale is a god-tier singer. I've seen them live about 30 times and he nails every note.... every time.