Many, many songs and bands do for me. I leaned more toward the punkish (ish for sure, not limited to core) side overall, with some overlap into ska, reggae, a touch of wave, a touch of metal/hard rock, and a good dose of rockabilly.
Some stand outs include:
Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense (same as it ever was . . .)
Stray Cats with Setzer, along with the Kingbees out of Canada
DEVO
Madness, The Specials, The Untouchables and the like
Violent Femmes - (road tripping, party screaming, bouncing up and down)
Early U2 (war, boy, up through Joshua Tree)
Early Elvis Costello, along with Joe Jackson
Springsteen, The River (not as much Born in the USA)
Police, though again I prefer the earlier stuff.
The Clash
The Ramones
Some VH, some Def Leppard, AC/DC (but the AC/DC was really '70s music)
Early REM, meaning Life's Rich Pageant, Reckoning, and parts of Document.
I felt many of the boomer aged, woodstock era into 70's bands lost their way in the '80s, simply putting out glossier, more electronic sounding music. Neil did not, he experimented hard, and I liked his efforts. From Hey Hey, My My, (which I now know came out of jams with DEVO) to This Note's For You, I liked his experiments better than anything CSN, Eagles or former Eagles members, etc. put out.
Oh, yeah, and the 80's brought me awareness of this guy called Stevie Ray Vaughan. That is a standout for sure.
I know I am leaving stuff off, but I graduated High School in '81 and spent the 80's in college, law school, and around young people, universities, clubs and etc., so I had a lot of exposure to music back then.
a bunch of jazz, including Pat Metheny Group
Last edited by sunvalleylaw; June 16th, 2009 at 12:22 PM.
Steve Thompson
Sun Valley, Idaho
Guitars: Fender 60th Anniversary Std. Strat, Squier CVC Tele Hagstrom Viking Semi-hollow, Joshua beach guitar, Martin SPD-16TR Dreadnought
Amphs: Peavey Classic 30, '61 Fender Concert
Effects and such: Boss: DS-1, CE-5, NS-2 and RC20XL looper, Digitech Bad Monkey, Korg AX1G Multi-effects, Berhinger: TU100 tuner, PB100 Clean Boost, Line 6 Toneport UX2, Electro Harmonix Little Big Muff Pi, DuhVoodooMan's Rabid Rodent Rat Clone, Zonkin Yellow Screamer Mk. II, MXR Carbon Copy Delay
love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart. . .
- j. johnson