mixedmedia

Music has always been very important to me. I can associate music, literally, with every phase, event, memory, adventure and milestone of my life.

And listening to music tonight for the first time in about a week (which is a long time, but I've been sick) a song popped up in my playlist that reminded me of the time in my life when I really started to consider my sexuality and what 'turned me on.' And there is one album in particular that was very formative to this, uhhh, development.



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Couldn't find an audio clip for this song, but it was one of my favorites from the album...this is a great live version:
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And it got me to wondering about the other folks here at TFP, and I thought, boy, there'd probably be a lot of interesting submissions to a thread like this. I think many of as adolescents used music to initiate us to the sexual experience. I know I did. I know that my fascination as a pre-teen and adolescent with Mick Jagger, David Bowie and others were formative influences in making me of the sexual personae that I am now.

Then The Pretenders debut album came along and all hell broke loose, lol. The year was 1980. I was 15 years old. And even though I wasn't a virgin, that's almost irrelevant. It was hearing Chrissie Hynde take charge of her femininity and her sexuality that inspired my initiation with my own sexual self.

But, blah, blah, blah...what albums really turned you on as an adolescent?

I think this could be a really interesting thread...if for nothing else than another resource for gathering new ideas for music to add to my library, lol.

Come on, tell me.

This one, too, again...1980. It was a very good year.



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1981...the follow-up album, I was rockin' and rollin'...oh, the memories, oh, the sweet, scandalous memories...



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__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

snowy

I equate my discovery of my individual tastes in music with more sexual self-awareness, to be certain. I was 13 when I started exploring music on my own, and that year was interesting, to say the least. I switched schools twice due to a major move from one state to another, and a smaller move once we were settled in our new town.

When I was 13, these were my two favorite albums to listen to:

and

Bono and Trent Reznor were the first rock stars I loved, though my favorite member of U2 is no longer Bono, but rather Adam Clayton (tall, thin, bookish--sexy!).

Pulp's album Different Class had a dramatic impact on my teen sexuality. Whereas Nine Inch Nails had been painfully raw, Jarvis Cocker's lyrics were sharp and sophisticated. This song is still one of my favorites:
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__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Willravel

The soundtracks of our lives. If I could go back, I probably would choose something more eloquent, but the song that was playing my first time?

LL Cool J: Hey Lover



Whenever I hear it, I'm right back there. Life's funny.

jewels

Wow. I think I lost my virginity to some Chicago song. I wasn't a huge fan but FM was still a new concept. The relationship ended up being something I wanted to forget, so I don't quite remember. Hmmm.

Pop music (WABC NY anyone?) on the AM radio in the early days. Followed by the Beatles and more Beatles. They were gods in my book for years.

Some of my most memorable times in my teens were J. Geils, Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers, Black Sabbath, ELP, Pink Floyd, Cheap Trick, Johnny and Edgar Winter, ELO with a tinge of Jackson Browne, Todd Rundgren and Joni Mitchell. Damn, there were so many. There was music for different kinds of highs, and there was music for crashing or coming down. My iTunes doesn't even come close to covering all I can think of.

The first I really heard from females in music was during my adult (drinking age used to be 18) disco days. Donna Summer, Thelma Houston, Madonna. Those songs defined who I was and where I was at the time. The times were very different then.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

mixedmedia

Oh yes they were.

I was a little too young to fully enjoy the disco era, but I was an avid spectator. I was fascinated by the stories I'd read and the photos I'd see of the action at Studio 54. It all looked so fun and glamourous. Of course, as it turns out, it wasn't all fun and glamour to be sure.

Thank you snowy and will for your contributions, too. It's interesting to think of you guys as kids while LL Cool J and U2 and NIN were big...I was already grown, but I was listening, too!

Here's another one from the year 1980 that got a lot of spins on my record player that year...speaking of which, did you guys (will and snowy) have albums? Or did you go straight into cassettes?



It's really difficult to find good tracks from these albums

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__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Bees

Like mixedmedia the Stones also helped to stoke my sexual curiosity when I was a pre-teen.
I can still picture them in their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
They sang Let's Spend The Night Together.

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Ed made them change the lyrics to Let's Spend Some Time Together.
The next day I remember the hot topics with my friends at school were the Stones and sex.

This album was released soon after their appearance on the Sullivan Show:



It was full of sexy, sultry songs like the Willie Dixon blues classic Little Red Rooster,
that as a single was banned by radio stations for its overtly sexual implications.


(unfortunately this is a lip sync; a bad one at that)

By the time I got to high school my sexual awareness was fully awakened
but my cherry was still intact and I was ready to find Somebody to Love.

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In the Spring of 1967 I was a sophmore and the Jefferson Airplane played at one of our dances.
They played every song from their brand new debut album:



This was my first live taste of the "San Francisco Sound" and I was in awe.
That summer, The Summer of Love, I spent as much time as I was able in the nearby City.
I went to concerts at the Fillmore and in Golden Gate Park.
I immersed myself in the psychedelic scene and I lived for rock & roll and free love;
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and the Grateful Dead.

It was then and there that I found my first Plastic Fantastic Lover

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__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

mixedmedia

Fantastic post, Bees. Thank you for taking the time to put it together.

Surrealistic Pillow is such a fantastic album...they burned so brightly.

Okay, I went back and added clips to mine, too.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Bees

Reminiscing about the ' Summer of Love ' is a big turn-on for me. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

Thanks for adding the clips. Message of Love is also a fav of mine.
I can't get enough of Chrissy's sexy voice.

And that video..... what is the name of that song? I love it!

__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

mixedmedia

The song is called Private Life and is from their debut album. Glad you liked it. It's a particularly good live version and very similar to the sound on the album.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Martian

Martian's sexual awakening as documented by music:

As a young lad on the cusp of adolescence, my musical preferences were informed by my older siblings. Like many young men before and after me, I thought that whatever my brothers were listening to was about as cool as it got. Thus, in the early nineties when I was but a boy just beginning his journey towards manhood my days were filled with Red Hot Chili Peppers and Guns n' Roses. Even then, I discovered that some tracks spoke to me in a way that the others didn't:



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Shortly after these early musical (and sexual) influences, Seattle grunge exploded into the mainstream, bringing with it a whole new sound. I was awed by the raw emotion I heard in these new songs with their seemingly non-sensical lyrics and often unintelligible singers:



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I remember where I was when I heard that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide. Do you?

At 14 I enrolled at the local high school and found my musical horizons vastly broadened. I now had access to a well-structured music program, and as a burgeoning young instrumentalist, jazz captivated me. The idea that you could play precisely what you're feeling at the moment of playing was foreign to a young man raised on popular music, but intensely exciting. My music teacher, himself a trumpet player, encouraged and nurtured this new-found love, lending me cd's and occasionally vinyl records from his private collection for me to listen to and explore. Unfortunately finding the same recordings I listened to is difficult to impossible, but I remember clearly the first time I heard Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers performing Wheel Within A Wheel, of Getz belting out Autumn Leaves, or Wynton Marsalis blazing through My Funny Valentine. Many of the old standards were introduced to me by the greats of the craft, and every rendition of these songs I've heard since has been compared to that first encounter. This opened up a whole new level of awareness for me, as I listened to these men and occasionally women (I've never known why jazz is so male-dominated, but it is) take these cold, lifeless constructs of wood and brass and steel and turned them into living, breathing creatures full of pain and excitement and joy. The idea that the music itself, rather than the words or the voice, could be a vehicle for a message opened up a whole new vista of music appreciation for me.

This barely scratches the surface of my music experiences as a young man. These events happened as I was discovering girls for the first time, and I would say are therefore tied very closely to my sexual development. There's much more to this story and I may relate the rest of it at a later time, but for now I think this is enough to be getting on with.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

fresnelly

In grade 8, a friend gave me his cassette of Led Zepplin's first album. At this point in my life I was still listening to Top-40 and this album blew me away; especially You Shook Me. That song is just so balls out that I still get shivers listening to it - despite my generally waning interest in classic rock.



While it didn't change my shy, nice guy personality much, it did become the soundtrack to my era of teenage, sexually frustrated martyrdom.

On the plus side, it opened my ears to music as a direct form of expression and inspired me to explore other genres from blues to world, folk etc...

__________________
Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life

jewels

How could I forget Blondie!?! Loved her! Who else did I forget?

A little addendum to my previous post: In those days I never owned a disco album (or cassette ). I was a rocker chick and would never have even considered owning one. Disco was just for dancing.

Just so ya know ...

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

mixedmedia

Nice, Martian.

But, no, can't say I remember where I was when I heard that Kurt Cobain was dead.

I didn't start listening to jazz until I was in my early '20s and stumbled upon a local college radio station's jazz show. I became obsessed with listening and reading about jazz musicians. For about a year that was all I listened to. I still listen to jazz alot and have a special fondness for the playing and vocalizations of Louis Armstrong.

Oh, and you're right about the dearth of women in jazz music, even today...not sure why that is.

Very well, then. Your secret's safe with me.

I never subscribed to that rock vs. disco mandate. I was like, 12, I didn't have to. I loved them both!

Led Zeppelin and the sexually frustrated teens who loved them. Nice.

Led Zeppelin was one seksy band.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

mixedmedia

Continuing on into the 1980's I'd like to state up front that I realize that all of musical tastes weren't exactly enlightened, but that's not the point of this thread.

For instance, Emotional Rescue by the Stones is pretty much universally agreed upon as being their worst album...ever...but I didn't care...discernment didn't come along until later...

as is evidenced by this next entry, the year was 1982 and I was 17 years old. I had dropped out of high school, gotten my GED, enrolled in beauty school and was dating a man much my senior and toolin' around in a little 1978 beige Toyota Corolla:

...it even had a cassette tape player (which was a real luxury in those days) and by this time the cassette had fully trumped the 8-track and was soon to replace the album, as well, unfortunately...and in those days I listened to this album a lot:


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I didn't even know at the time that she used to be a Frank Zappa groupie and supplied the ecstatic squealing and moaning on his The Torture Never Stops...hell, I barely knew who Frank Zappa was, but I knew there was something about her that I related to. A sexual frankness that I wanted to emulate...even though I was far too shy to ever do so...at that time.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Bees

Couldn't remember Missing Persons until I listened to your playlist mixedmedia. Then the memories came flooding back.
I can relate to that ecstatically squealing and moaning chick especially on Walking in LA.
I lived in that horrendous place in the early '80s and that is the truth;
Nobody Walks in LA!

__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

Glory's Sun

I think I lost my virginity to this nice little diddy:



back then I was just a big ball of angst.. it's true some things never change.. so basically I was in love with Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Tupac,NIN (duh) and various other metal bands.

was it enlightening .. yes.. did it matter if they were playing while I was fucking.. no.. not in the least

Bees

Now that mixedmedia has moved to the 1980s with more music of her sexual awakening I will follower her lead and move into my college days of the early '70s.
Yes I have to subject you folks to more classic rock before I grow up and change genres.

A lovely young lady once invited me for a swim in the swimming pool at her apartment building.
After our swim she invited me into her apt and she put a record on the player.



She was still in her bikini.

When this song came on she asked me to read the lyrics;



When I read;

The browness of your body in the fireglow
Except the places where the sun refused to go.

I knew exactly what she had in mind.


Wild college parties

Whenever we wanted to take our parties to the next level we put this album on;



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Country Honk is a different version of Honkey Tonk Women; worth a listen.
Let it Bleed tells the whole story.

Yes I know we are beating the Stones thing to death so this is my last word on them.

__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

Tully Mars

"Let it Bleed" was the only album in the library of my high school that I found interesting. Spent way too many class hours, or not enough depend on how ya look at it, wearing out the grooves in that LP.

And you can't beat the Stones to death, least not Keith anyway. Conventional weapons can't kill that guy.

No, but I remember where I was when I heard Bon Scott kicked. Also Elvis, but I remember about him because our next door neighbor was damn near suicidal

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Bees

The theme here is how the how the music led to your sexual awakening.
You say you wore out the grooves in that LP in high school. So, Tully Mars, did that lead you to wear out any other kind of groove?

__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

Tully Mars

Certainly, twas high school after all. I had a locker next to a nice looking girl with an exceptional shape to her. She was very quiet, almost shy. One day she saw me listening to that LP and that we begin to talk a lot. We used to talk about BS subjects, normal teen angst I suppose. One day I came to school with a t-shirt that read "Jog naked- It adds color to your cheeks." That afternoon I saw her by our lockers and she said "I like your shirt" and laughed. The next day I saw her and she was wearing a shirt that read "If I told you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me?" She looked at me and said "well?" "Umm, well what?" "My shirt, do you like my shirt?" I shut my locker and said "oh, yeah, I get it, funny!" and headed to class. About two classes later I sat straight up in my seat and thought "WTF! I'm blowing it!" (Cut me some slack I was a dumb teenage kid. A nuke could have gone off in next town over and I wouldn't have noticed it either.) As soon as class let out that day I ran to my locker, nope gone, damn! I ran out and got in my car (POS Mazda RX2, back fired about every 10 mins.) I drove toward the area I thought she lived and saw her getting off the bus. She never took the bus again.

Most of that spring we spent ever afternoon down at the Willamette River getting high and swimming naked. I can honestly say the first time I ever heard Bruce Springteen's "The River" was at the river with her. I was covered in scratches from the blackberry bushes (and her) we'd just crawled through returning from our private beach. I put my key in the car, it backfired and the radio kicked on KGON from Portland which was playing "The River."

That summer we went to "Queen, Live Killers tour." To this day that light show, and making out with her may be the most memorable concert experience I've ever had. Even tops second row to the Stones in Hawaii. About two weeks after that show she moved to somewhere in the mid-west, Michigan I think. We phoned a couple times and wrote for a while, but young love and distance don't work well.

She may have been shy and quiet but she was one of the most sexual women I've ever been with. That was almost 30 years ago and I still think of her often, very often. In fact I put "The River" on about half way through writing this out.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Bees

Fantastic story, Tully Mars. Yes "The River" is a song that has always gotten to me in just that manner. I just don't have a story as good as yours to tell about it.

__________________
The sands of time past keep shifting according to how we remember or forget or refashion it in hindsight, which is no sight at all.
Kajal Basu

Tully Mars

Well being young and dumb I really didn't "get" The River for a long time. I still remember when it came on that day I thought WFT was that? I also remember the next song that came on was by a band named Angel City, most people never heard of them. I thought now this is more like it, thumping bass and screaming guitars.

Song was:

Marseilles

Bought me a box of french cigars
Bought me a black beret
Get my french from a girl next door
Teaching me night and day
Got me thinking `bout the south of France
Vis-a-vis vous
Pack my suitcase, take a chance
Got nothing to lose

Gimme the sound of the rolling dice
Gimme a whiskey, don't think twice
Deal me the card that takes my blues away
Take me away to Marseilles

Fast train, jet plane, money to burn
Don't ask the reason why
Drinkin' champagne, playin' it cool
Don't even have to try, baby

Gimme the sound of the rolling dice
Gimme a whiskey, don't think twice
Deal me the card that takes my blues away
Take me away to Marseilles


Nothing like being young and getting laid to make you remember the sight, sound and smell of everything. Can replay it in slow motion a couple decades later.

__________________
I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club